:: in.a.mirror.dimly ::

I shouldn’t care. I should have given up. But hope lingers. It’s a residue on my brain that clings no matter how hard or how often it has been blasted off.

Just a tiny smudge of hope remains. It grows. It’s fed by promises of a better year. It slowly emerges and before it can be snuffed out, it has taken root.

And then a vicious fire roars in and destroys the hope of a better year that has been slowly cultivated.

Let’s not talk about hockey, the Flyers are currently one of the worst teams in the NHL. No, let’s talk about the Eagles, who made a great comeback after squandering a must-win game with turnovers.

They came back with about 30 seconds left . . . and still lost.

Tampa Bay’s kicker booted an improbable 62-yard field goal, the second longest in NFL history, to send the Eagles away with a horrendous loss. This one stings . . . and I didn’t even watch the game. I just checked up on it throughout the day at ESPN’s web site.

And that’s how it is as a Philly sports fan. Your team will lose eventually, but it’s always done with such style and improbability.

All of the odds are stacked in Philly’s favor, everyone knows they should win, but they don’t because something miraculous happened. Something like a 62-yard field goal in a league where 50-yard field goals are not a sure thing by a long shot.

And so the Philadlephia Eagles will be lamented as a stellar team that just keeps losing the close ones. The best team that never could drop the last straw to break the camel’s back. That straw was well on its way, but of course an unseasonal monsoon swept accross the desert and blew all of the straws away from the quivering camel.

That settles it. I won’t care. I won’t even peek at the score next week. The Eagles aren’t worth it.

But of course they can’t lose to Jacksonville . . .