Not as cool as Hubertus himself. Go ahead, take a minute. Check out his website. Highlights include: his music videos, his photography, and more importantly (please look at these): his credo and the picture of his bomb-ass Mexican ski jacket.

Things I love about Andy Himalaya? His use of the rare caps-lock-right-align-italics combination. His disregard for grammar, syntax, spelling, and punctuation. His penchant for taking pictures of himself before windows. His hair. His passing resemblance to Bruno. The fact that he lists “Prince” as his nickname on his official Olympics bio page. But thing I love the most? That jacket. I tried in vain to search for it online, but I could not find it. Finally, with the aid of Pete and Paolo, I did the only thing a girl in this situation could do… I wrote Herr von Hohenlohe a letter. And I wanted to show my respect and love through imitation, as it is the sincerest form of flattery.

My letter:

TO THE MOST GRACIOUS PRINCE HUBERTUS VON HOHENLOHE, THE REAL PRINCE!, AKA ANDY HIMALAYA:

YOU DO NOT KNOW ME, BUT I AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN! AS AN EXPATRIATED MEXICAN — LIKE YOU!! — I ALSO HAVE STRONG IDEALS AS TO HOW THE WESTERN CIVILIZATION HAS BEEN BOMBARDING US WITH ITS UNCAPTURABLE EXPECTASIONS.. WE ARE ALIKE ME AND YOU, ALTHOUGH I DO NOT HAVE YOUR MONEY OR GOOD LOOKS, AND I AM BUT A WOMAN. I TOO AM INTO PHOTOGRAPHY, AND I LOVE WINDOWS, NOT TO MENTION TAKING PICTURES OF MYSELF THEREIN THEM!!

I WRITE TO YOU TODAY WITH AN VERY URGENT REQUEST – I LIVE IN PITTSBURGH AND IT IS COLD. AND ALTHOUGH I AM MEXICAN, I CANNOT BUY MEXICAN THINGS HERE. ON YOUR SITE YOU ARE WEARING THE COOLIEST AND AWESOMEST – THE MOST AMAZING! – JACKET I HAVE EVER SEEN (IT IS CAMO AND HAS LADIES ON IT WITH A MEXICAN FLAG)! IN ORDER TO PURSUE MY DREAM AS AN “EXOTIC SKIIER” (SEE, I TOLD YOU I WAS YOUR BIGGEST FAN!!!), I NEED SUCH A PHENOMENAL JACKET. I KNOW THIS REQUEST MAY SEEM WEIRD, BUT I WAS SO INSPIRED BY YOUR CREDO, THAT I KNEW THAT YOU WOULD AID ME IN MY ENDEAVOR TO FIND THIS JACKET, THIS HOLY GRAIL OF SPORTSWEAR, I JUST KNEW IT. ¡WE ARE SO ALIKE! (EXCEPT I DO NOT SKI, YET!) I TOO TAKE PICTURES, OF THE BEST KIND (WITH WINDOWS!) – AND I AM INTO BUSINESS TOO. I ALSO ONE DAY HOPE TO REPRESENT OUR ILLUSTREOUS COUNTRY AS YOU.

BEST OF LUCKY! I HOPE YOU ACHIEVE YOUR DREAMS. AND WIN A MEDAL FOR US – MEXICANS! ¡¡VIVA MEXICO!!

PLEASE WRITE BACK SOON WITH INFORMATION ON HOW TO GET THIS JACKET. I REALLY WANT THIS JACKET. IT’S COOL. LIKE YOU.

BEST.

-ADRIANA

P.S. I REALLY AM YOUR BIGGEST FAN
P.P.S. SELF-PORTRAIT IS ATTACHED – SEE HOW UGLY MY JACKET IS AND HOW COLD I AM?

Things I regret: not mentioning that I did not digitally manipulate my own photo. Not right-aligning my text. Not having another picture of me in a window handy. Not being as cool as Andy Himalaya.

*All images stolen from: http://www.hubertushohenlohe.com/, except for the one that was obviously taken by the author.

Here’s how I see it: best case scenario, he replies. Worst case scenario, he doesn’t. Either way, I totally wrote a hilarious email. And made Pete and Paolo laugh. Good enough for me.

Investment Advice

I think, given the detrimental state of it all,
that our salvation, as a people and species, lies in the
restorative power of skimmed milk.
We all know that water will fail us—
it is, after all, susceptible to the whims
of braggarts and scallywags, tarred and satiated.
When the water skyrockets, when the bidding
starts on our thirst, the old Holsteins and Zebus will
tremble, their little cow knees knocking out dollars.
We won’t drown. We’ll simply suckle.

You said it all tasted like nothing anyway.
We may as well just drink the creamless,
you said (as if I didn’t understand simple “skimmed”).
The mere liquid of it works. And, oh, I know they’ll
say, there are ethical concerns. The methane, the hormones,
the guilt of consumption and sacrifice.
And when I remind them that they didn’t
have too many moral dilemmas the first time,
you’ll simply say that you should have invested in
the stuff when it was cheap.
We could have made a killing.

Ten minutes later I’ll laugh when you call it
white gold. And twenty minutes after that, when I
open that cranky refrigerator, a thought will drown me.
I’ll miss lemonade the most.

Big thank yous to my father and Señor Peter Jones for making this possible. I soon as I get back to Pittsburgh from Texas, we’ll start playing. Woot.

Two Steelers fans found themselves thousands of miles away from home. In fact, both were in Texas during what may or may not have been the most significant game of the season for Pittsburgh. What did they do?

Brad sent me a text message at 1:46PM yesterday from the Dallas airport: “do you know the Steelers have a chance in hell of making the playoffs?”

My response from Mission, TX: “But a chance nonetheless. Remember: we have it in us. Now is when we need the most faith. If we fail today, then we’re totally f*cked. So have faith!”

The Pittsburgh Steelers are not an easy team to follow. To quote TJ Donegan of the Bleacher Report:

Can anyone figure out the Steelers? Anyone? Bueller?

This really is getting ridiculous. Can they just decide if they’re

a cursed, Super Bowl hangover team or if they’re just an unlucky, injury-prone team that is capable of beating anyone on their day?

They just capped off a five-game losing streak by having their recently-concussed quarterback toss for over 500 yards, knocking off one of the sneakier talented teams in the le

ague 37-36.

Of course before that five-game skid they won five in a row, handing the undefeated Vikings their first loss of the season.

Good times.

Last night’s game was crazy. A game-winning catch in the final seconds. A throw and reception similar to the Super Bowl. A last-instant save of face and hope that will hopeful catapult the Steeler’s toward some kind of playoff chance.  And I believe.

I have to.

Javi keeps saying that this blog has cursed the Steelers. But I don’t believe in curses. And I certainly don’t think that the blog of one short Mexican girl will make any difference. But then again… I certainly think that having  faith means something.

After all, to quote Steelers coach Mike Toml, the Pittsburgh Steelers are

Not dead yet. The guys hung together, fought, made enough plays to win. We haven’t won in a while so it feels good. To keep it in perspective, we’ve got a little pulse here. Hopefully we can use this as momentum to get ready to play Baltimore next week, which is of course a very warm football team. Good to stay in the fight, good to win one for our fans, we’ve got the greatest fans in the world. Good to perform for them and get them something to be excited about here at Heinz Field. Today, I’m just as excited about that as I am getting that five-week monkey off our back.

I’m one of those fans. One of the “greatest…in the world.” So if they’re performing for me, then I’ll return the favor and not give up on them.

So now the name of the game is “wildcard.” Part of learning to watch football this season is trying to understand how this whole NFL system works. And it’s complicated. For the uninitiated, there are two conferences (AFC and NFC), with four divisions each (North, South, East, West). The four division winners for each conference (that’s eight teams total) play each other in the playoffs, which is run tournament style to determine who plays in the Super Bowl. That’s pretty clear, no? Nope. Because there are “wild cards.” Two slots per conference go to the teams that did not win their division, but beat everyone else.

But how do you beat everyone else? First there’s your overall record, against all the teams you play (six of your games in the regular season are against the other three teams in your division and conference, the rest of your opponents are distributed: some of which are in other divisions, some of which are in the other conference – how they put together the schedule is a ballet in and of itself). After that, there’s your record in your division, and then conference (which is unfortunate for teams that are good at winning against teams in the other conference, like the Steelers). After that, it goes to tie breaker. This shit is complicated, but it makes sense after you read it eight times and you start to understand the game.

Why does this matter?

Well, in the AFC (the American Football Conference) there are six playoff slots. Indianapolis and San Diego have cinched the top two and are now playing for seeding (the playoffs are seeded and the top team from each conference gets a bye to the next round). New England and Cincinnati each have 9-5 records, and are close to cementing their place in the playoffs (after all, even if they lose the next two weeks, they’ll both be 9-7, with tie-breakers and conference records to beat most everyone else). The problem lies in the two wildcard slots.

This is where shit gets crazy.

Baltimore and Denver both have 8-6 records this season. And on their heels? Jacksonville, Miami, New York, Pittsburgh, Tennesee, and Houston (in that order) all have 7-7 records going into the last two weeks.

So, for the Pittsburgh Steelers to make it into the playoffs, here’s what I think has to happen.

• Steelers win against Baltimore and Miami (duh).
• Denver beats Philadelphia.
• Denver loses to Kansas City.
• Baltimore loses to Oakland (Oakland’s on fire, they might do it!)
• The Pats beat Jacksonville and Houston (likely, although mad love to Houston)
• The Jets lose to Indianapolis (likely)
• Tennessee gets crushed by San Diego and (hopefully) Seattle

Well, here’s to hoping that this is how it plays out. Then we’ve got a shot at either wild card slot. If Denver wins, then we really have to destroy the Ravens. If the Ravens beat us next week, we’re out. We’re done. We’re dead.

Maybe.

Case and point: The text of a note I found at the Crazy Mocha in Bloomfield.

Dear Joseph
how are you? It occured to me today that thousands of cartoon artists are drawing every day, many of which are, I expect, coming up with new super heroes. One who can lift trucks but only certain models (ford) at certain times of the day (3pm-4:15pm), one who can point the furthest distance, one who can travel back in time but never forward again, etc. etc, hundreds weekly. One that can make Autumn come 2 weeks earlier… Surely out of all of these hundreds of thousands, one looks just like you. You’re a super hero!
Love, Lenka + Michael

Finding this note (ps, the whole note is [sic]) today made me very happy. Well done, Lenka and Michael. I really hope Joseph felt a little like a super hero when he got your note.

Happy, Thanksgiving, everybody.

Jamie Bono suggested Pictionary. Well, I offered, I have a clipboard, some paper, and a permanent marker. But what about the words, everyone said. And then I remembered the basket of writing prompts.

A year ago or so, a few friends (some of which were also at game night a year later) came over and we decided to do writing exercises (English department nerds are the best kind of nerd, in my opinion). So we wrote a bunch of words and phrases on slips of paper and put them in a basket. Slips of paper with “sanity” and “sexual” and “Mexican dare games” written in the scrawling hands of people used to grading student essays.

Well, these words came out for pictionary. And yes, it was the nerdiest nerdly nerd-nerd fest that “English Graduate Student Writing Prompt Pictionary” evokes. So, a faculty member in the English department, a chef, a chemist, an optical engineer, and a bunch of English graduate students played a strange drawing game (without any artistic skills between us, too).

Here are the fruits of labor.

“Sanity” by Adri. No one guessed it.

“Sexual” by Eric Fest. We played boys versus girls. The boys all got this.

Brad’s version of “Melodrama.” He writes “fail” because his team surely did.

Shelagh keeps it clean and puts the girls back on the board with “Eruption.”

Jamie Root doesn’t have to do much to get us to guess “pattern.” We know this shit.

For some reason, the boys are unable to guess Seth’s “Cruelty” here.

Amy over-explains “dissection,” lambasting the girl team for not grasping her pictorial interpretation.

We decided to put more words in the basket. This was, of course, a  mistake as I took the opportunity to put in the strange. Poor Seth had to contend with my phrase “serpent face.” Interestingly enough, the boys got it. I laughed about this for days.

Effective. Awesome. “Mouthwash” by Adri.

Eric was going for “pantaloon,” but instead drew guesses from Brad like “genocide pants.”

Shelagh keeps it simple with “fraternal.”

I think this was supposed to be “black hole,” but the evening turned a little hostile at this point.

I’m missing a couple for some reason. I’m going to go look for them (I distinctly remember Bono’s version of “hero,” which I’m hoping the scanner didn’t eat). They’ll be up here as soon as I get them.

[EDIT:  Here are the ones I missed. ]

“Mechanical” by Amy Lueck. I’m pretty sure no one got this.

Jamie Bono keeps it simple with “Hero” and people guess it immediately.

I’m not sure about this one. It’s been a while now (I write this edit much later), but I think someone got this. I think Jamie Bono had a perfect record.  [: end of EDIT]

In the meantime, enjoy the ridiculousness.

I wanted to share a podcast of me reading from my manuscript thesis (tentatively titled La Violencia) available at Hot Metal Bridge (the University of Pittsburgh’s graduate literary journal).

I apologize for the podcast editor’s crummy job (she accidentally overlaid some audio during the introduction); she should be reprimanded—or flogged. People take these things seriously around here.

Lessons learned so far? College football and professional football are different (again, this is “duh” for some of you, but for me… new). My second lesson: the Steelers, in particular, are a stressful team to watch .

Mostly because I know they are good. They are very good. Which means that when the defending Super Bowl champs, and the team that’s won the most Super Bowls ever, fails, it’s really hard. They should be better. They can and have been better.

The win over the Titans set a good tone—the Titans are a good team. They’ve done well in the past and I would never count them out. Although, I guess this season has not been too good for the 0-6 Tennessee Team, as they recently lost (terribly and embarrassingly) to the Patriots (59-0).  Which just proves that in football, being good is no reason to succeed.

After Jeff Reed missed two field goals (something I simply don’t understand, although most everyone says I’m being way too harsh oh him. I know he’s only missed three field goals out of the last sixty or so, but still. He missed twice when it mattered) and the Steel-City lost to Chicago, I was bummed. I thought it would only be a fluke. It was, after all, the kicker’s fault (and oh, the Ace Ventura quotes that kept popping in my head, “laces out!”). But it established an interesting trend for the next few games—a trend of fourth quarter comebacks, from the other team.

Chicago scored 10 points in the fourth quarter, winning 17-14. Cincinnati (a team I’ve always hated for Oiler type reasons) scored 14 points in the fourth quarter, to win 23-20. San Diego scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, coming back, but still losing 38-28 to the Steelers, only because our offense managed to score 10 points as well. If not, the game would have been tied. Detroit scored seven points, and thanks to a healthy Pittsburgh lead, were kept at bay 28-20. And yesterday, the Cleveland Browns only managed a field goal during the last quarter. In four out of the five games, the Steelers haven’t been able to get it together to score during the last fifteen minutes of the game.

Why do we peter out at the end? Is because we’ve (metaphorically) blown our load during the first forty-five minutes and are too weak to defend? Or are we complacent? Do we know we’re good, and simply not care?

I don’t know. What I do know is that this needs to change. The boys need to wake up and get their shit together. Polamalu is back. Our Running Backs have either turf toe or idiocy with which to contend (no offense Mendenhall, you’ve been brilliant, but sometimes you do seriously dumb things, like not come to practice or learn plays, but you do attend the Pittsburgh Poetry Slam, sometimes, which is awesome), but that’s not the defense’s fault. The offense is still connecting. Ben Roethlisberger, although heavily sacked, keeps connecting that ball. In fact, yesterday’s game was amazing. He has over 400 passing yards, which according to Brad, may be some new kind of record for him or something. (We just looked it up, it’s his second best game, three years ago he passed for 433, which is a little more than 417.)

There is more to be said.  I’ve been taking notes, but one of the things I’ve realized is that note-taking and analysis do not a fun blog post make. What I do know is that I’m still learning.

Apparently you’re down till you’ve been touched. A push of sorts. Which I think is a nice metaphor. Until someone knocks you down good, you can always get up and keep going. Turf toe be damned.

As someone who went through the whole “applying to PhD programs” process last year (quasi-unsuccessfully, too), I can tell you that picking a good school is hard. Because you want to think that you’re smart enough to get into your first choice. So, this friend wants to go to Yale, and you think that Taco Tech is more his bag, and you don’t want the friend to get their hopes up if it isn’t going to happen. Well, I think the answer’s pretty simple. You just explain that in this kind of situation, with graduate school applications soaring due to our crap economy, that having a safety school (or three) isn’t the worst thing in the world.  You could tell him that funding is less competitive some places, that Harvard received an overwhelming amount of applications that year, that specific schools have different curriculums and you think that this other, smaller school has something better to offer. But ultimately, if dude won’t settle for anything less than the Sorbonne, whatever. It’s his dime, his time, and his inability to gauge himself that’s going to lead to that disaster.

Plus, there’s always the chance he’ll get in to Oxford, and then you can feel happy for him. Or sad for the state of higher education. To quote my roommate, “it’s a friggin crapshoot.” And sometimes, even in a top flight graduate program, there are schmucks who somehow wormed their way in. Hopefully, your friend will be so lucky.

So, I’ve decided to participate with my students in this semester long project. To become a writer immersed in an experience, to let myself go into foreign territory. And we’re going to call that territory “Steeler Country.” You see, even though I’ve lived here for three full years (summers and holidays excluded), I’ve never really been a huge Steeler’s fan. I’ve liked them well enough. I’ve seen signs advertising Roethlis-burgers and even a Roethlisbrisket. I’ve heard “Polamalu” sung to the tune of the muppet’s “Mah Nà Mah Nà” on the radio, which is brilliant.

I figured that becoming a Steeler’s fan wouldn’t be too difficult – in other words, I’m already half-way there, so why not take the leap? It’s not quite a full immersion project (I’m not shadowing Troy Polamalu, althoughI would love to, or becoming the admin of the Steeler’s fansite, nor did I move here just for football à la Buzz Bissinger), but I am going to be listening to radio shows about the Stillers (correct yinzer pronunciation), I will purchase a Terrible Towel, and, most importantly, I will watch every single game this season. Which for me, given my hectic schedule and that whole “having a life” thing, is difficult. But I will do it.

Reader, I forewarn you, AskAdri may become a blog about the Pittsburgh Steelers for a bit this semester. I’m going to try to be a better blogger, but part of my challenge is also to make this whole experience entertaining to read about, even if you’re not in Pittsburgh or a Steelers fan. So we’ll see what happens.

Watching The Steelers with Brad

#1: Vs the Titans at Home

Every time I look at Jeff Fisher’s face, I remember how much I loved him. When Jack Pardee left the Oilers in 1994, Fisher took over as head coach until the team’s move to Tennessee in 1997. Then he stayed on as the Oilers slowly morphed into the Titans (I still hate you, Bud Adams, for moving them), taking up residence in playoff territory and fulfilling the fantasies of Houston fans everywhere, except with a bitter and ironic twist to the old jugular: the Oilers could only win as the Titans. But some of us, including my father and I, did a good job of pretending for years that the Titans were the Oilers, until the Texans emerged as Houston’s team and I stopped paying attention to football. I hated the Dallas Cowboys, and resigned myself to being an Oilers fan – a fan without a team.

And there he was, last night, a man I once believed in, standing on the opposite side of the field from my new team. I secretly wouldn’t have been displeased if the Titans had won last night: it all came down to that excruciating coin-toss in overtime.  Although, I like to think that even if Tennessee had won the flip, the Steelers’ defense would have shut them down like they did the Titans’ last drive. (That defense is sick, with or without Polamalu.)

But Jeff Fisher’s stoic face remained preternaturally calm as his boys got wailed on all night. And he was dishing it right back. Crushing bodies and chasing down the quarterback. And as Fisher coordinated his soldiers into action against Tomlin, Brad and I debated whether or not the Steelers were the greatest team of all time (his answer: yes! mine: possibly.), about whether or not football is greatest sport to watch, about whether or not an Oilers fan is betraying her roots by cheering for the Steelers (conference rivals and notorious usurpers of playoff spots). Our conclusions?

Football is chess, is war. Soccer is ballet. Football is an opera, episodic and narrative – underneath it all, football is about storyline.  About whether or not a general can march his army down the field and quell the enemy. (I believe at one point in the evening, I started shouting “quell the enemy!” at the screen.) Soccer is about coordination and grace, scoring is a feat, as opposed to an expectation. But who cares about expectation: this is war.

And there’s Ben Roethlisberger, inconsistent and atypical, an Ohio-boy nicknamed Big Ben, and to the people of this town, far grander than any clock-tower in London, that’s for sure. And to quote Brad, “he’s only good under pressure.” And to quote me, “that’s better than if he were only good when not under pressure.” The game is adrenaline, and Ben Roethlisberger knows how to tease a game of football. You have no idea if he’s going to blow it at any minute, and that shit is compelling as hell to watch. I was sweating. I was nervous. I was high-fiving Brad way too much. I yelled at the TV. Shit got crazy.

When I called my father, hater of the Steelers, to boast and brag about my new team’s success throughout the game, he called me a traitor and repeated “I hate those guys. Don’t talk to me about them” over and over again, even though I heard the game playing in the background. And when I called after, after that delicious field goal sealed an auspicious beginning to the season, my mother promptly told me that my “father says he’s asleep and that you should leave him alone.” This morning, a quick sound bite from the man, calling me a Benedict Arnold to the cause, telling me that I was worse than an Argentine discussing soccer.

And that’s when I knew it was bad. In my father’s eyes, I am already a Steelers fan. No immersion necessary. But the euphoria of winning, and I’m not just talking about the whole “defending superbowl champs” thing, is something I share with my neighbors and with the people of this town – they joy of seeing your army emerge triumphant belongs to the people, to the citizenry, to the yinzers.

This morning, at the Giant Eagle, everyone had a little smile in their step. And everyone looked happier than the day before. Though my smile was big, I couldn’t help but think of Jeff Fisher, and  remember the hope I’d felt during the Oilers’ last season. A hope not unlike the hope of the Steelers repeating last year’s performance.

As Brad and I finished our beers on his porch, we knew one thing: this is going to be a great season.

]]> http://www.askadri.com/2009/09/watching-the-steelers-with-brad/feed/ 3 http://www.askadri.com/2009/09/because-summer-crawls-away-from-me/ http://www.askadri.com/2009/09/because-summer-crawls-away-from-me/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:07:32 +0000 Adri http://www.askadri.com/?p=492

My friend Marissa sent me this earlier this week in an email, and as I read the poem, it reminded me of how ephemeral everything really is, which sounds maudlin, but I don’t really mean it that way. Like the way summer slowly turned into fall this weekend, but I hope summer comes back, and maybe it will, but that’s not the point. The point is: some weekends summer turns to fall.

A friend from another lifetime called me on Monday from her pocket, and I was so excited to see her name on the ringer, but when I answered, it was static. We were friends once ten years ago. Close friends too. But still, not the kind of friend you expect to see on the display screen. And when I called back, hoping that it was a missed connection, a poor connection, a misconnection, she didn’t answer. They  never do when you really want them to. And I thought about all the laughs we’ve shared and the times we didn’t hold onto, because, hell, who really who holds on to anything anymore… I wished she’d answered the phone. Maybe I could google everything about her I’ve forgotten. Maybe it’s cached somewhere for me to find.

But the moment passed, and there’s no sense in calling again.  Calling, like falling, like walling, like wailing, like failing, like it all is just an intermingling of consonants, like people pass through our lives like vowels in a Wallace Stevens’ poem: melodically and temperamentally, nonsensical and rich. Like an uncle.

I remember discovering Wallace Stevens. My Freshman English teacher, a woman whose daughter would witness my first kiss, passed out “The Emperor of Ice Cream,” and being thirteen and full of wonder, I understood it. Don’t ask me now, but that day in Freshman English, Wallace Stevens understood something basic within this world that I felt in my bones — That the only sovereign is the sovereign of impermanence. There is only ephemera.

There is no rational meaning. There is only this.

I’m sorry, I guess you could say I’m in a mood today. A friend called me from her pocket two days ago and didn’t answer when I finally rung back. Sometimes, I don’t handle rejection well. Sometimes, I want a snowed-in life, a life lived with a blindfold.

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But when I write about loyalty in soccer, in futbol (ahem), I am referring to the unique status of the immigrant in regard to their multiple and shifting affiliations when it comes to picking a side (so wordy!). Or, to be fair to other immigrants that are not myself, this immigrant has issues when picking a side. My parents, as good Latin-Americans do, watch futbol. I was raised in a household with a running gag (which I’m sure I’ve mentioned before on the blog or at some other time): a Colombian mother, a Mexican father, and a daughter raised in Texas are watching the World Cup. People ask about the tension in the room. Who would win in a fight to the death (my money is on my mother)? Who does the daughter root for? The answer, for me, was and is Mexico. But not without consequences.

Oh, I’m not talking anything too dramatic. Just my mother’s passive aggressive comments during the game about my ungratefulness to the Colombian side of the family tree (“guess you don’t like at least one of your X chromosomes”). Or my boyfriend’s textual anger. [A recent message after a crucial Mexican victory: "I hate you and your people." He's not really mincing words there.] Or my perpetual involvement in the debates about Mexican versus American futbol. I’m not suffering too much for my allegiance.

I like to think that I cheer for the US second. Mexico is number one, the US number two, and Colombia three. Having an order should simplify things. And I have good justifications for that order, justifications that appease everyone: I was born in Mexico and watched a ton of Mexican league on TV growing up. It makes sense that I would root for the guys I know first and best. I do live in the US and was mostly raised here. This is the country where I work and pay taxes. And, of course, My mother is Colombian, my father half. Number three is not as big of a slight as it could be.

I’m writing around my subject now. What I sat down to write about today, what I wanted to talk about was the game between the US and Brazil at the end of the Confederations Cup earlier this summer—a game between the gods of soccer and plucky “underdog” gringos. A game where I should have rooted for the US. A game where I had every intention of rooting for the US until they were winning, 2-0. Until the change arrived.

(June 28, 2009 - Photo by Gallo Images/Getty Images Europe)

Because I was once a poet (always a poet?) who read poetry, I like to think that everything is a poem. And in a way, this one has already been written. Tony Hoagland is right: there are moments when history passes you so close, you can not only smell its breath, but feel its sweat. And watching the US beat Brazil for thirty-six minutes broke something in me I wasn’t prepared to admit existed.

I could not, I would not, accept that the US was an underdog. Something about it rubs me wrong. There was a goodness to having our plucky little developing nations whoop the US, a country with so many resources and discipline, talent and privilege. Watching the US lose for years, although I rooted for them, made sense. Oh, I would say, we’ll do better soon. And then we did. And then things changed. Because I realized that I hated the US for winning when I felt they didn’t deserve it.

What a horrible thing to say! No student who’s ever had a scholarship is proud to say something like that—everyone deserves what they work hard to achieve. But I kinda believed the opposite here. The US didn’t deserve to win, because it doesn’t mean anything to win at soccer for this country. It maybe means something to the eleven guys on the field, and to the small percentage of the population who played as a child and thinks watching it is cool. But as Colbert put it… the average American sports aficionado believes soccer is boring.

The fact that not caring about soccer is such a joke in this country makes me angry when the US wins. Because a world in which the US is a dominant force in a sport they don’t even care about seems bullyish, reeks of colonialism and imperialism and other isms, although I’m not even sure I want to draw out those parallels right now. I’m not even sure I believe they hold up.

Think about it this way…   If the hot quarterback tries out for the soccer team his senior year, and then earns not only the captain’s band, but the only scholarship to some badass soccer school, I bet the other kid on the team who worked his ass off for fifteen years and led the team to victory before, I bet that kid hates that quarterback. Maybe he wants his former teammate to succeed when asked, but also, deep in his heart, he wants that dumb quarterback to fail.

Now imagine that the quarterback  is also pretty rich, good-looking, dating the head cheerleader, and valedictorian. Oh, and his family hates soccer and thinks it’s a dumb sport. In fact, they make fun of their son for taking that fancy scholarship.

Now imagine you, a casual observer, eat dinner in that household every night, and you’re related to the other kid, the one that worked hard at playing for years and developing his foot-technique.

Every time they open their mouths, you can’t help but want their child to fail. Just a little. Just to get them quiet. Now, imagine your joy when you hear that the quarterback got benched. But not only that, your kid walked on the team and took that quarterback’s spot. Victory! Sweet, victory!

For the petty. For me.

So when Brazil came back in the most beautiful second half of soccer I’ve seen them play in a while, soccer like they’re being chased by horses on fire, like the ball was another muscle, temporarily detached and fully under the player’s control, its sides rolling with purpose… so when Brazil came back, I couldn’t help but cheer, but pray, just a little, for the beach gods of soccer to reign a little longer. Just a bit. I wanted to hold on a little longer before the game changed.

Before caring about soccer means something new, something different, something American.

My cheers continued. Through the US’s loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup Final, although every US fan I spoke to afterwards pointed out that the “US played their B-team.” My hoorah deepened last Wednesday, when A-squaded and relentless, the US lost to Mexico 2-1, in a hard-fought World-Cup-qualifying match between two neighbors, not as friendly a game as it could have been.

And I watched it, in a friend’s living room in Pittsburgh, wearing my green and red jersey in a room of whites and blues, inadvertently yelling “ay!” when things got hairy. And, of course, my friends made fun of me.

But no one was angry at the end of the game. Because it was soccer, and really, who cares?

I will get up in the middle night and chug a whole bottle of diet green tea, not quite remembering in the morning why I am still clutching the sweet plastic. How did this happen? There are the mornings I wake up with red stains on my mouth and teeth and for minutes I will wonder if I killed someone and ate their organs or if I just drank all the cranberry juice out of yet another plastic bottle left empty in the ice box.

I am sleeping too much and too little these days.

Resting Somnambulist IV, Pyke Koch

I don’t think I’m asleep when I get up from bed, walk down the hallway into to the kitchen – I am not a somnambulist – for I have vague memories of blinking hard against the refrigerator lights, squinting to avoid the harsh transition from darkness to fridge. As soon as the vague and honeyed scent of Lipton prepackaged tea wafts below my nose, there is an accompanying bulb over my head. “Ah,” I will think, “I drank this for sure.”

And this morning, when I accidentally found a hairbrush underneath my pillow and a large clump of hair creating a short but wiry trail from my head to the beaded ends of brush bristles, I understood that at some point in the night, I woke up and walked to the bathroom, grabbed my hairbrush and started weaving the detangler through my obstinate locks back in the blue bed, trying to make something within me feel better. But what was wrong? And why did brushing help?

My sleepover friends and casual nap observers have told me that I speak in my sleep. Sometimes I’ll cry a little (like a puppy!) and sometimes I’ll hum or sing. I’ve been told that during particularly bad bouts of nausea, I will dry-heave in my sleep. Once, my father told me that he heard me making gurgling noises as he walked by my room. I, of course, remember nothing.

I like to think that I take out my petty little sufferings in my sleep – the maudlin impulses that govern my psyche. That if I cry, or laugh, or declare my friends the presidents of my public hair (something I apparently did one night), I do so because within me there is emotion trying to release, that my body is trying to undrown itself (a Spanish word, desahogar, that I wish sounded as simple and poetic in English, to unburden is not to undrown. Undrown is replacing water with air, learning how to breathe again, dislodging the agent of suffocation. This is one of the words I love.) I like to think that my sleeping self takes umbrage with the trifling exploits I’ve undertaken during my conscious hours. Maybe I just think my impulses Manichaean, two opposite selves in constant conflict.

I’m probably just being dramatic. I’m sure I just got thirsty. I’m sure that I was having sleepy conversation in my dreams. I’m sure it’s all brain waves and misfiring synapses. But that doesn’t explain the brush.

I’m not really sure what explains the brush. Maybe I’m just weird.

This may be a strange question, but I’m not quite sure where and how to ask. I feel that if I mention this to my guy friends, they’ll think I’m weird, and I don’t have any girl friends. I’m almost thirty and my girlfriend is almost thirty-four, which she maintains is a huge difference. Lately, I’ve gained weight and so has she, we’ve both been happy and plump and good, joking about how we literally decided to grow fat together. But, soon after talking about wedding plans, my girlfriend has started freaking out about it, all the time. She’ll mention how fat she is at the most awkward of moments (during sex and in front of my family). And then she’ll mention how fat I am. I don’t really care at all. I love her as she is. I want to marry her. But she doesn’t want to get married because she’s afraid of being fat in the wedding pictures. I try to tell her she’s beautiful, but she always says that it’s because I’m fat that I think fat is pretty. How do I make this not matter anymore? She’s been trying to lose weight for a year, not successfully. She’s thinking about surgery, telling me I should do it with her, and I’m afraid to tell her that her obsession is now hurting our relationship. I keep saying, you need to relax. She doesn’t have that many girlfriends, and all her guy friends think she’s great, but she ignores them because “they’re dudes.” I can’t even get her to go see a therapist. She won’t talk to anyone else about it. And now she’s just giving me the silent treatment. So how do I make my girlfriend understand that 1) I am fine being a chubs 2) I am fine with her being a chubs and 3) that being chubs is not the worst thing in the world.

-Mr. Chubs

This is a dificult question for me to answer. In fact, I’ve been sitting on this for a couple of weeks now, trying to figure out how to best articulate my thoughts on the matter, but I’m still not sure. I want to say that the weight doesn’t matter, that it shouldn’t matter, and that your girlfriend is crazy. But the truth is, it does and she’s not.

I once got dumped for being fat. True story. A long-time love told me he was no longer attracted to me, because I’d put on some weight. Well, what kind of relationship could two people have when one was no longer attracted to the other? I hated him. I hated him so much for making me feel inadequate and freakish. And I argued with myself about it, I still do. Went through cycles of feeling disgusting and huge. Stopped looking at myself in the mirror — it’s amazing how one can get used to only looking at their face and ignoring the rest of the body. I justified that I hadn’t really gained that much weight, citing my now tighter (“but still fitting!”) clothes as a product of age and not of laziness. I told myself that I’d only gained about five pounds a year, but I kept ignoring the fact that after eight years, that added up to quite a sum. I would tell myself that I still played racquetball, and that I only got winded climbing up the stairs at school, because, hey, those stairs are steep! And I told myself that I was pretty. That I wasn’t ugly. But did I believe it? No. Not really.

Why would I? Hanging in my closet were old shirts that now looked comically tiny when I wormed my way in, old pants that couldn’t fit over my legs, and tiny dresses that fit more like tight rubber than loose fabric. It wasn’t a lie — the weight was there. I could feel it when I walked, I felt it when I sat down and my little belly poofed out instead of wrinkling in. And I started buying larger clothes — slowly at first. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that I wasn’t a size 7 juniors anymore. I was a size 12 lady. But I thought this a temporary admission, I mean I had to wear something. I did my best to make myself seem small, my wardrobe got darker and my clothes baggier. Forty pounds are not easy to hide. And at 5′2″, we’re not talking a shapely padding. We’re talking full on chubs.

Now, I know I’m still not huge-huge at all. I’m still less than average. But I’m a lot  more than me, the me I used to be. And even though I haven’t been me since early college, that’s the me I imagine. That the me I want to see in the mirror. Not pin-thin, but without the extra ounces of glycerol obscuring what had once been (dare I say it) the hotness of my youth. Then again, we all gain weight. No one looks like they did when they were eighteen, except hollywood starlets who can afford personal trainers and freaky anorexics who hate themselves and food. I decided it was okay to hate yourself if you still loved food. So I learned to be all right with the gain. I was, after all, still the same person.

But I wanted my love to love me that way. I thought about my mother and her cancer. The way time and illness turned her body into a jigsaw puzzle, with light pink scars tracing what used to be young and silly and taught and something completely different. And I thought about age and life — how it changes you.  How the wear of skin and the layers of fat carry you — a visual reminder of who you are, and in my case, the many meals I’ve enjoyed. I used to laugh and say to myself, “well, at least I tasted every pound that went in.” And it was delicious. And I loved it. And I do still.

But I’m trying to change. I’m trying to get rid of all my dirty habits and avoid the quick solutions. My grandmother offered me liposuction, and I had to refuse. It is too much of a risk. And it never seems right. I have aunts of who have plasticked themselves shiny and new, but the packaging never looks good — the way anything repackaged and reconstructed appears. There’s something for doing it the old way. So I’m dieting. But not a quick, easy, fabulous diet. Just a slow, eating-better kinda diet. And I’m running. A couple of miles a day. It’s not coming off fast, and I’m certainly not running that fast, but I hope it will come off steadily as my pace increases with time.

I still find myself sabotaging the intention. Craving and giving into a cupcake or peanut butter covered whoppers (how sinful an invention!) or anything at Whataburger (I’m only in Texas for a little while!), but I understand that I do this to myself. So much in diet culture do we see ourselves as victims — and some of us are. Some folk are dealt a bad hand by genetics and socioeconomics, race and school lunches. But I wasn’t. I just got soft. And I want to change that. And not because some idiot boyfriend thinks I’m chubby. But because sometimes it takes an idiot boyfriend to realize that you’re letting yourself go for no reason other than complacency.

Look, you’re probably wondering what this has to do with your problem. What my weight issues have to do with your girlfriend and your wedding and how you feel about her. I guess that in order to talk about another person’s weight issues, I feel the need to tell you about my own as away of understanding the complexity of it all — how simple and yet unnecessarily complicated we make these things for ourselves. What it comes down to is this: maybe she’s finally ready to lose the weight. She finally had something important enough to warrant doing something the flab, and she wants to do it. It happens. Hell, every muscle in my body hurts right now, because I finally decided to do something. So give her time to get it done.

I asked my friends for advice with this one. And they all offered different responses. One said that she wouldn’t even know where to begin, she freaks out about ten pounds. Another pointed out that you should just love her the way she is.  Two didn’t even respond. I’ll post four of their responses at the end. Worth reading, methinks.

Don’t underestimate the importance of the wedding picture. If not, there wouldn’t be such a thing as Buff Brides. I spent hours of my childhood watching my parents’ wedding video and pouring over their wedding portrait, proud of how young and beautiful they were. How healthy and happy and full of hope. How perfect they both seemed. And my mother still freaks out about how crooked one of her teeth looks in the picture. And oh, she’ll bemoan, if I’d closed my mouth a little, the photograph would have been exactly right.

So Ms. Chubs wants to be perfect for her moment. Let her be. Give her the gift of your patience. You love her, you want to marry her? Then understand that this is something she wants. And yes, it’s an obsession. Eight years of weight gain cannot be undone in a week. I have no idea how long your girl’s been gaining weight, but if it’s a significant amount, it requires a whole lot of emotional and psychological support, and an obsessive amount of discipline. And it’s delicate and sensitive and not easy at all in the least. This will require more will power than she thinks she has. Than anyone thinks they have. Trust me; I know. It’s really easy to hate working out and eating less.  And half the time you want to give up and eat a freaking donut, because, whatever, that donut is really good and who likes running anyway, when it’s so hard because you’re carrying all this weight, and back when you were fit you were lighter and that was easier then and the donut is the easier thing now. But gosh darnedest, you ain’t gonna eat it. Because you’re stronger than fried dough.

So she wants you to do it with her… then do. Get on that treadmill and show her that love is not just words. Sometimes it’s actions. Don’t go under the knife, but give it the old college try. Like it means something. Like you’re tired of staring at the same number every time you step on the scale. Like you understand that she wants to be her best self on the day she marries you. And if she doesn’t make, love her just as much. And tell her it doesn’t matter. That she’s beautiful.

Other people have opinions too. And since I took so long to answer your question, I’ll post the responses I got whole. Four different girlfriends (ahem) weigh in on the matter (I love puns):

Lots of people I know, male and female both, have put on some pounds
after getting in a relationship. “Fat and happy” came from somewhere,
and it’s as common as the freshman 10 (or 15).

If the GF just wants to get back to where she was, help her. Eat well,
exercise, do shit around the house so she has time to get to the gym.
Losing weight isn’t about dieting, it’s about a consistently healthy
lifestyle; maybe yours together isn’t all that healthy right now.

Or… have you ever asked your significant other if they want a
massage not because you really want to give a massage but because your
shoulders are in knots & you’re dying for one? It’s a dumb, passive
away to try to get a massage, sure, but the idea is that if you put it
out there, maybe it’ll get turned around. Maybe the GF’s anxiety about
her weight is actually a kind of dissatisfaction with the BF’s weight
that she doesn’t want to articulate.

Or maybe she’s got some serious self-esteem stuff going on.

In any event, surgery is drastic, expensive and unhealthy except in
the rarest of cases. Unless the GF is morbidly obese, it’s not a real
option.

Another friend says

1) Mr. Chubs could get on an exercise regimen with Ms. Chubs. It could be one or more times a week when they break a sweat outside of the bedroom and then reward themselves for their efforts. One excursion might be a bike ride followed by a romantic picnic. It’s important to point out that as fun as being chubby may be, it’s bad for your health. And while it’s not good to obsess over it, it’s wise to eat and exercise so you can enjoy a long life together.

2) Go to couples therapy through the wedding day. Surgery is not an answer, as it is life-threatening and not worth even the cosmetic risks. Therapy is something religious leaders encourage anyway. It’s a way to be on the same page with your partner and think through love’s unforseen trials. Catholics do it, my Jewish friends are doing it. Regardless of your affiliation, all can agree that therapy is a good thing.

3) Pick a body part and fetish over it. Each time you get between the sheets choose a thigh, a love handle, an earlobe—and take your time loving it. Sex can be rushed through so often and this will be a chance for you both to celebrate each other’s fleshy shells. Pour some chocolate on it, talk dirty to it, dress it up in lace. There’s nothing like the ecstasy of affirmation.

Love each other. And no silent treatment! Never go to sleep upset at one another. Each day is a microcosm of a life o’ lovin’.

Number three…

I am probably the wrong person to respond to this guy because I obsess over ten pounds (and it sounds like she is worried about a few more pounds than that.)  However, I hope that someone responded that if she is concerned about his weight for vanity and not for health reasons, he should probably take that as a bad sign . . .

And last but not least…

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to look your best, so maybe the guy should support his lady in her desire to lose some weight.  He can constantly affirm her beauty, no matter what her weight, but he can also acknowledge the legitimacy of her desire to look and feel good.  I wonder if perhaps she’s having such a tough time losing the weight because they have developed some unhealthy eating patterns together.  For him to really support her, it might mean cutting back on the desserts, eating out less, and keeping her motivated exercising by going jogging or biking with her from time to time.  But this doesn’t have to be a complete hardship…hiking to a beautiful scenic spot or getting creative cooking healthy meals together can be super fun and rewarding (and sexy…what else are you going to do while waiting for your vegetables to steam?).  She might also want to see a doctor too, though, just in case her weight gain stems from biological stuff like thyroid issues or food allergies.  But one suggestion is that they make a deal…she sets a reasonable goal of weight loss, and when she reaches that goal, they set the date for their marriage.

There you have it. Best of luck. I hope you figure it out, and I do hope you get married. Sounds like you love her. And that should be (I hope) enough to carry you through.