Day 293: 449 Words About Columns

It’s Thursday afternoon. And I know what that means. My brain is sunburnt, the weekend is coming, the horns on Broome St are honking and I get to write a random number of words about a random subject! Rachel volunteered this week’s prompt again. She wanted 449 words about columns. And since I’m such a good husband, I gave it to her. And then shared it to the world for you all to see. Because that’s what I do. Yep.

This is a column about columns. Or at least I think it’s a column. I’m not actually sure what defines a “column”. I may or may not need to state an opinion. But that’s more of an editorial thing. After further research, yes, a column is for opinions. So I guess in order to write a column about columns, I need to give my opinion about them. So here’s that:

– As a kid, I could never get into newspaper columns. They were always the wordy nonsense right next to the funnies. Sometimes, I would read them after I finally understood the joke in Family Circus. It was a bunch of long-winded adults talking about adult shit. They were usually pretty angry, but most of them I just didn’t care about. Since then, I have no really been a purveyor of columns. Back when I actually read newspapers in full, I was always gassed by the time I got to them. Or I just found them to be too crass or critical. I’d rather just read the news in a newspaper.

– Rachel and I went to a comedy show last weekend. I know, that sounds fucking crazy. But I can assure you that it was totally safe. However, it wasn’t safe from covid. We were all maskless and susceptible to disease. However, it was safe from structurally collapsing. This is because there’s a giant column in the front-center portion of the stage. While I found it difficult to watch the acts around the column, it was nice knowing that we probably wouldn’t be trapped in that basement, as the Gristedes falls on top of us. That would’ve sucked. Especially for the people that bombed.

– As a kid, every time I played Columns on Sega, I had a good time. I always told myself that the game was superior to Tetris. Even though I still believe that, I never think to actually play Columns. It’s never on my mental radar when I need my puzzle game fix. That mental headspace is reserved for Tetris, Dr Mario and Dr Robotnik’s Mean Bean Machine. I’m sure I have access to Columns on 50 other devices, I just never think of it. I also tell myself that Columns had great music, but whenever I play it in my head, I’m actually imagining the soundtrack for Sim City on SNES. I swear Columns is a great game. It’s just forgettable.

– I sometimes have to stop mid-conversation to remind myself what the difference between columns and rows are. Like I need to visualize what I’m talking about and determine if it’s a column or a row. It may seem exhausting, but it takes a split second.