The thing I like about boxing is that you have to be tenacious: throw the same punches in different combinations at the same bag over and over. Three minutes on, thirty seconds off, one, one two; one two one. Bag drills. Again. 

When we started boxing, T**** had just been inaugurated. I felt as hopeless as I've ever felt. It was February in the old gym, a tiny Chinatown storefront with big glass windows we'd slick with our sweat. We practiced footwork in a circle in the ring. We grappled in the early dark and compared bruises over text in the morning. I would leave washed clean, capable, briefly, of clear thought, and then deep sleep.  

On Monday I went to sparring for the first time. When you spar, you hit a person, not a bag. It's much harder. The coaches joke about needing to find your sea legs but they're not really joking. Chasing A around the ring put bag work into stark relief. I used to feel this way there, too: baffled by my own arms and legs. Now I land the center of my knuckles on the same spot every time. I am efficient and vicious. I can't protect anything but my own body. It is both a lot of territory, and then not really very much at all.
 

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It's been a while since I felt truly fucking stupid sharing my work, but today is one of those days. Nonetheless: I wrote more about the rise of Halo Top, which is now so successful in grocery store freezers that they've opened whole brick-and-mortar shops in the name of brand awareness.

I also interviewed Wes Bentley, who uttered American Beauty's iconic plastic bag line (you know the one) about his role on the forthcoming TV show Yellowstone.