On Emotion

I am outrageously, preposterously jealous of you Americans right now.

I've been in a bar with a bunch of fellow revellers when Canada's national soccer team scored a dramatic stoppage time goal to snatch a draw from a loss, and that was pretty good. But all evening long I've been watching videos like this and just staring, soullessly, my heart hardly daring a single beat lest the blood rush to my brain and turn me into a seething, sobbing mess of angry sorrow.

Yes, I'm cheering for the Americans in the World Cup. That's out of principle, not out of affection. I could no more take pleasure in these sublime, primal outbursts of joy for a team that is not my own than I could feel love and awe towards somebody else's newborn child. And I know that, even when I am at my most optimistic, when I am looking at cheering New Zealanders in South Africa and declaring in 2014 that'll be us there's essentially no chance I'll be able to savour Canada's getting to the round of sixteen in my lifetime.

I'm still cheering for the Americans, of course. But now I'm sort of depressed about it.