Breaking: I Feel Bad & Blame the NRL

My mum called and I told her I felt very bad, like shit, and she said she also felt very bad and like shit. She asked me are you keeping up with your blog and I said no. She asked me are you going to watch the grand final or not even bother and I said yeah, I’ll watch it, and she asked who are you going for, the Roosters and I said yeah, the Roosters and it’s hard to say but upon reflection maybe my reaction wasn’t quite in line with the spectacle and scope of the occasion. I don’t know. All I know is that I am adrift from my moorings and football is no longer my psychic anchor.

Are these two factors related? Whatever, it’s too late to find out. This is probably for the best. My frame of mind is in no way right for another long and maddening year of total involvement, total immersion. I cracked under the strain in June, things still aren’t right.

I understand that there are people who have maintained an abiding interest in the machinations of the NRL and that despite it being rendered a flaccid imitation of its former self they are still invested and interested in the cheap, second-rate product that’s been passed off to them.

I had a boyfriend and his mother was constantly disguising the cheap wine and cheap milk she’d buy by decanting it into superior bottles. She was Sicilian and overly concerned with appearances. She offered him $500 to cut off his dreadlocks and when he refused, with extreme prejudice, she took me aside and offered me $1000 to do it “while he sleep”.

The NRL is watered-down liquor in a flashy bottle. It’s also sort of a simulacrum of itself. Like how McDonalds sell you the picture of the burger, the burger as symbol, not the actual burger, so that what you’re buying is effectively the imitation of the idea? What we’re watching, or increasingly not watching as the case may be, is an imitation of the idea. I find it extremely difficult to concentrate on the cheap realities of the game under these conditions.
I’ve been forced to seek my exit from a world I find hostile and complicated elsewhere. In gentle narcotics, mostly.  

It’s probably a problem. I’m suffering, WNTTAT is suffering, we are all suffering. Except those who aren’t, of course. And good for them. I wouldn’t welcome them into my home or anything, but good for them, the McDonalds eating fucks.