Hingis: Yay, Gaydar: Nay

Amazing news! Hingis DESTROYED Maria Sharapova in Japan this morning in the semis of the Toray Pan Pacific Open (or something like that). You can read this article for more info, but basically she crushed one of the most dominating players on tour, and it's like this child prodigy is making an equally prodigious return to tennis. Talk about a learning curve! -- Every week it's like she's 20 times better than the last week. She surprising even me (and I'm like her biggest fan other than her mom).

I was a little concerned that Sharapova might pummel her (she's one strong girl), and I was worried that it might be doubly humiliating for Martina because of a comment she made when she announced her return like 4 weeks ago about how she wanted to play Maria more than any other player on tour because she didn't see what all the hype was about (she said something like: "Watching on TV I can't see what's so special about her game, so I want to play her and find out"). Martina has never been one to shy away from controversy, so everyone who hates her (which is a LOT of people) jumped on the chance to say she'd put her foot in her mouth, but I think she was just being frank: Sharapova doesn't have great volleys, forward-backward movement, or variety of shot, and she has basically no strategy other than "hit it really hard to wherever my opponent isn't standing." Anyway, Hingis killed her!! :) [you can check out this article for a cute photo of Hingis, a reference to her controversial Sharapova comments, and a funny description of her win over Sharapova as a physical and mental "beat-down" lol]

In totally unrelated news, I've deleted my gaydar profile. There are a lot of reasons, but I gues the most important one is functional: I am not interested in sex; I don't want a relationship with anyone but Pookie; and I already have too many friends (although not in Cairo) to properly stay in contact with right now, so "networking" is not really a reason to be online. I've found myself checking the site less and less frequently, and totally disinterested in the people who contact me, so the site has no purpose for me at this point. I think if I were to say "I'm so proud of myself" or "I feel like this is a new phase" or something then it would mean that I was investing a lot in the site in terms of what I was hoping to get out of it that I wasn't...this is hardly a watershed moment...but I did feel like it was worth blogging about just in this little paragraph, because I think that it does kind if point towards my imminent return to NYC (that for a while seemed impossibly far away), and my final decision that there is really nothing worth me exploring in Egypt as far as any kind of gay community is concerned (and "meeting people through friends" is not really an alternative entry point to online networking as it would be in other places)...which is fine :)

Still chunking on and plugging away!

VC

PS: (just to be controversial) --> Any thoughts on burning of embassies as a form of free speech?