As I See It

I've spent the better part of these last few years talking about the unfortunate things that have happened to me, and as a result, this blog has tapered off a bit (that, and I am writing a thesis; a little leeway should be given in regards to that).  After all, there is only so much dwelling that one can do on the darker parts of one's navel before one turns completely and desperately inward.

But then I meet Catherine.  And things took a step in the awesome direction.

So, while reflecting in the shower (my favorite of reflection zones), I decided I should enlighten those who aren't familiar with what has happened recently.  Or at least shed some light on us from my unique perspective.

About July, I got an email from a former girlfriend of mine who had read a particularly depressing blog entry and decided that enough was enough.  Maybe so that she didn't have to listen to me gripe anymore, or maybe she was overwhelmed, as she writes about in her blog, by a feeling to help someone too strong to ignore. Either way, she sent me this email, via Facebook:

I know this sounds weird and totally random, but I think you should meet up with Catherine this summer. I haven't spoken to either of you in years, but I just have this feeling.Ok. That's all!

A bit of backstory: this girlfriend and I had what I considered to be a bit of a tumultuous breakup (especially because I was at the tender age of 14 or 15, when all breakups were tumultuous, heart-rendering affairs), and we had only sparing conversations in the intervening 16 years between the breakup and the above email.  An email from an estranged ex-girlfriend looking to set me up with a friend of hers who I vaguely remembered from my time in high school seemed like: a) an elaborate payback for something I did wrong when I was a wee teenager (I was wee, too, in high school); or b) a totally random, nearly blind date set-up that could, at best, be a pleasant distraction from my crippling loneliness, or at worst, be an uncomfortable evening.  I found out from Mo that she had sent a similar email to Catherine.  So I did what all suave, tech-savvy 21st century men do: sent a friend request and then constantly checked my Facebook account for validation.

See: I knew Catherine was given the same instructions from Mo, so I figured I would take the first step and reach out.  Having crossed that threshold, I figured she would email me to say hello and break the verbal ice.  Once my virtual friendship was accepted, and I creepily trolled through all her pictures as one does these days, before I resumed checking Facebook to see when she would take a step closer to me.

And nothing.

Depending on my mood, I claim it was anywhere between a few days to a month or so before I decided to sack up and send her an email (it more than likely was about two days, if even that).  After pining for months on end, I decided to give it one last try; I was going to send a short email to see if we could just talk to each other in a safe, virtual environment.  If there was no response to this second attempt, I was just going to give up, pack it in, pull up stakes in America, and ex-patriate for good.

This second attempt is probably the best decision I have made in some time.  The email, which was quite short, hinted that I read her blog, and that she should continue writing.  I write.  A lot.  So I figured this might be some common ground.  Again, I waited.  But this time, I got a response.  To which I responded.  And on and on and on.  Then, without much warning, plans were made, times set, etc.

Suddenly, I had a date.  Catherine might say that she understood our initial meeting differently, but I want to officially go on record to claim that on our first date we saw Horrible Bosses at the Woodridge Theatre.  July 8, 2011.  I also want to retrospectively thank her for not wanting to see Green Lantern (which was my first suggestion, and which, when I saw it on the plane here in the fall, was terrible).

From those humble beginning (we also shared some food at Buffalo Wild Wings), things began snowballing, one date turned into a second date.  That turned into two consecutive nights of dating.  More emails.  More dating.  Weekends away.  Family to meet.  Less time spent apart than together.  Soon, by the end of the summer, I was seeing her every night and staying up way to late for either of us to be productive.

This, though, was not the plan.  As I had said, I saw it as a date when we saw Horrible Bosses, but I did not hold out too much hope that we would last.  I had done long distance relationship before (in fact, most in my adult life have had some distance put between myself and the woman I am dating), and it never worked out well.  It had worked out disastrously in the last instance, and I was neither keen to make that same mistake, or get put myself in that emotional position again.  I figured this would be a summer fling, something to get my mojo back before I jetted off for sunny, sexy Aberystwyth.  And here I was, September and falling madly in love with another Chicago woman.

We decided to play it by ear and see if we could give this thing a chance.  I'll give this to Catherine: she is one of the few people who I've actually grown closer to over Skype.  She gets up early to talk to me before work.  We talk during her lunch hour.  Then she'll call me when she gets home from work.  Granted, not every day, but without fail, she makes time for me (and I in turn make time for her).  Surprisingly, our relationship was flourish despite being 3000 miles apart.

This is not to say that things have always been easy.  I won't air our dirty laundry on the internet, but I will say that we have somehow made this work through mostly virtual communication.  That, in and of itself, speaks volumes to both our dedication to this relationship; a dedication that made me relax a lot more as things seemed to race towards seriousness.

She came out for a visit in October which was too fast and hectic to remark on much.  It was a last minute trip decided upon when Catherine decided she wanted to see me and didn't want to wait until Christmas.  I was glad she made that decision, because I was missing her equally as badly.  Plus, she got to witness my Glorious Winter Beard in all its glorious wintry-ness.  I like to think that I converted Catherine to a beard lover on that trip.

When I went home for Christmas, I saw her nearly every day, and we even made appearances at each other's family Christmas Gatherings.  It was a chance for our families to spend more time with the mysterious person the other was dating.  After all, I had known Catherine for a scant two months before jetting off to Wales; hardly enough time to get to know each other.

Unfortunately, all this dog-and-pony-ing that we did left little time for us.  It was decided, then, that Catherine would come to visit me, and just me, in London for a week (originally Italy, but neither of us speak Italian, and that could have been just as hectic as Christmas).

Between Christmas and her visit, I had this niggling feeling at the back of my mind that Catherine was the one for me.  Every time this thought popped into my head, I did what every grown man secure in his emotional development would do: panicked and dove into work.  Catherine would occasionally bring up similar feelings, and I tried desperately not to talk about it.  I pleaded that she just accept that I was committed to her, and that things would progress naturally.  I just needed time to think (or, in most cases, ignore the issue entirely).

Honestly, I was scared to become engaged again.  It didn't work out well for me last time, and though I knew Catherine was different, I didn't want to take a similar step that blew up in my face.  I needed time, I kept telling myself.  Time.

And yet, I found myself drifting to jewelry stores when I wandered through town.  In Aberystwyth, most of the jewelry shops have their wares on display in windows facing outside, and I would stand staring at the rings until something would snap and I would run away.  Sometimes, the workers would ask me if I needed help, and I would stammer and walk away like someone casing the joint to rob it.  I was a mess.  I would think about getting married to Catherine, freak out about it, ignore it, find myself outside a jewelry store, freak out again, and repeat.

Sometimes, though, like with Mo emailing me, the Universe reaches out and shoves you toward the right thing to do.

See: I am a practical person by nature.  I like to buy stuff, but I don't like to pay more than I have to.  The weekend before Catherine was meant to come to London, one of the jewelry stores in town put a lot of their engagement rings on sale for up to 50% off.  I actually found myself saying, At prices like these, I would be a fool NOT to buy the ring.  So, with the Universe's boot squarely up my ass, I bought a simple diamond setting that I agnonized over for several days, and then again for about an hour at the store.  You see: Catherine doesn't wear jewelry.  Hardly ever.  So I had no idea what to get her, save the few small hints she gave: not too big, simple, not too showy.

I wasn't sure when I would ask her, but I had the ring.  And that was a big step.  I took it with me to London, figuring if the opportunity presented itself, I would ask her.  I left myself an out though.  I had planned a nice dinner with her, one in which we got dressed up.  Since I was going to be missing her birthday, and because Valentine's Day was earlier in the week, I figured the dinner could count for both.  But, if things were going well, I could also propose.

In short: things went amazingly.  And by Sunday, I was never so sure of anything in my life.  All the anxiety and second-guessing seemed like something I had dreamed, like something vaguely remembered from a past life.  So, after we walked home from dinner, I asked her in the condo we rented that belonged to the former Ambassador to Portugal in Nottinghill.  A perfect ending to a perfect week.

Now, all that remains is the rest of our lives.

Football, Celebrations, Narrative and Cultural Differences

I like the Super Bowl, particularly as I have become something of an expert on American sports among my friends here in the UK.  Not because I know a lot (which I know some), but because I have regularly seen some games, and in one rare instance, I have seen a game live.  And I am the only one in the room who has been within a few hundred miles of an American football game.  Thus: expert.  

But really, the game itself is not so different from any other game.  One team tries to get an object from one end of the field to the other.  American football does this by running and throwing the ball, and occasionally kicking it.  This is essentially true for rugby, though there is significantly more kicking there, and for what the rest of the world calls football, which actually only uses the foot to move the ball, making it the most aptly named football. That aspect of the game is not too hard to grad.  

Even the more minute aspects of the game can be picked up from watching it for a little bit.  The total number of downs, rule violations like holding and roughing the passer, and crucial issues like when a catch is a catch will either be explained by the TV or by common sense.  Oh...so when the guy holds the other guy that's called   holding.  I can be more valuable, as I was this game, when the more bizarre violations come up, like an intentional grounding or a safety.  But even then I tend to just say what the TV presenters would say eventually.  

What I can do is shed some light on the cultural differences between British sports and American sports, particularly football.  And one major difference happens almost immediately in every football game: celebrations/grand standing.  Everything from routine tackles to touchdowns seem to warrant a hyper-masculine display of dominance.  People like Jared Allen and Roy Williams (the receiver who celebrates every catch as if he just cured cancer) are some the worst celebrators.

Now, before everyone gets on me for saying that these sorts of celebrations are an American thing, I know full well that soccer and rugby players are equally as celebratory when they score a goal.  More so, some of these celebrations can border on the absurd.  That said, most soccer players only celebrate when they score a goal, and in most games that is not more than once or twice a team each game.  In football, the American kind, people celebrate after every minor achievement.  If the cornerback disrupts the play, he might pop up and wave his arms around wildly as if to suggest that he would never let a completion happen when he was on the field (regardless of how many times a wide receiver might make a catch).  A safety tackles a running back in the open field and he acts as if such things could never happen (again, despite the previous history of the game).  

Roy Williams, who was on my home team, the Bears, is awful about this.  This year, he had 37 receptions for 507 yards and 2 touchdowns.  That makes him about the 70th best receiver in the game, excluding running backs and tight ends, and his worst season by far.  Some more interesting stats: historically, Roy Williams drops 8.2% of his passes, and he leads the league in this particular category; also, he is the third most unreliable receiver in the game, catching 48% of the passes thrown his way.  And with the Bears, that was no exception.  Despite his mediocre season and piss-poor stats, when he did make a completion, he would pop up off the grass mimicking the first down indication from the line judges.  Seeing a man celebrate performing the task he earns millions to do when he leads the league in not doing that job (and it is assumed that he probably won't) grates on the nerves.  Just what is he celebrating?  Not sucking?  

It raises questions about what is worthy of a celebration.  Most people who don't like or see the value in sports would say that none of these mutant freaks should celebrate being doing something as simple as getting a ball across a line.  After all, what really changed when that happened?  Society is not better, people still die of diseases, our climate is running rampantly out of control, and my iPod can only hold 120 GB.  Scoring a touchdown did nothing to improve the lives of anyone.

I'm not in that camp, and I see some value to sports as an entertainment, and even more so as a means of social narrative.  So the touchdown, for my interests in the game, serve as important narratological moments, indicators of when the narrative shifts.  However, not everything that happens is significant.  When discussing note taking and high lighting, my college professor Mark Willhardt used to say that when everything is highlighted, nothing is important; that is, when you suggest that everything is worthy of attention, then nothing is singled out as being important.  The same rule should apply to football: when you make an important play, one that changes the nature of the game...then you can celebrate.  Sack a quarterback for a ten yard loss on third and one?  Celebrate.  Sack a quarterback for no loss on first and ten, when two plays later his team is celebrating a touchdown?  Well...that celebration seems a bit premature.

This, though, brings us to the heart of the issue: narrative suggestions.  I like to consider all of football to be one massive narrative construction.  Each aspect of the game is like telling a story, and the celebration is included in that.  What the player is saying with his celebration is not that what he just did is important in that moment, but that what he did is important for the outcome of the game.  An historical inevitability that will eventually culminate with several other similar celebrations to cap off the narrative of victory that was started with that first every-day tackle in the open field.  What the middle line backer is saying when he sacks the quarterback and does a stupid dance is not just that he is proud of what he's done, but he is foreshadowing the eventual celebration at the end of the game.  Sometimes, the opposing team will buy that narrative and succumb to the psychological trickery.  Other times, and as is often the case with people defending Roy Williams, they will wait for him to screw up again, and change the nature of the narrative being written.  

Maybe if soccer games had to end with a winner and a loser, there might be more reason to celebrate the smaller things.  With the option of a draw, what is the point of foreshadowing a mutual non-win?  There is a certain competitive drive that stems from telling a story of victory and leads to this type of display, and a situation in which a draw is possible just doesn't foster that competition.  Not that soccer players aren't as competitive; it's just a different story being told, and one most Americans are not keen to watch unfold.  

There was one other thing my British friends didn't understand: the Giants were crowned the World Champions when they won the Super Bowl.  For a league that doesn't even have a team outside the US, this seems like a spurious claim.  Baseball and basketball at least have teams in Canada to give the thinnest veneer of World Wide Competition.  But the NFL is only American, and purely American.  Until the NFL is global commodity, and with the possibility of expanded games in London, it might be more of a possibility, tit is a little premature to call the Giants the World Champions.  Even if we can assume that, with no other possible teams and little interest, the Giants would mop the floor with everyone else (hell, probably even the Seahawks could do that), that claim can't be made until the Giants have bested all the world's competition.  When that happens, and I hope it will be in my lifetime, then there will be reason to celebrate.