Phthursday Musings: Not Running Around Illinois

So this happened:

That is an acute distal fracture of my left clavicle.

I will not be running around Illinois any time soon!

In short: Do not ride your kid’s razor scooter unless you know exactly what you’re doing, specifically how you’re going to safely stop.

Because I’m in a sling for four weeks and am typing with one hand, Musings will be short for a while. This may actually be a relief to some of you! I’ll be writing about Utah and Zion National Park a couple weeks out. I’m currently reading Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire and expect it will inform some of my thoughts about the West.

A couple quick thoughts about the baseball playoffs:

Cleveland and Tampa Bay played a game that was scoreless for the first 14 innings. This was kind of novel, interesting in an dull abstract horror kind of way.

A week later Houston and Seattle played a game that was scoreless for the first 17 innings. It was still interesting in a dull abstract horror kind of way, but it was not novel.

It’s not the sort of thing that can get my kid into the game. And MLB needs to get kids like mine into the game!

Here’s the thing though… that Cleveland - Tampa game will have occurred a full month before the conclusion of the World Series. Yeah, there’s been some fun and drama to offset some of the dull horror. But even I feel playoff fatigue right now, and we’re only 3 total games into the LCS round. It all might make for more product for hardcore fans but the extra rounds are counterproductive to getting my kid into the game! MLB simply does not seem to understand this.

I have nothing novel to offer about politics.

Apropos to nothing, and everything, I love this song, and you should too:

Finally, in this short edition, a thought for next week: Is Halloween the most neighborly of holidays? And maybe this is part of why it’s so many people’s favorite holiday?