Forgot to post this one from yesterday.

Wordle 249 5/6

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I find I spend a lot more time between rows of letters. Honestly worried that this was going to be my first x/6 strikeout.

Wordle 248 3/6

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Not even Ivy Leaguers are immune to the anxiety plaguing today’s college students. Yale’s “happiness professor” has a front-row seat to it all:

“There’s an enormous culture around us of capitalism that’s telling us to buy things and a hustle-achievement culture that destroys my students in terms of anxiety. We’re also fighting cultural forces that are telling us, ‘You’re not happy enough; happiness could just be around the corner.’ Part of it’s all the information out there about happiness, which can be hard to sift through, but a lot of it is a deeper thing in our culture that seems to be leading us astray.”

Surprised nowadays when I can get it in three.

Wordle 247 3/6

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Few things lift my spirits like the first daffodils of the year — followed by the second, third, etc.

Definitely seems more challenging since the NYT takeover.

Wordle 246 3/6

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Currently reading: Aggressively Happy by Joy Marie Clarkson 📚

Looking to start logging my book reading (and audiobook listening) more often – largely to encourage myself to keep going rather than set books aside to doomscroll or feed dragons or send Pikmin to fight mushrooms.

“A blog is just a journal: a web log of what you’re thinking and doing. You can keep a log about anything you like; it doesn’t have to be professional or money-making. In fact, in my opinion, the best blogs are personal. There’s no such thing as writing too much: your voice is important, your perspective is different, and you should put it out there.” (Ben Werdmuller, “Everyone Should Blog")

“The priest said she spent more time in the adoration chapel than Jesus.”

This tweet made me smile. And yes, let’s all pray for Danda.

It’s been more than 10 years since I left the news business, and I’m still not used to the idea of having holidays off.

Could have gone a zillion different ways on the second letter.

Wordle 245 4/6

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The road to hell is paved with spangles, stuffed toys, and PEDs

It’s been years since I viewed a women’s Olympic figure skating final as closely as I did last night’s train wreck. And I still wasn’t quite sure I knew what I had seen well after it was all over.

Chris said afterward that it’d be like the JFK assassination, with the NBC Sports coverage examined for years like Zapruder footage.

This Slate piece, “I Hope to Never See a Figure Skating Event Like That Again,” gave me the explanation I needed to parse what exactly happened, and why I felt like I needed a shower after watching all that drama. Chris Schleicher provides words for why I pray for those Russian kids — and that’s what they are: mere kids — that their shattered lives will heal from the despair of this whole dismal experience. And why I hope for justice for the adults who exploit them, who chew them up and spit them out like so much tendered meat in satin and spangles.

This one felt like a close call.

Wordle 244 4/6

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A work of mercy, spoiled

Always go to the funeral.

As I searched in Google for a recent piece I liked that said as much, I found multiple articles to that effect.

This bit of wisdom aligns with the corporal work of mercy of burying the dead. Being at the funeral, regardless of whether you have perfect words of consolation (which you probably won’t), is simply the right thing to do. Sometimes, presence is the best gift you can offer.

Took most of the day off today so I could head to Libertyville for a funeral, with hopes for a detour to Marytown on the way home. It would have been my second funeral this year. But my paralyzing, perhaps irrational fear of ice-slicked roads on this blustery Midwestern winter day got the best of me. I already regret this.

I am grateful for my friend’s pre-emptive dispensation yesterday to pivot to the Zoom feed of the services for her dad. She is one of my dearest friends and one of the most gracious people I know, and I really wanted to be there for her.

Instead, I’m in my home office, viewing services 20 miles away and offering prayers for God’s mercy. For once, the Internet does not suck, and even with my regrets, I can only give thanks.

Starting to like playing this before going to sleep.

Wordle 243 4/6

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How is it that when I search for a Catholic book about self-esteem, the first book to show up is something titled “Ask Your Husband”? 😕

Another very fortuitous guess on the third try.

Wordle 242 3/6

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I can’t believe I missed this “point/counterpoint” period on “60 Minutes” with P.J. O’Rourke and Molly Ivins, another favorite humorist of mine. I only hope it was as good as it sounds.

P.J. O’Rourke wrote about death in 2008, after he was diagnosed with a different kind of cancer than the one that apparently killed him this morning. The piece is at once surprisingly reverent and typically irreverent.

Death is so important that God visited death upon his own son, thereby helping us learn right from wrong well enough that we may escape death forever and live eternally in God’s grace. (Although this option is not usually open to reporters.) …

Thus, the next time I glimpse death … well, I’m not going over and introducing myself. I’m not giving the grim reaper fist daps. But I’ll remind myself to try, at least, to thank God for death. And then I’ll thank God, with all my heart, for whiskey.

Upsetting to hear that P.J. O’Rourke has died. My copies of “Holidays in Hell” and the National Lampoon Sunday Newspaper Parody – which I had to repurchase on eBay years ago after a friend in high school never returned my first copy – are among my most treasured possessions. (Even if I somehow can’t find the latter here at the house.)

I know a lot of my friends probably hated his politics, but he was one of the few conservative libertarian types I knew of who was legitimately hilarious. Just a terrific writer and one of my favorite “Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me” panelists. (I still miss hearing him and Charlie Pierce loudly crack jokes on NPR with those bellowing Irish guffaws of theirs.)

One of my early Chicago memories was seeing him on a panel at the Printer’s Row Book Fair not long after I moved here. I had had a crush on him for years, and the opportunity to see him speak was thrilling. There was something invigorating about the fact that I could simply cross the street from my condo and see one of my favorite writers live and in person.

But I digress. I don’t drink much these days, but I’ll need to knock back a shot of whiskey tonight in P.J.’s honor. Requiescat in pace, sir.

Startled that my wild and very lucky guess succeeded. Otherwise this was a tough one that could have broken my streak.

Wordle 241 3/6

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Up late taking care of some editing work as I stream the Winter Olympics. There’s an awful lot of yelling in curling.

The New York Times says KF94s, made in South Korea, are “one of the best options” for masks. I assumed that a couple of months ago, when I bought a few on a hunch that the quality control in that country was more trustworthy than that in China for KN95s.

Pro tip: If there’s one near you, go to a Korean supermarket like H Mart to find them. They’re often pretty well stocked with KF94s.