i'm OPEN!
i play soccer once a week on mondays. it reminds me of high school. it also reminds me of my father, because WHEN i was in high school, playing soccer pretty much daily, he had what i called “old man soccer” (or oms) once or twice a week. and sometimes i would go with him for fun. also, lots of those old men were really good, and like, from brazil or some shit. and i would play with them and be way better because i was in better shape and i was younger. but there would always be the one old man on the other team who was way better than me. he was the one from brazil obviously.
digression: my dad only befriended foreigns so i knew a pablo, a chang, a felix, a kszyszek, a leszek, a tadeusz, a dharma and a randy. the randy actually was american and my dad calls him chief. they were all nice.
but anyway. now i am 22 and not in high school and playing adult soccer. it’s not quite oms for ME but it is for some of the guys on my team! yesterday, we lost really badly. our team is full of really great players (some of them are foreign even!) playing now is always surreal, whether i play well or not. for one thing, we play on pier 40 and it is a floating turf field surrounded by manhattan skyscrapers. i have to take the train there. this makes me feel weird, to be dressed for soccer and carrying my shin guards and socks in my bag. and on the ride HOME i am all sweaty and red in the face. i feel weird about that, being exposed and post-athletic in public. playing now also feels surreal because yesterday, there were grown men FIGHTING on the field. one guy kicked another guy which started this whole revenge foul for foul thing. then we lost, and i also lost count of the goals against, it was like ten or eight i think. up there.
but the first week i was in pain two days after playing, and now i feel fine. it’s funny because i am not in good shape at all, it’s the winter and i am fat and i don’t like being outside and i try not to walk places. but i really want to keep playing when it gets nice out and maybe go running sometimes. nothing too crazy but maybe like twice a week. UGHHH i want to score a goal.