When Ronaldo met Andreia

"Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."

- Henry David Thoreau.



(An Italian new clip about Ronaldo and the transvestite - if anyone speaks Italian, I'd like to know what it says)

Okay, the 14 regular readers of this blog (thank you all, so much!) would know I only delve into smut if it's funny, embarrassing, or if I've nothing else to talk about. All three apply here.

I'm talking, of course, about Ronaldo's encounter with the transvestite, Andrea Albertino. As the story goes, he took her home, found out she had extra bits, and backed off. He offered to pay her for the night anyway (he's a nice guy), but she demanded 50,000 euros for her silence.

It's not hard to feel sympathy for the guy. She's not bad-looking, despite her mannishly large jaw and nose. With beer goggles, she looks a bit like a low-rent Milene Dominguez (his ex-wife). I imagine that a downcast Ronaldo, having had a few too many, took one look at her and thought "if only I hadn't fucked it up with Milene, I wouldn't be a washed-up ex-footballer at 31."

People say that we should live life and never look back. It's biblical; Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt when she fled Sodom and Gomorrah. But it's something I've never been able to do. Doubt sits on my shoulder like a parrot, chirping back all the fucked-up things I've ever said or done. I try to live like it's not there, but my pockets are full of crackers and its talons are very sharp.

It's not easy to live life the way Thoreau advocates. To live for the moment, to have no recollection of the past, to experience everything as if for the first time... it's impossible. You'll always look back on things with regret and sadness and the nagging sense that things could've been better. And the reason is that you're often right. Things could have been better, if only...

Anyway, I've got sympathy for Ronaldo. We've all had moments like that. Despite being one of the greatest footballers ever, he's human. On those lonely, sleepless nights, there's nothing to keep you company but your thoughts, your memories and your unrequited longings. We all have vulnerable moments where our judgment is clouded and we do things we later regret. It's just that our mistakes aren't plastered all over the media.

Poor guy.