Month: February 2026

On Saturday, I took a trip to a movie theater downtown for a matinee. I don’t go to the movies often, but it’s awards season. And awards season in films means that there is a crop of short films nominated for the Oscars. There are categories for animated short films and live action short films. I watched the live action shorts, something I started doing in law school and have kept up in many of the years since. Not every movie theater shows these films, but living in a city does have certain benefits.

It was a very diverse set of short films this year in terms of theme, language, and geography. The most politically charged was Butcher’s Stain, but it is set in Israel and not in the United States. The filmmakers tried to do too much and left too much unresolved (though they’d probably respond by saying that was the point). Two films drew the strongest audience reactions. One was Jane Austen’s Period Drama, which drew laughter from the audience and was short and punchy even if teetering over the line into absurdity by the end. The other was Two People Exchanging Saliva. It was the most unique of the set. French. Black and white. Crazy premises but against the backdrop of contemporary Paris. And it was my favorite, though that opinion was not widely shared. Of the others, A Friend of Dorothy was well-executed but I wasn’t in the mood for a sentimental, poignant sort of film and The Singers was both vulgar and ridiculous in the sort of way that only something based on an old Russian short story could be.

It is the variety of these five films, which collectively lasted about two hours, that makes the short films so appealing to me. Not only are they more experimental and novel than the slop coming from the big studios, but if you don’t like one then you only need to wait a few minutes and a new one will begin.

Basketball was a large part of my childhood and youth, so much so that I’ve had a complicated relationship with the sport for about two decades. Part of conditioning for basketball was running suicides. You run from the baseline to the foul line, then back. You run from the baseline to the half court line, then back. You run from the baseline to the other foul line, then back. You run from the baseline to the opposite baseline, then back. And that is one suicide. To be faster overall, I always planted and turned on my left foot. Now, I wish I hadn’t done so. I had a few ankle problems then, but nothing catastrophic. My left ankle has just been weak ever since.

This winter, I signed up for church basketball. I hadn’t played in several years and I missed the game. I knew I wouldn’t shoot very well, especially at the start, but I wanted to feel the ball in my hands again. My team’s attendance record has been abysmal and more than once we’ve had zero subs available. We even played one game 4 vs 5 because that was how many people showed up. That wasn’t fun for anybody, but we still walked and jogged our way through it and called it getting some exercise.

During the most recent game, though, my left ankle gave out on me. I didn’t step on someone else’s foot and roll it. I just planted the foot to go up for a layup and my body said no. All I could do was to hobble over to the bench. It was a dejecting feeling, and it was prolonged by limited mobility over the subsequent days. I’ve known for a while that I should have been doing ankle-specific exercises and prehab type work given my earlier history. Now though, it appears that that’s not going to be optional if I’m going to make my way back onto the court. Suffice it to say, it’s not been the basketball comeback that I wanted thus far.

With the winter Olympics on currently, I’ve had more than one conversation about curling. Some of those conversations were at the curling club, so those were expected and much more educated about the competition. After all, the people who are there for my Monday night league have chosen to be there and to participate in the sport. The others have been much more varied.

One was a conversation with some people at the gym. We were watching one of the skiing events and someone asked what people thought was the most boring of the winter Olympic sports. While there is a range of correct answers here, none of the curling disciplines are among them. And sometimes you need to let people know. This was one of those times.

Then yesterday, I had a conversation with someone who acknowledged going down a YouTube rabbit hole after hearing me mention curling the prior week. You’re welcome, but know that it’s not nearly as easy to execute shots as they make it look on TV. You should also know that you’ll look more like the Kelce family and their recent video of trying curling than you will the people competing at the Olympics, at least during your initial period of acclimating to the sport and the ice.

I welcome these sorts of conversations. I expect I’ll have a few more during this Olympics cycle. After all, watching it on television during the Olympics was how I first became aware of the sport that I’ve now played for several years. If you think that somehow you’ve found your ticket to gold you’re dreaming, but if you live somewhere close enough to a curling club now is a great time to try it out as most clubs conduct plenty of events for new curlers around this time.

Saturday evening into Sunday morning we received 3-4 inches of powdery snow, not good for sledding or snow cream but the neighborhood kids found it good enough for snowballs and snowmen after some compaction. It is mostly gone now, but it made for a nice scene on Sunday morning. It was certainly better than the half inch of ice we received the prior Saturday evening. I opted not go anywhere, not that I felt up to going far anyway. By the afternoon, though, with it sunny and with the temperature hovering in the mid-thirties, I took a short walk on some of the paths that wind through the neighborhood. It was a flashback of sorts, hearing the crunch of snow under my boots. It was a much more familiar sound when I was in law school trudging off to the grocery store (or even to class). I cannot say I miss the winters in Boston. The temperatures were okay, but it was so gray for so long.

This particular walk was one of the shortest loops available to me. It was not nearly as long as the several miles I often walk on a Sunday afternoon. I was still feeling the effects of what robbed me of the early part of the week, but it was the first time that I felt well enough to venture forth for the sake of venturing and not for some express purpose like picking up groceries. And while I’m still metaphorically digging out from having missed those days last week, I am mostly recovered now.