York Gary Loop/Nashville/Nashville/York Gary Loop/Orange Street Loop

I walked the York Gary Loop on Tuesday night in 31:02. I walked randomly around the southwest portion of Nashville for 49:21 on Wednesday morning, and 47:21 on Thursday morning, and walked the York Gary Loop on Thursday evening in 28:39. Starting at about 9:45 a.m. Central, I walked the Orange Street 43:33. It's 71 degrees at noon, four degrees warmer than the Dec. 31 Levy record. This climate-change phenomenon is amazing. It does everything. It dumps eight feet of snow on New York, and, two days later, makes people in Levy open their windows and turn on their attic fans. We're under a tornado watch on New Year's Eve.

The DFL's Green Bay Packers defeated the Complete Sellouts 151.55-69.77 to finish third for the season, and to become the first team in our new sixteen-team format to break 150 points. It haunts me to know I would've won the Cooper Bowl if Johnny Knox had not caught a 67-yard touchdown pass for the Chicago Bears in my semifinal loss to the Cavemen. One fucking play.

Levy Loop

I walked the Levy Loop this morning in 32:07, and slipped on a puddle of ice, a first this season.

The Democrat Football League's Green Bay Packers lead the Complete Sellouts, 141.55-50.44, in the post-season consolation game. I have a defensive end for the Atlanta Falcons, John Abraham, going tonight. The Sellouts have Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson. We'll lose if Abraham fails to score and Peterson rushes for 910 yards or scores 16 touchdowns.

The NFL's Packers beat the soup out of the New York Giants yesterday and will make the playoffs with a victory over the Chicago Bears next Sunday.

OVERHEARD
"No time for you thirteen losers because we are the third-place champions of the world and shit."
—Green Bay Packers Coach Freddie Mercury

Orange Street Loop/York Gary Loop/York Gary Loop/Hash

I walked the Orange Street Loop on Christmas Eve morning in 43:33, the York Gary Loop on Christmas Eve evening in 28:40, the York Gary Loop on Christmas morning in 31:14, and ran and walked for 50 minutes, to cover nearly four miles, from Emerald Park, near Fort Roots, late this afternoon.

York Gary Loop/York Gary Loop/Orange Street Loop

I jogged and ran the Orange Street Loop this evening in 31:19, with splits of 11:18, 10:20, and 9:41.

I walked Nashville's York Gary Loop this morning in 29:40, and last night in 27:52.

Sweetheart Loop

I walked the Sweetheart Loop this morning in 39:45, with splits of 14:06, 13:09, and 12:30.

The Cavemen defeated the Green Bay Packers, 118.84-110.13, to advance to next week's Democrat Football League Cooper Bowl.

Orange Street Loop

I walked the Orange Street Loop this morning in 45:39.

Chandler Street Loop

I walked the Chandler Street Loop this morning, as I marked the Baby Jesus Memorial Three-mile Race to Hell, in 49:16. The Hash will come later to run it. Results will appear in the p.m. edition of Pam's Boy.

Furthermore, Pam's Boy will report the latest results of the Green Bay Packers' DFL Cooper Bowl semifinal game with the Cavemen. After Thursday night's game, in which both teams had one player, the Cavemen lead 30.85-10.60. We remain confident, despite the fact the my quarterback Aaron Rodgers, also the quarterback of the NFL's Green Bay Packers, is out with a concussion. His replacement, Tennessee's Kerry Collins called Rodgers a "pussy," and said the Packers would still "beat the shit out of the Cavemen and mail it to them in their hats."

Jeff Thorensten won the Baby Jesus Memorial Three-mile Race to Hell in 21:03. Lacy, Zach's wife, won the women's division in 30:45.

The DFL's Green Bay Packers lead the Cavemen 110.13-94.25. The Cavemen have two players going tomorrow night—a running back, Matt Forte, and a wide receiver, Johnny Knox, for the Chicago Bears—projected to score a total of seventeen points. We're hanging on, scared to death.

Orange Street Loop/Ghetto Cat Loop

I walked the Orange Street Loop this morning in 39:28.

Starting at about 5:30 p.m. Central, I walked the Ghetto Cat Loop in 27:59.

Chandler Street Loop

I walked the Chandler Street Loop this morning in 42:06.

Orange Street Loop/Levy Loop Classic

I walked the Orange Street Loop this morning in 43:31.

I ran Levy Loop Classic this evening in 20:12, with splits of 10:28 and 9:44. The second mile was my first under ten minutes since September 22.

Sweetheart Loop/Levy Loop

I walked the Sweetheart Loop this morning in 43:38.

This evening, starting at about 5:25 Central, I walked the Levy Loop in 28:51.

Orange Street Loop/Ghetto Cat Loop

I walked the Orange Street Loop this morning in 42:05. I didn't record the splits, but they were something like 14:35, 14:07, and 13:23.

This evening, starting at about 5:45 Central, I alternated three-minute jogs and runs with two-minute walks to complete the Ghetto Cat Loop in 21:54, with splits of 11:10 and 10:44.

Chandler Street Loop/Levy Loop Classic

I walked the Chandler Street Loop this morning in 45:03. It was 27 degrees, but wind-free and very blue.

Starting at about 5:40 p.m., I jogged Levy Loop Classic in 22:21, with splits of 11:20 and 11:01.

Hash

CONWAY — I jogged and walked for 26:44 and covered a little over two miles with the Hash from Cadron Park, about five miles west of Conway. Again, I had a hoot.

OVERHEARD
"The only way to stop Michael Vick is to find some way to limit him."
—Chris Collinsworth, commentator on Sunday Night Football

Ghetto Cat Loop

I walked and jogged the Ghetto Cat Loop this evening in 26:14.

38th Street Loop

I walked the 38th Street Loop this morning, starting at about 8:30 Central, in 28:57.

PARAGRAPH OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
There were a handful of days like this each August. Wind came from the northwest and had, since the night before, blown away the dankness. High clouds diffused into a translucent sheet and spread over the blue to leave a bright white afternoon, breezy and dry and almost cool, all serving as an advertisement for fall. These sorts of days always reminded Ingram of football, even now with this before him, as he walked through waves of roaring cheer to the microphone set between him and the last crowd he would address. St. Louis was a baseball town, and he could see it, Cardinal jerseys and shirts and hats everywhere, and smell it, the air streaked by wafts of barbecue smoke, filled with the scents of charcoal and hickory, butane and beer.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
Karen jogged to her car, five blocks away, and then drove back to pick up Ingram and take him home.*

*the last sentence, for now, and just for the hell of it, here's the first, for now: They were met by the smell of sweat as doors to the St. Louis locker room opened.

Levy Loop

I walked the Levy Loop this morning in 29:13.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
That possibility, rather probability, occured to her the moment she heard of the shooting, the night before, as she sat at her desk at the paper writing about professional football players, but it was overridden by the reports she’d heard from her parents, from Carmichael and Lockwood, from Kelleher and Seale, and by this conversation with Ingram, until he ushered its return.

Ghetto Cat Loop

I walked the Ghetto Cat Loop this morning in 32:23.

Once again, I've forgotten how to hit irons. Somehow, without them, I managed a 51 from the middle tees at First Tee, playing with Randall Hunhoff this afternoon. I had 5 bogies, 2 doubles, and 2 triples. I used 17 putts. I bogeyed the last three holes after I began hitting four-hybrid pitch shots on my approaches.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
She had never made a more difficult decision, and she had from time to time, usually late at night, after half a fifth of Pinot noir, regretted it, but nevertheless, Karen felt creeping vines of doubt after no more than a month; being with Ingram, she could not have escaped them.

Levy Loop Classic

I walked the original Levy Loop, the one I ran from the summer of 1996 through 2007, in 27:52 this morning.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
Ingram, his smile unaltered, turned toward the street, then back in the instant before blood burst from his face and splattered across Green, propelled by the explosion and fire extending from Lardner’s hand.

Hash/Levy Loop

Yesterday afternoon I jogged and walked for forty minutes with the Hash, out close to the dog pound past the theatre on Col. Glenn Road; you know, the one where we saw the Midway Island movie. I felt good running. It was colder than two motherfuckers, and a blast to be out for a while. I'll bet I drank eight cans of Milwaukee's Best Light, and was there for at least an hour with Basil Julian, Tiny Tim Biggs, and Steve Roberts (Big Bloody Ketchup), after everyone else left.

I came home to see that the DFL's Green Bay Packers defeated the Ratpackers, 110.66-70.80. We finished at 10-3, out best regular-season record since the DFL was formed in 1997. We get a bye through the first round of the playoffs. We need to win one more game to make our second Cooper Bowl, our first since 2003. We've never won it.

This morning, starting at about nine o'clock, I walked the Levy Loop in 28:40.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
Seale was summoned from his office to a row of television sets in the newsroom of the St. Louis Morning Report; he noticed first a shot of Keith Ingram and then heard the report in progress: “...Lardner, the former director of SAGA Midwest in St. Louis, and a former romantic partner of SAGA founder and national director Bobby Green, said he suspected almost immediately that Ingram was not gay, but that he considered it no more than a curiosity until Ingram announced his intention to run for the U.S. congressional seat from Missouri’s First District, held since 1968 by Ronald Hardman.”

SENTENCE OF THE DAY on Sunday from A Different Closet
They agreed it was difficult for anyone to prove their sexuality, and that under ordinary circumstances there would be no need, but that this circumstance was the opposite: “To belabor the obvious, he’s presented himself as gay to a national audience, and now SAGA is running him as a homosexual man for a seat in congress,” Glass said. “It’s the basis of their effort, and the limelight he’s been cast in, not just here, but from coast to coast for christ’s sake.”

Levy

I did a random walk for a newspaper this morning. I walked through the parking lot of the old Walmart and got sentimental; I wondered about Maggie for the first time in years. She was this cute little curly-haired brunette I had a crush on back in the fall of '03. The last time I saw her was in early December, seven years ago. She helped me find a lint roller. I guess she'd be about 25 now. I was out for 31:29, and probably went a bit over two miles.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
Three days later, Lardner walked from Peterman Pawn and Jewelry, on Mississippi Avenue in East St. Louis, with a Randall A112, a forty-five caliber pistol he thought rather masculine; it gave him an odd, unfamiliar feeling he could not quite pinpoint—nearly pleasurable, though bereft of the security he had sought with his purchase.

38th Street Loop

For some reason I forgot to report on my walk of the 38th Street Loop this morning. Maybe it was because I'm writing a lot, about 1,500 words a day, trying to finish A Different Closet soon (I hope on Tuesday, no later than Thursday). Anyway, I walked the loop in 29:22. I hope when this book's done, I'll start running a bit. We'll see.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
Kelleher knew he was scribbling gold in his reporter’s notebook, that the quote just spoken was potentially unique in American politics, that it would impress some as it impressed him, would anger most, and would demand explanations from Ingram from now until August, assuming he remained in the race.

Sweetheart Loop

I walked the Sweetheart Loop this morning in 43:48.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
On this warm afternoon there were with them a total of perhaps thirty players, passersby, and common riffraff; they’d seen Kelleher’s sort, the occasional gaggle of reporters, but heretofore for riots or criminal investigations, or for those annual exposures of the downtrodden designed to make the bulk of urban populations and inhabitants of their suburbs feel guilty, or fortunate.

Orange Street Loop

I jogged and walked the Orange Street Loop tonight in 36:44, with splits of 12:20, 12:14, and 12:10, after I watched Scrooged with my mother. This afternoon, Mom and I walked the one-mile Emerson Drive Loop in 19:13. I think that's a pretty good mile for a 78-eight-year-old woman. At about nine a.m., just before I reached the one-mile mark of the 38th Street Loop, I noticed a Siamese cat walking toward me on Emerson, about a half-mile from my house. I'm pretty sure I'd seen that cat before, and expected it to run away. But it was meowing as I approached. I stooped to pet it and, fuck, it looked awful. The first thing I noticed were its puffy eyes, and then scabs of dried saliva and mucous around its mouth, and then its bones. It looked like an escapee from a concentration camp for cats. I picked it up, the cat felt like a furry bag of sticks, and carried it home. It weighed three pounds on my bathroom scales. I put it in the now pristine laundry room, made sure Jo—who went ape—stayed in the house, and filled cereal bowls with cat food and water. It ate for about half an hour and then wandered off, maybe to die. Writing this now, I realize I should've taken it to my vet. Shit. I guess I thought I could save it. I hope to see it tomorrow.

SENTENCE OF THE DAY from A Different Closet
It took Bill Seale about six months of marriage to Elsie to convince her he didn’t want anything fancy for breakfast—no quiche, no soufflés, no crepes, just bacon and eggs, hash browns, and buttered toast; a little fruit was permissible, waffles or pancakes occasionally, sausage was fine, biscuits, and grits, but that was it; outside of cream gravy and Log Cabin syrup, save the sauces for company; he, of course, wanted his coffee black, and his eggs over-easy, so he could dunk toast in the yolk, which he did as he finished Kelleher’s sidebar on Lardner’s resignation.