Globe Athens

I’ll give you until Tuesday to get your bracket filled out and put on our wall. And yes I’m disappointed with the tournament expansion. And yes I’m disappointed with the state of affairs surrounding the tournament. But it’s the World Cup. And it is historic. And it is here. And you might be going to a game. And you should be fu***ng ecstatic about that possibility. I might’ve picked USA to win for the first time ever (for an array of ridiculous stylistic and conspiratorial reasons). But I’ve got Colombia meeting them in the final and wouldn’t that be something? Anyway, the World Cup is for dreaming and falling in love and making believe and watching miracles happen before your eyes and hoping against hope that one more glorious moment might satisfy your soul. May it all come true before our eyes and leave us breathless. Come fill out your brackets procrastinators.

Jazz tonight for all the fun lovers. USA game tomorrow and you’d likely better arrive early to see the dawgs bite the kangaroos.

You were born here and Athens was your whole tiny world. You grow some and start hearing tales of other places. And you change here and there. And you finish with school and get a sickness in your heart that you can’t explain. And Athens shrinks. Clinging to you. Your favorite restaurant seems narrow. Too familiar. Your favorite beer too predictable. Your friends too used to your humor and the stories you’ve made together. So you venture away. To maybe forget someone. To places that don’t know you. With languages you can’t learn. And faces so pretty you’ll think of them years later. And works of art that you only dreamt you’d be able to stand in front of. And spices that send you flying and the thought you couldn’t share them with everyone you ever met destroys you. But time continues. And for the first time you feel a bit of the years you have in your bones. And you miss Athens. And you miss knowing when to swerve the pothole that ruptured your right front tire a couple times. And you miss the wind tunnel up lumpkin. And you missed people missing you. And knowing your old favorites. And you missed surprising people with the new things in your life. And you want to show them what you’ve seen though it will surely bore them. But you only want to show them because you never really wanted to be away from them. And you want to know how they’ve been. And you realize that Athens is its own world. As vast as you need it to be. As small as it is. And it’s full of the most beautiful ones. The where have they been all your life ones. The ones you still can’t hardly look in the eye. And your favorite flavors. And the look of downtown on a blue sky clear eyed morning. And the perfume of the globe when the chairs are still stacked after a long busy night. And the peace of five points when those summer Sundays roll through. And the fun of normaltown when a late night there happens to be what the whole town demands to escape a bit of bustle. And the sound of the train that floats on those early hours. And you shrink your life purposely. And a world that started so small becomes so small again. And you like the way Athens folds around you and cares for you.