Southern Crosses

The good news is that I'm still COVID free, despite the machinations of my xenophile children and their lazy, lazy immune systems. I'm still waiting to get the last OK from my middle son, the last one who has not definitively tested negative yet. He's the only one that has come down with an actual COVID cough and has the most lingering symptoms, and still he keeps "forgetting" to test to see if he's still actively shedding virus at me. So I'm in a holding pattern until I get a confirmed "all-clear" from the world's pre-eminent procrastinator. I'm just proud I made a person who is the best at something.

The bad news is that, with an uncertain exposure status, I'm required to work remotely, out of the office, until I'm sure I'm not about to explode into a cloud of green gas killing everything in the room with me, like the liquid balls of inanimate Danger MacGuffin from the 1996 Michael Bay subtle think-piece about veteran care and the military-industrial complex, The Rock.

Wait, did I say that was the "bad news"? I misspoke, what I meant to say was ah aha ahaha ahHAhaHAH HAhaHAHAhaHAHAHAHAhaHAHAHAHAHAhahaHAAAAAAAAAA-woooOOOOOOOOOOO!

Not only is not having to drive into an office every day and still get paid the same pretty effin' sweet, this is also happening when the 2023 World Cup is playing out down there in New Zealand and Australia. Everyone puts "Australia and New Zealand" for some reason, with Australia automatically first? What the fuck? Maybe by size, maybe alphabetical, I don't know. I went to graduate school to study Welsh history just because nobody would shut the fuck up about England all the time. I have a thing.

As I've chronicled here in the past, I have a tiny sort of compulsive thing with every World Cup since 1994 where I basically have to watch EVERY SINGLE GAME AVAILABLE OR COULD MAYBE DIE, NOT SURE WHY RISK IT?! The overnight schedule of it happening halfway around the world has been conducive to lining up the VOD versions and watching them in order, in the background as I start my early workday, each one from home so far because of the great gift of Almost Having COVID.

Impressions so far: it's fun to watch a real winter World Cup away yonder in the Upside Down, not that bullshit in Qatar last year where it was December in the Northern Hemisphere, but still 97 degrees there in the middle of the night. Basically Phoenix but with oil. Similar human rights record, though.

Though I'm watching all the games, I'm of course focused on the U!S!A! The games so far have been pretty fraught with meaning, against Vietnam and the Netherlands, two nations we both have relatively recent stinging losses to on the record, though the latter is in men's football last December and the former is in bloody shooting war that lasted nearly two decades. Like I said, relative. I was going to say armed conflict tends to stick in the memory more than sport, but ask any English person about 1966 and I'll be proved a liar.

So far the team has looked a little choppy, not as slick or consistent as a U.S. team can. I'm not the type to complain about style points in a 3-0 win over Vietnam, but I think any hesitancy about cohesion or form was borne out by a very nervy, janky 1-1 draw with the Dutch. I could make excuses about the players missing due to injury (Mallory Swanson, Becky Sauerbrunn, Sam Mewis...), but every team has injuries and we're over-blessed with a silly amount of depth vs. any other country. The fact of the matter is that the game globally is improving at an exponential rate and other teams are also good. At soccer I mean. As a country, the Netherlands is basically held together by wishes and vibes. Makes nice postcards, but seems like a pending Roland Emmerich film. You can have your lousy group-stage point.

The last game against Portugal has some stakes now that they beat Vietnam today. Possibilities still exist that the US could miss out on the knockout stage altogether, depending on how things break, but that's the joy and agony of every single World Cup experience. All I need to do is find a way to get exposed to another deadly contagion and I can fully take in the last two weeks of voluntary sweating tension without being distracted by secondary stupid shit like my job.