Exhibit 1.20

So I'm getting ready to play in a company-sanctioned basketball game, and all I can do is imagine myself posting people up and beating my boss off the dribble. There are two problems with this 1) I've never been good at basketball and 2) I've done nothing in the years since I last played basketball to make myself better. In fact, all I've done since is pretty much binge drink, smoke briefly, stop smoking but start drinking more Coke and coffee, cut back on the binge drinking while increasing frequency and overall alcohol consumption, and sit in a chair without engaging in any physical activity. In other words, the math I should be working with here is 7th grade Adams Middle School select-league player Adam Peterson + Age, Alcohol, and Athletic Apathy= DNP - Vomiting. That's a box score joke. If you're reading this--and again, you're not--you probably didn't get that.

But why is it in my mind it all seems so easy, as if the last time I played basketball I was Danny Manning and I just need to shake off some rust. If you could see how pristine my crossover is in my mind, you'd swear I'd actually done it once without kicking the ball into the third row. And even though I know I'm no good, there is still this cognitive dissonance there to make it seem as if I somehow could be good. I mean, I haven't played in a decade, theoretically I'm just as likely to get better as I am to get worse. It's not as if practicing ever helped me.

The mental gap that suggests that if I haven't done something in a long enough time that means I have permission to start dreaming about maybe joining an adult league and winning the MVP, is a dangerous one. People make decisions by not analyzing past performance all the time and pretending that if someone was once good they will be again. It pretty much explains the last 30 years of Marlon Brando's career.

UPDATE: I have just returned from said basketball game and am nominally still alive. Ironically, I actually did play like Danny Manning. Only with a limp. And who ate too much for lunch. And who occassionaly called for a sub despite the absence of such subs. You know, the Danny Manning who played for Dallas. If nothing else, I'm pretty sure jumpshot won't be on our corporate reviews this year. Final line: 30 minutes, 2-3 from the field, 2 assists, 2 TO, 1 steal, 8 times I didn't run back down the court, and 11 fouls (give or take). I was probably not definitely the worst player.