Smart, book person and crazed football fan does not always compute.

Editor Katie Adams – a fellow New England Patriots fan – tweeted this on Thursday night prior to the game:

“It’s football season now. If you’re new, I’m still a smart book person but now I wear the skin of a crazy football fan for a few months.”

I understood this sentiment completely. 

While I hardly think it’s surprising that I’m a football fan (I’m actually shocked and confused when a guy tells me that he’s not a football fan), the assumption is often made by readers that because I’m (stealing Katie’s words) a “smart book person,” I could never be a crazed football fan.

They are even more stunned to discover that I am a Patriots season ticket holder.

Writing novels and simultaneously being emotionally attached to a team of uncommonly large men who seek to run into and through another team of uncommonly large men does not compute for many people, and especially for those who read my novels.  

As a woman, I expect that it computes even less for the people in Katie’s life.

But it’s true. On Saturday morning, you can often find me sitting at my computer, writing novels and thinking bookish thoughts. 

The next day you will find me in section 331, row 24, seat 5 of Gillette Stadium, cheering for men who I have never met as they throw and catch and tackle other men who dare to wear an opposing color. I scream and swear and hug strangers and sometimes even cry as the Patriots march up and down the field in pursuit of a victory that will not be mine but will feel like it’s all mine.

I’m a smart, bookish person, but I also wear the skin of a crazed football fan.

Go Patriots.