Everything that I have written about Cleveland and its people--it began in 2010 with "The Devil and LeBron James"--has been how I honestly feel. I began reading cleveland.com's sports writers, which reinforced and deepened my contempt. I did odd bits of research here and there, the Cuyahoga River fire was lived history for me, I remember it--and everything that I read over sixteen years confirmed my feelings. Nothing contradicted them. Sometimes when I got on a Cleveland jag and wasted time I would develop self-contempt and turn the damn computer off. 

I don't know when Cleveland became a condition rather than a place or people, but that specific thought, "condition", came to mind only in the first post this morning. I had written previously that people who are life-long residents have it, and people who move there get it, but people who leave leave it behind. It's "self-limiting", a medical term, that is, it's not "contagious" as e.g. a virus is. You can visit Cleveland and not contract "Cleveland"--At least I think you can--I've never set foot in the place, not even the airport. I was good friends with a guy from Cleveland in Miami and I didn't get it from him. But there is something there, something that when you're exposed to it over some length of time, when you are only around Cleveland people, you get as long as you are there and are and around them. Cleveland people are aware that they have it. 

I don't know what it is but this morning I just feel BAD for them, not contempt, and here I've just wasted another half hour on it and on them.