It was the best of times: Juventus 1 – 3 Inter, it was the worst of times: Siena 3 – 1 Inter. It was a hard season, even though I had steeled myself for it since last summer, it was still a hard season.

I sat here at my computer since that continuing-on-a-theme craptastic Udinese game knowing that I needed to come up with a season review at some point. Knowing that I needed to come up with a position by position analysis. Knowing that I needed to once again, delve into the mire that has become the Inter Transfer Summer, what some call The Silly Season, or what I like to call, The Say What!? Season.

And I just couldn’t do it. It was all too fresh. Right now, 11 days after the fact, I am sitting at my desk, sipping my coffee and dreading the ramifications of the paragraph I just wrote. You, other Inter supporters if there are any of you left, are probably thinking, “It’s a little early for a season review, yes?” But it’s a lot of work and to get a handle on it and the daily stuff it takes some lead time to get going. Plus, there is something to be said for staying in the mood that the season ends on to fuel that feeling.

Indeed, about a month before the season ended I sold my FIFA 12 game, knowing that I couldn’t even look at it, or the line up it shows me when I start a game. It occurs to me that there is an FM save a few seasons old somewhere on this very computer that I haven’t even looked at since the snows melted (Here in the Great Lakes area that’s not really as long ago as you might think and yes I will accept your pity now, thank you). I haven’t even gone outside to kick a football around… very much. For a while there I was starting to become more interested in the NFL doings around draft time. I reacquainted myself with NPR podcasts, something I was lax in for a while. I refurnished some rooms in our house that were left fallow since our recent move. I did some chores outside in the garden to get ready for spring. I remodeled. I caught up on some reading. Basically as boring as that all sounds, it was preferable to thinking about the dismal season that we were having.

But things are starting to slowly bounce back. I feel ready to research the year end stuff, if not totally revisit it today. It’s all baby steps, right Bob? I broke down and auctioned a FIFA 13 to mess around with at night when everyone else has gone to bed. Me and the kid go outside to kick the ball around a little almost everyday. I am starting to get caught up in The Inter Buy Out Saga that is unfolding before my eyes. I even looked at our new coach’s background to get ready for a Meet The New Coach article.

Maybe I just needed a few weeks disconnected to change the scenery in my head. Maybe I just needed to reemerge from the stifling everyday morass of the club for a little while, gain some perspective and recharge my batteries. I am not happy about another coaching change, but I understand that something had to be done if the blasted Branca wasn’t going to be held accountable… AGAIN, I might add. And perhaps the relative optimism that the implied fresh start brings also helps, illusory as it might be, like the Gasperini change – although to be honest, I have more faith in Mazzarri than I did in Gasperini. Whatever it is, while I am not really ready for the next season yet, I do seem ready for the pre-season. Baby steps.

FORZA INTER