My perfect day, just like Lou Reed sang

The great thing about getting to live through the best day of your life so far is that you can go back to the memories once all the subsequent crap of everyday existence starts happening. When you're being yelled at for a ridiculous reason, or being asked why you did something you shouldn't have, you can just switch off the present and think of the perfect day, the one Lou Reed sang about.
I'm sure all of you have your own perfect days chalked out, some in the past, some imaginary ones, hopefully to unfold some day in the future. A day when the sun is just right, the rain falls and makes everything new and freshly washed, nothing gets in your way and not a word can put off that smile. My own perfect day may disappoint you, the two readers who may read what I write, but it involves no flowers, no romance, and here I must offer a warning: if you have a deep antipathy towards football, click the back button on your browser right away.
If you know me, you'll know my perfect day has to include Liverpool FC, but of course, and if you don't know me but had a kinda clue about the extent of my football fanaticism, well now you have it, the whole truth.
I was in Bangkok for the Liverpool match last week and I had an epiphany. Actually, I don't think you call it an epiphany when the same thought strikes you again and again, do you? Anyway, I'm pretty sure I'm meant to make a profession out of following the club all over the world on their travels, watching them, cheering them on, and just taking in every moment. It'll happen someday, you'll see. Maybe I'll get a lot of money from somewhere or my craziness will be recognised for reward. Something's gotta give.
I've attracted plenty of strange glares, mostly among my friends, for this obsession I seem to have developed over the years. The one that makes me rearrange social engagements for matches, makes me drive in a tearing hurry so I can get somewhere with a TV, makes me fight those who oppose my views on football and the best club in the world, makes me fail exams and not regret it the next day, and causes those who know me to express slight concern for the maniacal gleam I get in my eye when a win is on the way.
Out there, in the stadium were thousands of people exactly like me. All screaming, yelling, singing, chanting, waving flags and banners and giving a rat's ass about others who just didn't 'feel it'.
I kept trying to calm down, to look around, soak it in, preserve a memory, but the inside of my head was like one of those giant wheels when they come down, like that funny feeling you get in your stomach, kinda tingly and like it'll fall out, but NICE. I screamed myself hoarse, slightly unbecoming if you're sitting in the stuffy old press box, but who cares, and I sang all the songs I knew (I knew all, btw), but the Mexican waves I could just watch. They swept me away, they were so beautiful. I kept thinking of firsts, my first Liverpool match, my first Liverpool goal, my first Mexican wave, my first football abuse, my first live anthem. Fifiteen minutes to go in the match, a light rain began to fall, and it was a coming together of all that was good. The raindrops, the Beatles songs that resounded across the ground before the match, and the match itself -- those three things alltogether on the same day made it what it was -- my perfect day.
All subsequent 24-hour periods of my life will be measured against that one, I told myself, as I made my way out into the open road, trying not to let the exquisite sadness you feel at the end of a Moment take over my thoughts. Everything good that happens to me won't be quite as good as the days I spent tracking Liverpool around the city, watching them train, seeing them play. It won't even be close. Until another perfect day comes along, and you can bet it will feature twenty-two men trying to kick a ball into a net.
Oh it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spent it with you. Oh such a perfect day. You just keep me hanging on. Just a perfect day, problems all left alone. Weekenders on our own. It's such fun.