Today, some thoughts on self-care.
I read once that a good way to settle edgy nerves is to do something that feels ordinary. Something like shaving.
For a daily shaver like me, just lathering up and dragging a razor across my face can help me relax and climb out of a funk.
Anything that connects me to the past also has a calming effect. I've noticed, for example, that while staying at home more I've started watching old-school game shows. Namely: "Jeopardy!," "Wheel of Fortune" and "Let's Make a Deal."
Crazy, right?
If you had told me a year ago I would be bingeing on TV game shows in 2020, I would have called you loony. Yet, here I am, dreaming of winning five nights at an all-inclusive resort in sunny Jamaica on "Wheel of Fortune."
When the world is spinning around you, classic game shows can feel like home base, connecting you to a simpler time when things didn't feel so chaotic.
Here's what I gain from watching these shows:
* "Wheel of Fortune" - I'm not really a word-puzzle person. I don't do crossword puzzles or play hangman. Most nights, during "Wheel," I just stare at the clues. Occasionally I'll solve something before the contestants, but not often.
I'm mostly comforted by watching Pat Sajak and Vanna White, who have been co-hosts on the show for 40 years. I admire their ability to keep plugging after all this time, even though they both no doubt have piles of money and could easily be sipping rum on a beach in Jamaica.
I remember Sajak when he was a weatherman in Nashville, and White is one of those TV regulars who seems to span generations, like Johnny Carson bridged my childhood and adulthood. There's something comforting about them spinning that mechanical wheel and seeming genuinely disappointed when somebody lands on bankrupt.
* "Jeopardy!" - There's something about a fact-based trivia show like "Jeopardy!" that lands well in 2020.
Although Google has rendered trivia knowledge a quaint parlor trick, it's still impressive to watch people who know the periodic table of elements and the collected works of Shakespeare backward and forward.
I know current events and American history well enough to play along, but again, it's watching the host that gives me a boost.
Alex Trebek, who has continued to host the show while battling pancreatic cancer, is an inspiration. He has acknowledged that he has had periods of depressions associated with his illness, but yet he carries on.
One of the hallmarks of the baby-boomer generation is our devotion to work, and Trebek's life story is a testament to boomer grit.
* "Let's Make a Deal" - Only in COVID seclusion have I reconnected with this old childhood favorite. Boomers may remember Monty Hall, the host of the original run of the series, which debuted in the 1960s.
Hall, who died in 2017, was like a carnival barker. He was like the guy who demonstrates cookware at a home show. He was constantly tempting contestants with cash-in-hand or the promise of dazzling gifts behind Door No. 1.
Actor and improvisational comedian Wayne Brady is host of the modern version of "Let's Make a Deal" and he is charming and funny.
But mostly I love "Let's Make a Deal" for the traders, the people in gaudy costumes who animate the show. Almost without fail they risk what they have for a bigger payday.
It's an infectious sort of optimism that lifts my spirits.
I read the other day that modern Americans often default to pessimism because it sounds smarter that optimism, which can come off as naive.
But what the world needs right now is a little irrational exuberance. After a year of getting zonked at ever turn, we're due to win a big showcase.
Email Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com.
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Mark Kennedy / Staff file photo