my new spiritual discipline …

… is: watching Arsenal play soccer.

For the past few years I have rarely watched Arsenal matches live. Too much stress for me, too much swearing for my family. Highlights and replays have been good enough. I watch lots and lots of live soccer; just not any featuring the team I (however reluctantly, grudgingly, painfully) support.

Basically, I’ve become like my Uncle Bob, who for decades now has declined to watch University of Alabama football games live. (American college football, y’all.) He records them, and then, when the game should be over, he calls his sister, AKA my mother. The conversations always go the same way: the phone rings, my mom answers, Uncle Bob says “Can I watch?” My mom says Yes or No. If Yes, he hangs up and watches the game; if No, he hangs up and deletes his recording. Simple.

And yet … not ideal, I think? Or rather, I know — I know because too often I have watched matches knowing exactly how they will turn out. Takes away some of the excitement, to say the least. And back when I watched live, I saw things like, oh, you know, the most beautiful goal ever scored in the Premier League. Saw it as it happened.

Thus my new discipline, starting in about one hour: watching Arsenal play Premier League footy. It’s gonna be terrible. They’ll give away cheap penalties, Xhaka will be sent off, they’ll be totally incompetent on defense, their attack will look fluid but will be unable to create any goals, and I’ll spend the last ten minutes of the match listening to Palace supporters sing “You’re getting sacked in the morning” to Mikel Arteta. Yay.

Also, they’ll finish fifth again. You can count on it. But I love these guys anyway.