Three games to go, one of which is the third-place game so that hardly counts. I was disappointed in the result yesterday but it was a very open game. Germany had the better chances over ninety minutes but couldn’t put it away. Since the tournament began, my new favorite player has been Philip Lahm for Bayern Munich and Germany. He scored a wundergol in the World Cup opener and has impressed me with his solid defensive work and surging runs up the side. And he’s only 5’7″, 135 lbs. If I could do it all over again, I think I’d want to play left back.
Unfortunately, I can’t do it all over again and I’m stuck with what I’ve got. I got another round of pick-up in and experienced another ride on the rollercoaster that is my post-30 ability. I wasn’t categorically awful but I was a long way from good—maybe within touching distance of competent. I had two flashes of brilliance—a goal on a full volley and a left-footed strike from distance at an acute angle—and the rest was mostly crap. The ball appeared to be negatively charged with my foot.
It wasn’t a great experience for anyone, really. The teams were too unbalanced in terms of skill and my team was far less fit to boot. The worst part was that my boots finally gave up the ghost, the leather tearing away from the sole on the right foot and splitting on the instep on the left. I thought in this day and age a fellow could pick up a pair of adidas Copa Mundials, the best soccer shoe on the planet, for $50. I am wrong. They’re $90 almost everywhere.
Don Quixote‘s capacity to reason reminds me of our country’s recent logic regarding foreign policy. Which is frightening.
I am now almost half-way done (300 pages) with the first volume of The Thousand Nights and the One Night, or about 1/8th through the full set. I’ve realized that the longer stories tend to be less entertaining than the ones broken into smaller segments. Right now I’m working my way through the tale of Ali-Nur and Sweet Friend and it’s not one of my favs.
I’m almost done with Jeff Ford’s Empire of Ice Cream and I’ll be sad when I’m done. I’m part of the way through “The Trentino Kid” and I skipped the longest story “Botch Town” but all the stories here are fabulous. Like all masters of their craft, Jeff makes it look deceptively easy.
And not that I need anything else phone book-length to read, but on a whim I picked up The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm last night while waiting for the computer to boot up and read the story Bearskin. It rocked. I’ve read very few Grimm stories and none of Hans Christian Andersen. Too much to read, too much to read…
Did I mention I’ve got Titus Groan and The Well at the End of the World on deck once I’m done listening to the Quixote?
Right, so it’s time to buckle down. Free time has been hard to come by in the last month but that’s changing with the World Cup ending on Sunday. One good sit-down should enable me to hammer out the rest of “Sleeping Weather” and I’ve gotten some good feedback on “Five African Beers.” I’ve gotten a few rejections in the past few weeks (all very positive) and should be getting a few more soon, so I need to insert these two in the queue somewhere.
I’ve mentioned this before (I think) but I’m strongly considering expanding “Castleneff” into a novel. It’s only been out once (rejected with compliments by Gordon at F&SF, primarily because this episode deals with a trip to the afterlife and he’d seen too many of those lately) and I need to make a few changes to it before it goes out again. But I think once I arrange the other episodes into the framework I’m imagining, the story will almost write itself. Each chapter stands alone but as a connected part of the whole. Write about 10 of those and you’ve got a novel. So what am I waiting for?
Got my contract from Weird Tales on Monday for “Working Out Our Salvation.” Contracts are nice.
Current Mood: So So | 
Currently Listening To – Wilco – “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot”
4 Comments
You know after I finished Treasure Island, I was considered giving The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, which is sitting on my dresser a read. The problem is every time I attempt to do this I read a couple of stories, am entertained and everything, but always ended up putting the thing down.
By the way, the Wierd Tales story, which story was that again? Like what happens in it?
The Weird Tales story is the one about the miner who continually comes back to life.
Oh! I really liked that one! That wasn’t the original title, though, right?
No, I think the original title was “Coal Black Blues.”
I should post it to the site so you can see the differences between the original and the final.
I hear you on the reading, too. It’s hard to push through such a long book when there’s no through-line to follow. It makes it too easy to put down.
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[...] I’m also finding that you become extremely popular by volunteering to play in the back. As I stated earlier, Germany’s Philip Lahm (note the one ‘l’ in ‘Philip’ if you’re reading this, Dr. Phil) has inspired me to play as an attacking outside back. We don’t really play in positions until the game gets big, 8v8 or 9v9, and then they’re sort of obligatory. That’s when I drift to left or right back. I’m not a great defender one-on-one but I’m good at picking up loose balls and steaming into attack. The general recipe is I beat one or two guys in midfield and dish the ball off to an open striker. My moves are terrible but I can ping the ball around pretty well and thread passes through a crowd. Crossing is one area where I actually still excel. [...]