“What tedium.” – Samuel Beckett, Malone Dies
Last night, after a day of doing nothing, I watched a baseball game. It didn’t feature the team I care about, but I had nothing better to do. During a break in the action I switched over to the football game. My television screen displayed a series of shots of angry fans, booing, many with their hands cupped around their mouths to better project the vocalization of their anger. Many wore the jerseys of the home team over their bulging, unathletic torsos. I had missed the moment that inspired the anger, and the announcers were choosing not to rehash it. It went on for quite a while, a stadium of people booing. I turned back to the baseball game without ever finding out why everyone was so unhappy.
When I say I did nothing yesterday, I mean nothing did me. Nothing seeped in through the window and sat on my chest so I could hardly breathe. Nothing shoved pretzels down my throat until my stomach hurt. It was one of those suffocating Sundays. I didn’t want to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone, and I didn’t want to not do anything or not go anywhere or not talk to anyone. I read some Beckett, his novel Malone Dies. It’s about a guy sitting around his room waiting to cease to be. He occasionally uses a stick to drag things toward him, look at them, then push them away.
Today, a work holiday, is shaping up as a repeat. But I have a baseball game to dissolve into later. I have been keeping score of games in these playoffs. What else is there to do. What else. I write the names of the Red Sox and of their opponents in my notebook, the one I fill with all my words, and I duplicate the action of each game with symbols and abbreviations. Every moment in this finite series of events will be recorded, as if it matters greatly, as if nothing could matter more.
Rays at Red Sox, 4:37 P.M. ET, TBS
Rays
1. Akinori Iwamura, 2B
2. B.J. Upton, CF
3. Carlos Pena,1B
4. Evan Longoria, 3B
5. Carl Crawford, LF
6. Willy Aybar, DH
7. Dioner Navarro, C
8. Rocco Baldelli, RF
9. Jason Bartlett, SS
SP: Matt Garza
Red Sox
1. Jacoby Ellsbury, CF
2 .Dustin Pedroia, 2B
3. David Ortiz, DH
4. Kevin Youkilis, 3B
5. J.D. Drew, RF
6. Jason Bay, LF
7. Mark Kotsay, 1B
8. Jason Varitek, C
9. Alex Cora, SS
SP: Jon Lester
Cardboard Gods 
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