Bridgewater, Maine

Sitting here at home, in front of the television. It's January, and television consumes too much of my time. I'm watching football tonight, New Orleans versus San Francisco. I'm rooting for Drew Brees and New Orleans, since he beat my Lions last week. But K.'s first cousin once-removed plays for San Francisco's defense, and it's a great game. I love football. I love baseball, and I have a fondness for both motorcycle racing and boxing. At times I wish I had chosen the career of sports writer.

My favorite essays in my early-ought New Yorker subscriptions were those of Roger Angell, their "senior august" sports writer, writing about baseball, primarily. He writes the narrative as a season progresses, which is what interests me about sport. That San Francisco has been a defensive team in a season dominated by offenses interests me.

But it's all a traditional Greek agon, two opponents set on a field against each other. That's all that matters. Just like the timeless duel that exists between batter and pitcher on their respective mounds. Although football is more like a chess game, offense set against defense.

San Francisco is now dancing as they prepare to punt. It's like an episode of Glee. But they look tough. I wouldn't want to face those guys.

Am I live blogging? I guess so. I hate this terminology. I think of these little accumulations of digital data as contemporary midden heaps, through which historians and archeologists will dig through, bare decades from now. And why write them? Because it's better to have a record of them than not. It's better to have written than not to have written.

So I sit and watch football, and tap the keys. I think about the endless agon, how these two coaches are pitting themselves against each other. How these teams are staking their claim in the other's territory. How it's all the same story, the wolf and Red Riding Hood, death and the maiden.