I have always been an early riser, but for a long time that meant only, or mostly, work: wake up, shower and dress, ingest the life-giving caffeinated fluids, and get some writing done before the rest of the world can start plucking at my sleeve. It’s an M.O. that has served me well. The more I get done in the rising day, the earlier I can ease off the gas pedal, and the more completely I can relax in the evenings: sit back with a drink and watch some basketball or baseball—whatever sport happens to be on—with a wholly vacuous, nearly flatlining brain.
You build up these habits for a long time and they eventually become not second nature so much as Nature 1.5: they simply constitute the way you function. So even on Saturday mornings I’m up with the lark, or whatever that bird is I hear outside my window; it’s been many years since I’ve been able to sleep in, even when up late the night before. I read the morning RSS feeds with a worker’s attentiveness: Gotta get through, gotta keep plugging, don’t skip anything, move right along. The mental equivalent of shoveling snow. Then, once the vigilant sectors of my brain have been satisfied or at least well-deceived, relaxation gradually becomes possible. There’s a football game this afternoon: I can lie on the couch and doze my way through it, catching up on some of the sleep my internal alarm won’t let me take in the morning. And then we’ll see what the evening brings.
All well and good. But then ESPN3 came along, and FoxSoccer.tv, and a world of little grainy P2P streams, and my tidy world went all lopsided. For so many years my love of soccer was largely literary, fed textually, accompanied by limited and intermittent visual confirmation—usually via Spanish-language TV—and then all of a sudden, or almost of a sudden, I could watch European soccer live. Regularly. Predictably.
And so my weekend mornings changed. Now I arise, get some coffee going, and fire up the laptop. It’s understood that I am not to be disturbed—but then, I’m usually pretty quiet and focused when going through my RSS feeds, so maybe this is nothing new. I’m not good at reading-and-talking or watching-soccer-and-talking. It’s true that the soccer-watching is the more intense encounter for me: I rarely twitch in my seat and shout exclamations when reading the New York Times, except when Thomas Friedman is saying something especially idiotic. But still, it’s a weekend morning spent doing something I delight in.
It’s when the match is over that things get a little strange. I close up the laptop and look about me, blinking a bit in the morning sun. I’ve had the experience—at once mental, emotional, and physiological—that sports fans have when watching their favorite game, and it’s still two hours until lunchtime. More troubling, those “vigilant sectors of my brain” that usually get early-Saturday-morning feeding still await attention. They’re surprised and more than a little annoyed that they have been neglected. I feel the need to do something manifestly productive, but simultaneously resent that feeling: it’s Saturday, dammit. I should be looking forward to that early afternoon sports nap. But wait: isn’t there a La Liga game at 2? I’ll want to be awake for that. . . . And by the time evening rolls around the last thing I feel I should be doing is watching more sports.
I sometimes wonder whether I will ever quite recover from these temporal dislocations. The old system fit with my work week: I could have, generally speaking, the same rhythm of attention and relaxation each day of the seven. But now the time is out of joint, and I spend much of the weekend slightly addled.
Ah well. It’s worth it—more than worth it. And now that Andy Gray’s fabled cold Wednesday nights at Stoke are televised, I have some weekday scheduling to worry about too: for when it’s evening in England it’s mid-afternoon here in Chicagoland, and I’m holding office hours, with students likely to come in any moment. If Leo Messi ever proves that he can handle hard tackles and Staffordshire muck, I had damned well better not be explaining comma splices when it happens.
Read More: American Notes
by Alan Jacobs · February 13, 2011
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Funny how most of my scheduling is around football games in the evening and EPL/La Liga. I hope getting outta college doesn’t change it.
I’ve lost countless hours of precious sleep for football and I rarely regret losing sleeping for games.
Well told. There’s a set of stripes reserved for the American fan. Have you ever been to a bar asking for an exotic channel at 9am?
On West Coast time, Saturday is my earliest day of the week.
That is funny, Calvino…something you’d only fully appreciate if you’ve been there.
It’s even worse when you wake up for a 4:30 game, end up watching a few more games, feel like the day is over, and realize it’s barely 10:45. If it weren’t for my Costco-brand snuggie, I don’t think my brain could handle the emotional weariness.
@Maxi I reserve an extra level of respect for west coasters who get up to watch the Saturday morning games. Superhuman.
Excellent article, Alan. I’m in the U.S. CT zone too, and though retired, go through a similar drill each weekend. Good thing we’re not obsessed.
This mirrors my life almost identically; I happen to be a late riser! I blame the recent student years.
Great article, and nice to see you did the Barton piece too, he’s a friend of my flatmate and he’s a genuinely great guy.
@ CST, Friday night drinking and 6:30 AM matches are difficult. Some days I make it up with a nap in the afternoon….sleeping through some Seria A matches on tv.
I woke up at 5:30 on a Saturday in January to drive to a friend’s place 20 minutes north just to watch Liverpool hang 3 on Wolves. Sort of worth it. I had a serious internal debate this Friday about the same arrangement for the Manchester derby, and decided against it. I’d trade those 4 hours of sleep—and the pain trying to keep up with my kids during the afternoon—to watch Rooney’s goal live. Bad choice this time.
There’s a pub in Pasadena that airs pretty much all the EPL games you could hope to digest on a Saturday morning- Lucky Baldwin’s on the corner of Raymond and Colorado. I’ve been there to watch United as early as 4:30 in the morning on a Saturday and it’s always packed. It can be strange to exit after the game an realize it’s not yet 7AM. Those who doubt the popularity of football in this country need only take a gander at an early morning crowd at this place, themselves all jerseys and scarves, to see that the future of the game is alive and well.
It’s always nice to see an article like this with positive responses. It makes me feel a little more sane despite the sleep deprevation.
Lately I’ve been overtly putting ESPN3 on during the workday, having the benefit of dual screen monitor and university T1 connection. Some of my more fanciful rationalizations for this involve how doing this actually increases my productivity by increasing my pulse and gluing me to my chair. Anyway, everyone’s always talking about how to use technology to leverage performance. I’ve just chosen to implement that in a particular way.
I’m on the West coast and fortunately (for me) my wife works early shifts at the weekend. I get to spend Saturday morning in bed watching the football and its all done by noon at the latest. What bliss it is to be alive!
All too familiar. Spice it up and throw in couple of kids in the scenario. Apart from them not understanding their dad can’t “look at this” every 2 seconds when there’s a game on. Try explaining to a 3 year old, that dad needs to change the channel on the big tv to watch his game in the morning without getting your eardrums blown.
@Mokka It will change it, learn how to work while getting updates on the web. (currently ‘watching’ Torres miss the back of the net repeatedly).
Great article, Alan. I’m usually out fairly late on Friday Night’s (I’m not a social animal by any means, though), and when I have to wake up early for Saturday games, I wake up for the match, watch it, and then stumble back to bed. Somehow, I’m able to fall back asleep, and the plan never fails.
I think we all have to ask ourselves a serious question. What beer is the most acceptable before 10am?
We have a Scouser bar in my hometown that opens early for all the big Liverpool matches or the occasional Arsenal-United game. For some reason, coming out of that particular cave, the 11 AM sun after a few beers seems that much brighter.
@Shann Guiness, the breakfast beer.
I think what we are getting into here is the idea of self-restraint. The technology used to be such that it did most of the work for us by limiting the amount of football we could get our hands on. Now the technology is providing us with limitless options and it on us to put on the breaks and find reasonable limits. It ain’t easy.
I was in Europe 2 months ago, on a personal solo soccer tour. I went to see Ajax take on Milan at the San Siro for the Champions League, and I couldn’t help but feel weird watching a Champions League match at 9:00 PM. It was a really weird feeling I couldn’t shake. I’m used to watching the Galaxy play at night, but the UCL has been drilled into my head as a lunch time event.
I guess that’s what happens when my 18 years of watching champions league in the USA trains me to be ready for the match at noon (pacific time)
@Brandon I live in St. Louis, so, save two hours, I can empathize. Also, asking off work (of course I do) for Wednesday Champions League games, is an interesting conversation as well.