Blizzard anhedonia: Hal can't cry, hopes not to play, fears the Bob Hope was the day's meaning

pivotal · 20 Nov YDAU, before 0500h

• When: 20 Nov YDAU, before dawn (woke before 0500h)
• What: (First Hal 1st-person of the late movement.) Hal wakes before 0500 from a zoo-nightmare into a blizzard, still oversalivating (moist pillow), with a "nausea of the head" worst first thing in the A.M. For almost a week he's felt he needed to cry but the tears stop "just millimeters behind my eyes and staying there." When the snow suggests the Fundraiser meet might be cancelled, "a kind of cold hope flared" — and he registers he "couldn't remember ever actively hoping not to have to play before," nor feeling strongly about playing for a long time. The core recognition: without one-hitters to look forward to, every day feels like it has "nothing... to anticipate or lend anything any meaning" — he wonders, appalled, "whether the Bob Hope had somehow become not just the high-point of the day but its actual meaning." He hasn't squeezed his November hand-ball in days; no one noticed. Pemulis (who'd generously drilled Boards math into him) has gone scarce since the Wayne debacle. He keeps seeing Kevin Bain crawling toward him in his sleep.