NFL 2012 Week 11 Full NFLuminati Index

Well, I never feel like bothering to keep up with this weekly even when limited to 8 teams per week, so why not just do the whole entire NFLuminati list all at once and pretend I’ll do this every week? I read some other power ranking lists this past week and I’m struck by how many of them operate like a college football poll where a team is forced up or down by the limited scope of their one previous game. I am a scientist of life, and cannot tolerate such bullshit being considered acceptable. So here is the whole NFLuminati list – pure science motherfuckers – from your friends the metaphysicians at Armchair Linebacker. (Tell motherfuckers about us – in a more perfect world I’d have Florio and Barnwell duct taped in the den while Neil was transferring all their bank account savings into our collective Armchair Linebacker bitcoin account, so that we could purchase more fly agaric mushrooms from Scandinavia, and hire more Mexican muscle for our cockfighting operations near Belize.)

 #1: HOUSTON TEXANS (8-1, 1st in AFC, 1st in AFC South) – By virtue of winning on the rainy road against Chicago, and the Falcons losing, the Texans mathematically and scientifically become the best team of the moment in the NFL. This sort of suggests just how lackluster the NFL has become, but also I’m not sure, I might start liking the Texans, as Arian Foster is wacky. Although this is also a trick being played on all our brains by the NFL, because the AFC is in a down maintenance cycle of psychic enhancing drugs, thus the Texans are doomed, and we are being tricked into pretending they are possibly not just the stupid Houston Texans. (Also, lolol that stupid fucking name. How can a billion dollar industry have retards in charge of marketing?)
#2: ATLANTA FALCONS (8-1, 1st in NFC, 1st in NFC South) – The Falcons had been #1 on this thing for a number of weeks, but drop a spot due to their loss they had done did. Matt Ryan, that frat asshole fuckface, is my QB on my fantasy team, so I hope they continue losing with him putting up big numbers like last weekend, so that they are still fighting for a playoff position all the way through the last week of the season.
#3: SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS (6-2-1, 2nd in NFC, 1st in NFC West) – Jim Harbaugh so fuckin’ genius he don’t even use a loss to motivate his team to go harder… he lets them dwindle into a home tie as motivational fortitude. I have become a big fan of this defense – even though I’m historically conditioned to hate the 49ers – mostly because with Justin and Aldon Smith and the rest of that group, they look like hands down the best bunch to hang out with where you roast a big wild hog and drink beer and do hydrocodones and play horseshoes and try to get blowjobs in the pine woods from 17-year-olds named Ashley.
#4: CHICAGO BEARS (7-2, 3rd in NFC, 1st in NFC North) – The Bears have never been higher than fourth in NFLuminati rankings, so when they eventually crumble back to the hard, cold earth, and Jay Cutler is smoking a cigarette on the sideline, pouting, and Brian Urlacher is pretending to be Angry Brock Lesnar because Jenny McCarthy thinks it’s sexy when he does that, after they’ve lost all hope, remember this moment when I explained to you this team is not an elite team, and has probably already peaked against lesser competition.
#5: GREEN BAY PACKERS (6-3, 4th in NFC, 2nd in NFC North) – Remember when football dramatists were like “OMG! PACKERS ARE 2-3! WHAT HAS GONE ON HERE?” Well, in the NFLuminati Index they were still top 12, even at their lowest. Yall motherfuckers need to stop being so reactionary, and stop listening to dramatic individuals who can’t emotionally control their antics, or purposely disallow emotional control because they’ve been trained to think, as reactionaries, that reaction means shit is awesome. Fuck AM sports radio, fuck pre-game shows, fuck shitty sports sites that think they funny but don’t know how to roll old school joints or even a regular nowadays blunt. Fuck this fake ass world and this fake ass football and yall fake motherfuckers acting like you clever when you just sitting there with your stupid ass watching football all goddamned Sunday long when you ought to be outside getting some sunshine on your soul, and chopping up something or welding some new shit together. Yall motherfuckers hobby is snacking, and social media. Fuck yall.
#6: PITTSBURGH STEELERS (6-3, 2nd in AFC, 1st in AFC North) – The Steelers have quietly become perhaps the second-best team in the AFC, though divisional brawls amongst them and the Ravens still await us, don’t they? They should make the Thanksgiving game at night on regular TV stupid fucking “let’s force our bullshit on the world” TV, and they should just put the most old school smashmouth angry rivalries of importance on then. (By the way, fuck the NFL network’s forced existence upon us all. The NFL is lucky Champions League soccer isn’t on regular TV or they’d be out of a job in ten years. They might be anyways – haha western economy. Fuck you, too)
#7: NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS (6-3, 3rd in AFC, 1st in AFC East) – You know why fantasy football is the worst? Because I have stupid fucking Danny Woodhead on my team, and I actually root for stupid fucking Danny Woodhead. I sometimes think fantasy football is a large scale open source modern expansion of Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority study, examining how we compromise our principles over some bullshit.
#8: NEW YORK GIANTS (6-4, 5th in NFC, 1st in NFC East) – The only cool thing about the Giants is how somehow their helmets started looking cheaply sparkled like kids rides at the state fair. I don’t think it was always that way, but it is now. Also, does Eli Manning’s helmet look as huge to you as it does me? Makes him look even more boyish than he already does.
#9: DENVER BRONCOS (6-3, 4th in AFC, 1st in AFC West) – Seems weird to me Colorado legalized it like Peter Toshman asked, because from my memory, that’s a white as fuck state. And by white I don’t mean wearing bajas and slanging Sierra Nevadas on Shakedown Street, one for $3, two for $5, but uptight born wealthy and sheltered white, who hates anything that even smells of non-vanilla.
#10: BALTIMORE RAVENS (7-2, 5th in AFC, 2nd in AFC North) – Yes, the Ravens are only ranked 10th. This is where they rank according to this system. I could go back and pick specifics and cite bullshit about this or that, but I ain’t got time. The science stands on its own. Go argue with some other asshole if you feel this is a mistake. Maybe you are a mistake.
#11: SEATTLE SEAHAWKS (6-4, 6th in NFC, 2nd in NFC West) – Those Seahawks uniforms, the ugliest ever, are starting to grow on me. Obviously Nike is somehow connected to the HAARP project, as well as the fluoridation of public drinking water. Fuckers.
#12: ARIZONA CARDINALS (4-5, 7th in NFC, 3rd in NFC West) – The Cardinals are not a real team, it is just an NFL film holograph experiment they use to fill up TV obligations.
#13: TENNESSEE TITANS (4-6, 6th in AFC, 2nd in AFC South) – If America were forced to go into organized chaos war between all states where they formed unions based on the first letter in their name, Tennessee/Texas would be a formidable foe for everybody. I mean California is the biggest, but they’d be sort of spread out with Colorado and Connecticut as their partners, and it would be hard to get all the Mexicans in California and Puerto Ricans in Connecticut to agree on most things. Tennessee and Texas are pretty close geographically. Ns and Ms have eight states each, and with New York, New Jersey, North Carolina, you’ve got a strong base I guess. But shit man, a fuckin’ hurricane almost killed New York and New Jersey, so what’s that say? Personally, in a physical domination sense, I’d be fucked, as Virginia and Vermont ain’t gonna scare anybody, but in a cultural sense I think if you could take the laid back attitude and liberal thinking of Vermont and infuse it into my beloved country ass fuckers in Virginia, it’d be great. Only problem is most of Virginia is assholes from Northern Virginia and the Hampton Roads area aka 80% of the state’s population. So I think if this happens, all the parts of the state I like should secede and join West Virginia, but then West Virginia should change it’s name to Xest Virginia and North and South Carolina should become Xorth and Xouth Carolina and fuck it let’s go ahead and do Xeorgia and Xontana and Xermont and Xew Hampshire as well. Plus that one nice part of Florida that’s by Alabama would become its own state called The Xanhandle. Of course, they would be forced to work with Tennessee and Texas, because lawyers would argue you count the “The” part first, thus fucking up my master plan. Lawyers always fuck up my master plan.
#14: DETROIT LIONS (4-5, 8th in NFC, 3rd in NFC North) – Being most of you think this is a Lions blog, let me be very clear about two things… First, the Lions are not as bad as their record indicates, so don’t feel horrible. But secondly, they are still only the third best team in their division, and as such – considering the NFC West decided to actually play football as a collective for once – may be on the outside looking in, regardless of how the rest of the season goes. This creates the dilemma of do you make drastic changes or just ignore the fact you need to make some changes and hold pat for another year? One of the worst things unsuccessful teams do when they first taste success is get afraid to shake shit up to keep it successful. Jim Schwartz built a good team and changed a culture, but that goofy-eyed motherfucker ain’t gonna win you shit. That’s real talk. Sorry bros.
#15: INDIANAPOLIS COLTS (6-3, 7th in AFC, 3rd in AFC South) – As a Redskins fan, I am forced to hear about how Andrew Luck is doing constantly, as he and RG3 will be endlessly compared until one of them flames out or something. Last week in the comments somebody suggested perhaps I am biased against Luck and the Colts because of my hatred of Peyton Manning. Let me make this very clear: there is more than enough hate in my heart for me to hate Andrew Luck entirely on his own.
#16: DALLAS COWBOYS (4-5, 9th in NFC, 2nd in NFC East) – The Cowboys are so much fun to watch because they are such a mess, yet somehow pull shit out of their ass to stay near things, then fuck up the lay-ups to miss out on true success. And Tony Romo is the most twinkly-eyed little molested boy scout looking dude who has ever played football.
#17: MIAMI DOLPHINS (4-5, 8th in AFC, 2nd in AFC East) – The Dolphins traded half their team to the Toronto Argonauts I read this morning. Tight.
#18: MINNESOTA VIKINGS (6-4, 10th in NFC, 4th in NFC North) – Yes, the Vikings are only ranked 18th, and last in their division. Much like Jared Allen, they are not as good as numbers suggest, and frankly are pretty fuckin’ annoying as a whole. Thus, watching them crumble back into dust the second half of the season will be fun.
#19: ST. LOUIS RAMS (3-5-1, 11th in NFC, 4th in NFC West) – I’m not sure what’s going on with Chris Long’s tattoos. It is unfortunate people with wealth are into getting tattoos as well nowadays because tattoos are not supposed to look all nice and wonderful. It’s culturally confusing. But I guess tattoos have been co-opted by the shinefaces for the most part, which is why you have to get weird cryptic tattoos that looks like voodoo gang shit in order to remain culturally scary. Tattoos should always be too fucked up to be accepted at your place of work, unless you work in construction, but even then they should make other people uncomfortable. Pretty is for the shinefaces. Shinefaces is for the future fires.
#20: BUFFALO BILLS (3-6, 9th in AFC, 3rd in AFC East) – I have a friend who is a Bills fan. He lives over near where they just opened a Trader Joe’s in our town. I like Trader Joe’s because you can get cheap frozen fruit for your kids, plus cans of coconut milk are only a buck each, although really, just across the dangerous mega-road from the Trader Joe’s is the awesome little Chinaman food store where I can get cans of coconut milk for a dollar as well. And they don’t force me to have the only choice be Light, like Trader Joe’s. Fuckin’ white people, man. What the fuck was Yacub thinking?
#21: NEW YORK JETS (3-6, 10th in AFC, 4th in AFC East) – Haha, oh man, the Jets. You just know this shit is gonna end with Tebow finishing the year with like a 3-game winning streak and Zionists will declare the flawless red heifer has been bred and then America bombs Iran because of God and shit.
#22: TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS (5-4, 12th in NFC, 2nd in NFC South) – The Bucs have been basically on fantasy mode where they make a concentrated effort to run off ridiculously high stats at a position or two each week. Beyond that, I’m not sure what the fuck is going on, because their record says 5-4, but damn if they aren’t as middle-of-the-pack as middle-of-the-pack can get aka traditional Buccaneers.
#23: CINCINNATI BENGALS (4-5, 11th in AFC, 3rd in AFC North) – I heard that Mexican cartel higher-ups have this trend where they buy former members of the Bengals and they live on exotic compounds in Mexico and fight each other for sport. There is a lot of being speculated towards Domata Peko already.
#24: WASHINGTON REDSKINS (3-6, 13th in NFC, 3rd in NFC East) – I read on a Redskins fan message board some dude talking about how great Shanahan has done, with a star QB, top RB, top pass rusher, and stud LT, and how the next coach – if Shanny was fired – would really reap the benefits. I lolololed so hard at that shit, AND I’M A REDSKINS FAN! Two things, the coach who is going to benefit from Mike Shanahan’s work the most is Jeff Fisher, head coach of the Rams, who gets the Redskins first round pick the next two years (which should be high both years). And secondly, the fact Joe Gibbs actually took this team, under Dan Snyder, to the playoffs twice in four years, will one day be regarded as more remarkable than him winning three Super Bowls. Mark my words.
#25: NEW ORLEANS SAINTS (4-5, 14th in NFC, 3rd in NFC South) – The New Orleans Saints were a popular team and they still is. Drew Brees gets more stunts and props than Bruce Willis.
#26: SAN DIEGO CHARGERS (4-5, 12th in AFC, 2nd in AFC West) – Apparently Norv Turner allegedly showed emotion after his team sucked it up. What he probably said was, “Yo guys, it’s way too early to under-achieve. I have built a long career on teams waiting to under-achieve until after it’s too late to be obvious how much I suck. You’re fucking up my con here.”
#27: PHILADELPHIA EAGLES (3-6, 15th in NFC, 4th in NFC East) – NOW WHAT WOULD WE SAY IF MIKE VICK WAS WHITE? And what if Andy Reid was black, but still had that big mustache? That shit would be cool, except him having sons in prison and on drugs and dead wouldn’t be as shocking either, because we all watched The Wire.
#28: OAKLAND RAIDERS (3-6, 13th in AFC, 3rd in AFC West) – Raiders should just pull the trigger on making Stannis Baratheon their head coach. I know that’s a fictional character, but they should just hire the dude who plays Stannis to just play Stannis constantly, or brainwash Ted Hendricks to think he’s Stannis Baratheon and unleash that on the NFL. I realize such forward thinking on my part may not be appreciated by sports entertainment traditionalists, but look now, we have a gay mulatto President, so fuck your tradition.
#29: CLEVELAND BROWNS (2-7, 14th in AFC, 4th in AFC North) – I don’t follow college football too closely… what are the Browns chances of being bowl eligible by the end of the year?
#30: CAROLINA PANTHERS (2-7, 16th in NFC, 4th in NFC South) – Number one overall draft picks kinda suck because you have to pretend for so long they might actually still be good. Carolina barbecue is pretty good though, the vinegar kind, with homemade cole slaw using red cabbage (which is actually purple – what the fuck?). (If I continue on that tangent do I keep it in the same parenthesis? Or can I free it up outside the parenthesis? Man fuck confinement… I’m not even gonna wrap up that parenthesis but I’m here to tell you that from now on it’s purple cabbage in my book, fuck convention (as I’ve said before – HA! more parenthesis confusion) using purple cabbage all day long banging old Screw tapes drinking Robitussin DM like it’s Kool-Aid.
#31: JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS (1-8, 15th in AFC, 4th in AFC South) – The Jaguars are horrid. My man Cecil Shorts is hooking up my fantasy team though, and I swear Cecil Shorts is actually this redneck dude over in Buckingham County who has a junkyard I used to get parts for my Tercel from, because he had three of them. I used to sell weed to his nephew.
#32: KANSAS CITY CHIEFS (1-8, 16th in AFC, 4th in AFC West) – The fact the Jaguars are so horrid, and yet the Chiefs by NFLuminati Index scale are so superiorly bad and have distanced themselves deeply into 32nd spot that even a win or two might not pull them out speaks volumes… actually it doesn’t. I hate that phrase now that I just typed it. Who the fuck speaks volumes? That’s like a bunch of thick ass books, right? Nothing speaks volumes anymore. Shit speaks podcasts mostly.
There. Now tell your friends about Armchair Linebacker. And give me and Neil a few dollars by the paypals. I really do need to buy some fly agaric. Like stat.

Hope (yet again) in D.C.

It is a fairly glorious day to be a greater Washington DC metropolitan area sports fan, as it’s rainy as fuck, and cool enough to justify sitting around the kitchen table all day gloating in goodness. The Caps stole a win from the Bruins in Boston yesterday, and return home today to try and close out a best-of-seven, with a game to spare. The Nats are rained out today, so will hit the road to the West Coast with a shocking 12-4 record, meaning if they simply go .500 the rest of the year, they finish with 85 wins. And the cover of the Sunday Washington Post has a glowingly glorious article about what a great all-around package of athleticism and solid psychological make-up Robert Griffin III is, who will become the Redskins new QB of the present, the future, and perhaps for history, come this week’s NFL draft.

And yet, I am struck by the common theme through all these glories… wild orgasmic hope, yet nothing actually yet accomplished. The Caps should’ve, by hype and talent, at least played in a Stanley Cup finals series at least once the past three or four years. And yet here we are getting excited that they might actually win a first-round series against last year’s champs. The Nats have never finished above .500 since they came to Washington, much less sniffed the playoffs at any point past a 4th of July fireworks display. And my beloved Washington Redskins are once again claiming they are about to be relevant again, with the pick of a young “can’t miss” superstar.

First, let me proclaim my joy with Robert Griffin III. He does seem like a wonderful talent, and an even better human being. He does not seem like he’ll be the guy who is broke and addicted to strippers three years after flaming out of the NFL. He does not seem like he’ll be trashing his life during his prime, nor afterward. He is a freak of an athlete, and honestly, in my mind, seems like more Michael Vick than Michael Vick, athletically speaking, and yet with a chill, grounded mentality to complement that. I do not even one single bit find fault with the picks the Skins traded off for him, nor will I ever. I fully co-sign this move, and feel free to hold me to that, at any point in the future.

That being said, even as awesome as he is, I am uncomfortable with it all. He has commonly been touted as a franchise prospect with higher upside than Matthew Stafford or Sam Bradford (previous #1 overall picks at QB); yet in Detroit, Matthew Stafford was brought in as part of a rebuilding process, not as the savior of a franchise to bring them back to their entitled glory. RGIII comes into DC with no Calvin Johnson, but rather a large and odd assortment of Number Two receivers who are allegedly going to gel into some sort of remarkable corps. RGIII does not come into a locker room filled up with upper-round O-linemen who manhandle opposing defenses and create the space any QB needs to succeed, whether brilliant or not, but rather a roster that has severely overlooked the line for not only the last couple of drafts but for an entire decade. And worst of all, Robert Griffin III does not come onto a team being talked down as “a great young talent who can help us get better” but rather is being hyped as this year’s The Final Piece to help make everything that has not really looked like it goes together fit into the grand vision that somebody in Redskins management has allegedly been piecing together over time.

That hasn’t stopped the Redskins brass from making a fawning trip to Waco in advance of RGIII’s pro day, nor has it stopped them from doing all but actually selling jerseys already. Griffin has already been to memorabilia shows in the DC area signing Redskins helmet, weeks before the Colts said they were definitely drafting Luck. It has bordered on tampering, and it’s not exactly like the NFL is in love with Dan Snyder and the Redskins lately, but at the very least looks like a needy, emotionally flawed woman latching onto a man after a nice first date, and already talking about how many children they’ll have. And essentially, needy and emotionally flawed is what my Redskins have become.

Therein lies my discomfort with it all. When the Redskins were rumored to be in the Peyton Manning hunt, I was legitimately ready to abandon them. Legitimately. Which would have meant I abandoned football, because I’m not going to switch to another team at this point in my life. I was very relieved when they were out of that sweepstakes (which will end badly… hahaha Denver), because I can at least keep convincing myself the Redskins will get better, even though they never will so long as Dan Snyder’s management runs through the veins of the organization. It pains me to say that, because ultimately we are looking at the collision of two very opposite forces – the unquestionable awesome promise of Robert Griffin III and the very obviously displayed over time institutional dysfunction of the Washington Redskins. And unfortunately, even a 20-foot tall man will drown when tossed into a 30-foot deep cesspool.

At this point, I have not really figured out where Dan Snyder stands on the spectrum of things. At worst, he is an actual evil man who works diligently every offseason to re-brand the Redskins brand and instill false hopes in the fan base that this year will once again be different, hence the Offseason Champs meme associated so closely with burgundy and gold. And even at best, Snyder is still a terribly stupid man who actually believes his own press releases and thinks he’s actually working towards building a viable professional football team. Today – and this fluctuates weekly – I’d put him somewhere between stupid and evil, probably about two-thirds of the way towards stupid, but that’s probably because the past couple of weeks of Washington Post Redskins talk has been wildly hopeful and throwing force behind the future being good line of thinking. (It is interesting how a newspaper that is allegedly not an ally of Snyder’s, and also allegedly unbiased, very often just seems like more well-written and fleshed-out versions of an actual Redskins press release.)

Of course, come August, I’ll be geeked up, even without an offensive line, without a deep threat at WR, without a proven commodity in the backfield (and that’s just looking at the offensive side of the ball), and hope shall spring eternal… for a month or two at least. I am still not sold on the genius of the Shanahans, and am already convinced of Snyder’s bad influence on things, so the two most prevalent influences on the team will still be an outright negative and a very possible negative, and that unfortunately means we could ship RGIII off to southeast Asia, clone him in a Thai mad science laboratory, and have nine of him, and still probably be lucky to get a wild card in the upcoming season. And sadly, even more than that, I fear tragedy. Robert Griffin III seems so great, such a wonderful guy, such a pure of spirit smile and amazing athlete, that I actually worry for him being sucked into the vortex that is the Washington Redskins. I know he is being hyped as the man who will help pull us from our own vortex, but that doesn’t make logic according to the laws of metaphysics. I really hope this goes well, or at least continues to have enough promise to keep me falsely erect with hope for a few years, but I fear tragedy. It makes me sad to even verbalize it openly, as I am a superstitious man and wonder if perhaps I did not bottle these fears deep down inside of my own soul, that perhaps I could carry it and they’d never be unleashed upon reality. But just like RGIII will have to at some point, I realize I am not stronger than the force of the Redskins. I am simply being dragged along for the ride at this point, until I decide to cut the rope and move on with my life. Sigh. Mega-sigh, deep down in my football-loving soul.

There is Thunder in our Hearts

Okay . . . okay, there is a good chance that this will not be coherent or even readable. If I were writing this down with pen and paper, it wouldn’t even be legible. There just would a bunch of scribbled nonsense, a bunch of exclamation points and a horrible drawing of me proposing to Calvin Johnson. I’m writing this now even though my fingers are still shaking from the adrenaline and this is probably a mistake since there is no possible way that I can organize my thoughts in any sort of constructive manner but HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS DID YOU FUCKING SEE THAT???

I have people like my boy Nick tweeting me right now telling me that he would have kissed me on the mouth if I would have been in his living room. I’m pretty sure Charles aka AdamantiumAC is going to end up in jail tonight after the police catch up with him naked, prancing through the streets and Big Al probably had to stick a knife in his toaster in order to jump start his heart. I’ve been ranting and raving about feeling like Jason Statham in Crank and about gnawing on the adrenal gland of cheetahs and The Great Willie Young’s name has been flying around and there is thunder in our fucking hearts, and . . . and . . .

Okay. I’m going to try my best to calm down. It’s probably not happening, but I’ll try. For most of this game I had a whole narrative shaped and as pissed off and whipped as I felt, it would have been easy to write because there was no ambiguity involved. But then things changed and now I don’t know what to write other than wild, raving gibberish. Actually to say that things changed is a ridiculous understatement, a phrase that is essentially devoid of meaning when placed up against the totality of what actually happened. How do you put something like what went down in perspective? Well, you don’t. Instead you just cheer like a goddamn lunatic and you point like a deranged ape and gibber things like “Hey, did you see that???” My eyes look like a cokehead’s right now.

My good pal UpHere summed things up about as well as anybody could right now, I think, when he said “The OLD Lions would have lost on a record setting field goal.” And he’s right. They would have. But these Lions didn’t. Ndamukong Suh – and how appropriate is that – rose from the earth and swallowed up the Raiders last desperate prayer and before that the Lions did what no other team has done in NFL history, scrambling back from two touchdowns down for the fourth time this season to win the game. The old Lions are dead, and the past can go fuck itself.

Are there things to complain about, to worry about going forward? Of course. But only a monstrous ogre would discuss such things right now. I’m still glowing like a goddamn nuclear firework and any negativity I felt during that game has been utterly obliterated.

I am a man who trades in symbolism, as you all well know, and so the way that game ended felt extra special to me. I am beyond being able to explain it right now, and while that may disappoint some of you, I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. I mean, I could try, but I’d quickly degenerate into hoots and grunts as my brain tried in vain to save itself from climbing out of my head and soaring into the sun playing the air guitar and laughing like a damn fool.

Beyond all explanation, here’s all that matters: the Lions are now 9-5, we are mere inches away from a world we’d only dared to whisper about for so, so long, and the world feels like one big Broadway musical, insane and filled with bright colors and I’m pretty sure I just saw someone fly by on a giant guide wire, although that may have just been St. Calvin soaring through on his way back to his house in heaven.

I’m incapable of making sense, of penetrating beneath this perfect surface, and you know what? That’s alright. Sometimes the deeper story is the surface story. And I think this is one of those times. I spent all week gibbering on about letting go of the pathos of the past and now here I am, incapable of doing anything other than basking in the pure primal joy of the present. And that’s just beautiful, you know? Just . . . beautiful.

This is shorter than what I normally write, and I hope you don’t mind, but my heart is a supernova, burning bright and traveling through the universe at the speed of light and in the truth of that, everything else falls by the wayside and words are meaningless and forgettable and the only thing that matters is that right now I feel like I could fly and that, for a single precious, wonderful moment the world feels . . . perfect.