When the cold winds blow harder and the winter nights stays longer, the games of the week will follow.
“MISERY IS ALIVE. MISERY IS ALIVE! Oh, this whole house is going to be full of romance…” — Annie Wilkes, Misery
Last year around this time, a group of friends and I discussed our favorite times of the year. One said summer. Another said fall. Others were more nuanced; May springs or late September autumns. I answered with the dead of winter, because it’s the most miserable time of year, the perfect environment for my own misery to thrive. (A little tidbit since you most likely don’t know me: I’m four parts self-loathing and six parts dramatic.)
Really, no one picks this time of year as their favorite unless they’re avid winter sportspeople or vampires. It’s a brutal stretch full of biting winds and everlasting darkness, unless you wake up after 8 a.m. and go to sleep about eight hours later. At one point throughout this winter, every day I got to work before the sun fully rose and left an hour after it set. It’s why basketball was created, to give us something to look forward to other than incorrect meteorologists reports on snowstorms and waiting 20 minutes for our car’s defrosters to warm up.
While I pondered the theme for the games of the week, a sharp wind cut through my hoodie and sweatpants and that feeling I felt is what I want you all to feel, too. These games of the week are inspired by misery. The most winter of you have been warned.