A very subjective look into AWFC

I have been pretty forgetful the past few days and a few things have happened that only dawned on me a day or two or three later. One of those things has to do directly with Arsenal Women and the other couldn’t be more opposite of that, but at the end of the day, they’re all connected for me and to me for obvious reasons, and that reason is because I’m the clown with the blog writing about himself.

I feel like I talked a bunch about Emily Fox as if she was the only Arsenal player left at the olympics that is factually incorrect. Of course I remember there are other players such as Laia Codina and Caldentey. Plus, if you’re like me, you still count Rafa as an Arsenal player, someone we should’ve never, ever let go and the likes of which we haven’t seen and she’s so beyond any other defender at the club, minus Leah of course. Miss her and wish she still played for us BUT maybe her injury concerns were an issue for the current manager, which is understandable.

Yesterday was the 14 year anniversary of a couple of things that were life shaping to say the least, one as it relates to my professional life, and the other relating to my personal life and health. The first being that it was 14 years to the day of me playing my first show ever with The Jonas Bros in Tinley Park, Illinois. Little did I know how important that would be in my career but what the actual F does that have to do with Arsenal Women? Well, I’m not sure, other than the fact that I did SO MUCH visualization to prepare for that first gig and it taught me a lot about that dimension of preparation and I am so curious to know how much visualization, if any, most players do. We see tons at the olympics, but musicians do a lot of that and I know athletes of course do that, but there definitely is an equivalent to sports psychology… maybe artistic psychology or something to that effect. If you are interested in this topic and would like me to talk more about it please let me know.

That same day I made a decision to quit soda, which was a big issue and a problem in my life because I was basically addicted and was drinking 2 liters a day if not more. Soda is the absolute worst, it’s poison and I don’t care if you drink coke, Diet Coke, Pepsi, etc trust me when I say that your life will be much, much better without all that. I have quit soda, alcohol, cigarets, red meat, poultry, twitter and so many other things that were basically an addiction and I can tell you that, by a long mile, soda was the hardest which definitely says something to me about the seriousness of it’s (former) control over me, and I’m just being totally open.

But for me to modify my habits I usually have to anchor them on something else, so when I quit soda I have to anchor it to a special day and that first show of the Camp Rock 2 tour with the JoBros, Demi Lovato and many more. It was an incredible time that will always have a very special place in my heart and there are no fans like Jonas fans.

I learned a lot from Stans and Fandom in many ways and when I tell you AWFC fandom and woso as a whole is very much music fandom, trust me. I have been in both worlds in different capacities and it’s absolutely insane how many parallels there are and as you can imagine some are positive and others not as much. But one thing that encompasses all of, absolutely all of it, is how we all have our way of caring, loving and expressing that care and love. The same way there are different ways clubs operate, the same way different players react/behave differently, so do we the fans, we the Stans, we the obsessed. 

I have always thought that with fandom comes responsibility. We are an extension of the artist to a degree but that is just a realistic nor a sustainable way to live or interact because there are so many reasons why we are fans and the club/players/culture isn’t always a just reflection of us and vice versa.