Steve Cameron blog: Rolling with whatever comes next

Still here.

You can probably guess that I spend chunks of any day on the computer.

During this pandemic, the number of hours goes up.

It’s routine to check 50-75 emails and news items in the morning, to trawl through various items and then Google some others during the day, and ...

If I’m lucky ...

Maybe I can find something else to do at night.

Sit out on the deck with Sammie the World’s Greatest Cat on my lap, for instance, enjoying the last daylight and those pleasant grass-and-tree smells of a golf course just down below.

Friday, however, was never going to be one of those days.

Since I’m a sports columnist when not hiding behind my pink mask, It was mandatory that I watch the second day of the NFL draft — which started at 4 o’clock and would drag on forever.

It’s pretty obvious that the whole day was scheduled as extreme laptop time — which in my case means a recliner in the living room with a PC on my lap instead of Sammie TWGC.

What you really don’t want, then, with your evening already committed to the tedium of the NFL draft, is to start the day with anything goofy on your email platforms.

So how about this headline, first thing in the morning, courtesy of Bloomberg News?

“Don’t shoot up Lysol, and other scientific discoveries ...”

I hadn’t seen or read about the president’s very odd suggestion the previous day that, somehow, regular household disinfectants might be a cure for COVID-19.

As in, injecting or ingesting them to clean out your lungs.

Needless to say, that vision did not produce a smiley face to go with breakfast.

Neither was looking at Smithsonian magazine’s daily newsletter (which I truly recommend, since it’s free and contains all sorts of magical stuff).

Unfortunately, the Friday edition contained a story about how we dream.

Doctors and scientists have discovered that people’s dreams have been more vivid during this pandemic — and that most of these dreams are about things going wrong, like feelings of helplessness as you fall out of an airplane, that sort of thing.

It turns out, no surprise, that our dreams in this wretched time convey worry and anxiety, Basically because so much is out of our control.

Geez ...

What a day.

I was beginning to look forward to the NFL draft, and when you reach that point, you’re almost to the point of needing therapy.

Finally, though, my partner Melissa made me laugh — which was good work because she’s 1,500 miles away.

Melissa normally doesn’t do jokes, because she forgets the punch lines.

This time, though, she was reading a text from a friend.

So she got it exactly right.

The tale was about two women who have just died.

FIRST WOMAN: I froze to death. It was horrible at the beginning, just shivering and shaking, but eventually I got really tired and just fell into a nice sleep.

How did you die?

SECOND WOMAN: I had a heart attack. I was convinced my husband was cheating on me, so I came home early to catch him. But he was just sitting alone in the den.

I tore the house apart, looking under beds and in closets, getting more and more agitated because I was sure there was a woman someplace.

Finally, my chest began to hurt from the worry and not knowing, and I just keeled over in the kitchen.

FIRST WOMAN: Too bad you didn’t look in the freezer. We’d both still be alive.

Ah, there we go.

See, Friday wasn’t that bad after all – even with the draft.

Sometimes you just have to roll with whatever’s coming.

C’est la vie!

••••••••••••••

The blog appears each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. You’re welcome to join. Any time, on any subject. Or with any opinion that doesn’t get us sued.

scameron@cdapress.com

Facebook: Steve Cameron