Other than my son’s birthday on Monday (I got my days confused last week, lol!), the big thing this week was the World Cup aftermath. I watched the final game on Sunday and screamed my lungs out when Ferran Torres scored the winning goal. It feels so rare and so satisfying when the right team comes out ahead, and karma is fulfilled. I was a mostly casual watcher of the World Cup, and I don’t buy into nationalist tribalism as a general rule, so I had no particular favourite teams going in. Even into the final. I hadn’t watched Argentina’s previous games in the tournament, and while I had a sense that the team was disliked, I didn’t have a ton of context as to why.
Well.
I soon saw for myself.
The behaviour of that team in the final, on and off the pitch, was an absolute disgrace from a sportsmanship perspective (never mind the actual football played). The constant fouling, attempted ref manipulations, the post-game violence … blergh. Spain was a class act, and the better team technically.
Because I ended up getting sucked into the spirit of the World Cup with the last few games especially (England-France was a wild, fun ride!), my IG algorithm now thinks I’m a football fan, LOL! Plot twist: I used to be! I grew up in Romania, after all, and spent a few years in England so this shouldn’t be a complete surprise. So, I’ve been drawn into a nostalgic spiral, watching cuts of big football moments from the 2000s – the last decade whose players I still remember (some of them very fondly) — and enjoying the memories that are resurfacing.
There was one particular meme making the rounds just before the final that unlocked a core memory for me: people posting that they became a fan of Spain because, at 13, they fell in love with Fernando Torres, aka El Nino. I was quite a bit older than that but I, too, had a massive crush on him in the mid-2000s, which I had forgotten about until now. It brought back that whole era for me so vividly.
[Sidenote: El Nino is still pretty dishy even today. As is Sergio Ramos ;)]
I think I’m going to write a whole post about some reflections inspired by the World Cup – don’t worry, it won’t be about my fave cute Spanish players, or the Haaland-Bellingham bromance, although maybe it should be – so I’ll leave it here for now. And instead bore you a little bit more by talking about my other current obsession: my new book.
I was not supposed to start a new book at this time, but life happens.
A couple of weeks ago, I got this fantastic idea for a follow-up to the book I just wrote back in May (which is still pretty much in raw draft form at this point). Committing to a series before you’re even sure that the first book is any good is … not a great idea. But this new story has got me by the throat. I started writing an outline – it involves a lot of world-building and I was trying to feel my way around it – and the next thing I knew, I was 4 chapters deep into a first draft. Oops!
For now, I’ll just say this: think The Name of the Rose meets Interview with the Vampire. A murder mystery set in a convent on an island, where all the nuns are vampires. Vampire nuns! And a protagonist who has a special gift for talking to supernatural creatures, and a fallen angel for a sidekick/bodyguard.
I am so pumped!
Have a great weekend!