Entry 1:

The last time I did one of these "Diaries" was close to three years ago, and as I recall, I spent very little time being diary-like. This time around, though, I have been instructed to actually talk about what happens in my day, which has thrown me for something of a loop, because I don't actually do all that much--at least as compared to the super-achievers who usually people this particular section of Slate. Today, for example, my chief accomplishment was to wake up at 10:30 a.m. and somehow make it downtown in time for the one o'clock kickoff of the Buffalo Bills-Miami Dolphins game at the Riviera. In New York City, as many of you are no doubt aware, the fact that there are two local football teams--the Jets and the Giants--monopolizing the local television stations means that it's virtually impossible to follow any other team unless you have a satellite dish. Since I don't, that means my friend Bruce and I have to go to sports bars to follow our beloved Bills.

Does that seem odd, that I would use the word "beloved" to describe a football team? I thought of that today, watching all the young men (myself included) testify to their affection to their team at the sports bar. I fell in love (there I go again) with the Bills of the 1980s, who were a high-flying, offensive juggernaut, who threw long and often to a fleet of extraordinary receivers. Had you asked me in, say, 1989, why I liked the Bills so much, I would have gone on and on about how they were the highest-flying offensive juggernaut in the league. Now, by contrast, the Bills play a careful, conservative, painstaking ball-control game that is the absolute antithesis of their old style. So, why do I like the Bills so much? Because I think they play the most enthrallingly careful, conservative, and painstaking ball-control game in the league. Now in that same period--1989 until today--I would not say that my attitudes towards, say, women or literature or movies have changed at all. I like now, as then, dark-haired Jewish girls, spy novels, and thrillers. Does this mean my love of the Bills is somehow more pure than my love of all else--since it can survive even the complete transformation of the object of my affection? What makes this whole thing even more strange is that I don't actually like Buffalo, the city. Bruce and I grew up near Toronto, and we generally regarded Buffalo with something bordering on contempt. I like Buffalo, in other words, even though I don't like Buffalo, and even though the Buffalo I used to like (to the extent I actually liked Buffalo) no longer actually exists. Who says men are incapable of unconditional love?

Actually, what I like is watching football with my friend Bruce. Bruce and I met on the very first day of first grade in the little Canadian town where we grew up, and we've been best friends ever since. Perhaps because of our long history--or perhaps because of some other peculiar and unfathomable aspect of the male psychology--I have the curious reaction to Bruce of always agreeing with what he says. If Bruce says the receiver was in, and I initially thought he was out, well then, by golly, he was in. If Bruce thinks that story in TheNew Yorker was perfectly awful and the whole problem was that the part at the end should have been at the beginning, then immediately I think back on that story and, by golly, the end really should have been at the beginning. I wonder sometimes whether there are other people out there who are as much under Bruce's sway as I am. Maybe someday I'll be at something like Bruce's wedding, and I'll be standing around with a group of Bruce's friends and someone will mention that particular New Yorker story and we'll all nod and blurt out simultaneously that the whole problem was that the part at the end should really have been at the beginning.

This is the part in the Diary entry when all the super-achievers grab a quick snack, sing a lullaby to their triplets, and then get back to writing their screenplay, or comic novel, or IPO prospectus. Me? I went shopping at Staples for those really, really awesome uni-ball Deluxe Fine Points (I bought six) and then went home and watched more football. Did I mention the Bills won their game? That made me really happy.