perfidy

Woefully benighted Californian Nathaniel thinks that my Red Sox fandom is weak sauce, and takes a dig at my heritage besides.

Johno, your Heimatsmannschaft is at home in Ohio, bombarded by campaign advertising as they stare at their navels. Your love for the Red Sox is just psychic transference: if you are going to embrace six decades of impotence, why not nine?

Well, Nat, I'll tell you what. I prefer to think of my Ohio roots as a terroir more than a Heimat. Terroir implies who I am is infused with and informed by Ohio and yet I also carry an identity that is my own besides. Your German-stylee homeland word is a little more freaky-sinister. To me at least, "Heimat" implies that I am the sum total of my Ohio roots, umbilically connected to the place. If that is true, how in the world do I still have all my teeth? I like the dandified French food connotations better, myself.

And as for your main assertion, that my Red Sox fandom is transference, I ask you: so fakin' what?!? Of course it's transference. The Red Sox legend is the (Cleveland Indians + Cleveland Browns / (Pittsburgh + Baltimore)) * New York^2, which equals, like, ten thousand or something. In fact, I would argue that sports pain accrues. If that's so, I'm really basking in at least 175 years of accumulated fan frustration, which means the last time my Platonically ideal team won anything, John Quincy Adams was President.

Mine may be an inane argument, but it knocks the hell out of your puny few decades.