Swift Kicks To Wherever

I'm going to fight the urge to provide director's commentary on everything I write, and just link, here, to a new piece I have up at The Awl. The piece is about the odd and unfortunate emotional distance I feel from the rest of the world's wild, loud absorption in the World Cup -- which, as you might've noticed if you've gone outdoors anywhere in the world over the last few days, is happening right now. I'm pretty happy with the piece, if not necessarily at peace with the sentiment that inspired it, both because I want to join the globo-soccer party for real and because my ambivalence about/inability to do so means that I wind up providing a (stunningly well-written, obviously) tour of my own sports navel in the piece. I'm especially wary of putting myself on the Who Cares side of things when it comes to the World Cup, too, since other members of said coalition include Newsbusters asshats and nightmarish human ulcer Mike Francesa.

I may write more on the Cup for The Awl, if they'll have me back on this topic, and I may write more about it here, too. For now, though, I'm about to go take a really long subway ride to watch as much of USA/England as is left when I finally get to Bay Ridge, and that should be fun. Just, you know, not as fun as it maybe is for other people. In the rest of the world. All of the people in the rest of the world. Actually, you know what, pass the Diet Coke, Francesa. Oh... no, it's cool, I didn't realize that two-liter was all for you. Sorry.