Let’s talk. I’m just going to write in list form. It’s easier on my brain for whatever reason right now.

1. I SHOWERED.

I can’t explain how good it feels to be clean to such a degree as an hour shower will get you. But even better is the smell of my shampoo emanating from me now. I have so little to brag about, but I have to convey how good it feels to smell this FRESH people. It needed to happen, I was too sick for a while, and now finally it has. I sat on a geriatric shower chair instead of taking my typical bath. My wobbly, cinderblock legs are smooth. My skin is clean and feels almost cottony.  I spent more than 30 minutes picking out Shampoo at Walgreens a while ago, searching for the perfect scent and I seemed to have found it. It’s left my hair emanating the scent of some subtle, tropical, white flower with tiny pink buds (and no nitrates!) Whatever that means. The scent is what Jennifer Anniston’s scarf closet would smell like. A shower is nothing, I realize. But in my bite-size, do-nothing world, a shower and this residual perfume of the Gods makes headlines. “Local Girl Smells Good!”

2. Secondly, in insanity news, the SAINTS JUST LOST. (Pause. Pour some beer out.) It was no one’s fault, it’s just that sometimes a defender leads with his helmet and interferes with a receiver in order to prevent a reception and somehow he doesn’t get called on it and essentially the whole outcome of the game changes. The non-call smelled like the opposite of J Anniston’s scarf closet. It smelled like what an old Southern man with leathery skin would say as he put down his beer with his eyes glared at the TV: AH HORSE SHIT!

3. Oh good LORD, my hair. This foresty, soapy, new car yet feminine fragrance…How is it even possible?!

4. OK. It’s not like the Saints losing was any one persons fault. These things happen. I mean just like sports writer Jack Baer wrote “If it wasn’t pass interference, the helmet to helmet hit almost certainly should have been called a personal foul. Either way the Saints should have received a 15 yard penalty and a fresh set of downs with a minute 45 remaining, which almost certainly would have effectively ended the game.” See? These things just happen.

5. Idea. Maybe I could charge money for people to smell my hair up close. This is how I can pay for the research that the NIH will not. $100,000 per whiff. It’s also how I can earn some kind of money if my Sofia-Dorothy relationship with my mother goes South or she dies in her sleep and I need to make money to keep the farm afloat. Either one. (Kidding mom, you know you’re my hero and you can never die)

6. I can’t believe that non-call just happened. I still feel so shocked and bummed about it. At the same time I feel so hashtag blessed to smell like flowery beechwood that it diffusses the sadness a decent amount. What if I smelled bad and the Saints had a playoff game that was STOLEN right out from under them? Talk about feeling crappy and smelling like craigs-list. I mean I wouldn’t say the game was stolen from us…it’s just that

7.

8. Monty has gas. I realize Monty always has gas, but this seems specific and particular gas. It’s smells sad. It feels like especially offended gas that could only be expelled for a special occasion. He’s looking more sad than guilty, as though farts are the only way he can physically grieve. They are the tears of a game getting blown. The gas makes me sad, but then I smell my hair and feel glad. It’s funny that smells can make us temporally happy or sad. The realm and cause of human emotions is really pretty extraordinary.

9. Were we really supposed to lose that game or was it a comic hiccup? Some existential mistake? Tolle would say it was no mistake that we lost, because it’s the experience we endured. “The fire of suffering becomes the light of consciousness,” he says. But I fear tonight the light will burst from cars lit on fire and a ref that requires a 24/7 security detail. I joke I joke. I believe

10. I wonder if my shampoo truly comes from Maui. Something tells me it doesn’t. But due to the beautiful potency of its scent how could I care from where it emerged?

11. Cleanliness is Godliness.

12. Monty’s gas has begun to transition into “It will be OK. But that call was true and authentic stinky bull-dung.”

13. Like my mom says, at least we don’t have to be tense next week.

14. BUT MOM I WANNA BE TENSE I JUST WANNA BE TENSE WITH REFS THAT MAKE SURE THE PLAYERS DON’T BREAK EACH OTHERS HEADS!!!!!! Fine I’ll go to my room. No, YOU’RE being obnoxious! …Yeah I have some darks I need washed.

15. Saints, I’ll be your forever fan. Next years is ours. But on a personal note, you’ve given so many of my Sundays a happy distraction from what hasn’t been an easy year or years. Watching you play has energized me to a happy place, and I’ll always BELIEVE DAT you’re a team of good men, win or lose. I’m grateful you’ve made it as far as you have. You’ve been the joy of Sunday’s for much of my family and I, and I hope you feel the pride of the whole city behind you, my dog Monty, and me. See you next season.

Health, Happiness, Who Dat