-
As Rich as She Could Be
Dolly Parton – in songs, stories, and sparkles I was maybe 15 years old the first time I saw Dolly Parton. She was sitting across from Michael Parkinson, lighting up the little television in glorious technicolor. She was all big hair and rhinestones and wit, unapologetic and fully aware of the sparkling production she had created – the sheer excess of it. Almost fifty years later, she may be the reason I still wear make-up. I love more than a little sparkle, and I don’t object to a shot of Botox here and there. Why look tired if you don’t feel tired? I heard her give an interview once…
-
The World Cup. According to America.
The morning after every World Cup feels oddly quiet. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to arranging your life around football – and how strange it feels when there is suddenly no match to arrange it around. Then you start remembering what you’ll miss and somehow you find yourself convinced that the entire world has been waiting for your postmortem on the World Cup. Ergo … For me, it begins with Mexico. Look. Football-loving countries already know what a World Cup feels like. Mexico simply reminded us. Naturally, I began the tournament in my green jersey, cheering for Mexico. (Had Ireland qualified, I would have been in the same…
-
The Long Way Home.
WordPress wished me a happy 17th anniversary this morning. Seventeen years. I confess I had completely lost track. I’ve also lost reading glasses, passwords, and the occasional parked car, so this felt entirely on brand. Still, it’s funny how one little notification can send you wandering backwards. I am a marker of time. It’s probably a very Irish habit. We remember dates. We attach meaning to them. We keep track of anniversaries, arrivals, departures, and the exact year something happened, even if we can’t remember why we walked into a room. Which is why I noticed that today comes with a few milestones attached. Thirty-eight years ago today, I became a…
-
I Don’t Actually Like Sports. I Like People.
Click to get new essays for free My friends are asking why I keep writing about World Cup football. They know me after all. It’s a fair question because I’m not really writing about football. I’m writing about people. Which is probably why I’ve always loved great sports writers, even though I don’t really love sports. They’re writing about hope, failure, obsession, redemption, identity, grief, joy – all the things the rest of us spend our lives trying to make sense of. The setting just happens to be a baseball field or a soccer pitch or an American football stadium. The game is just their canvas. I’m sure these writers…
