Author: admin

Sam wasn’t hungry that morning. Usually he’d go down to the store around the corner from work and have breakfast as he watched he co-workers stream into the office. He liked watching. He liked knowing everyone’s disposition before he got there, namely so he knew who to avoid. Usually Sandra and Kareem were the ones to avoid. They’d come in together. Well, not quite together. They would arrive a few steps behind each other with a regularity that suggested they did come together. Sam had begun to think they were a couple, or at least lived close enough that they took the same route. The way they struggled to avoid each other during work suggested the former. Sandra was never excited to be there, and even less excited to have to give orders to Kareem, who acted like he was taking them but then would do something–anything other than what she’d said to do, eventually wandering back to the appointed task and performing it with a high level of efficiency. That was the only thing that kept him from getting fired. Well, that and being Sandra’s lover, if that were the case.

Today he didn’t stop to eat. He decided he would be one of the first into the office. That didn’t mean he’d be one of the first out, unfortunately. Hours didn’t work that way. Still he’d been feeling off all morning and all he really wanted to do was sit down in front of his desk, flick on his monitor, and settle into another world.

Some Thoughts:

1. Back to the free write! I don’t know what this story is or where it comes from and that is a good thing. It felt good to fire off something foreign.

I am a writer. I’ve been this way since I can remember–since I fashioned a choose your own adventure book called “Russia” some time in elementary school. Back then I wrote for the thrill of it and the thrill of being able to show someone the story I created and having them interact with it. This is a gift. Be I a good writer, mediocre, or legit trash, I am gifted with the ability to tell stories. This gift can be lost. I’ve lost my way to and from stories more times than I can remember but I find my way back each time. I’m grateful for the opportunity to be a writer.

I am grateful to be able to see and hear and sing and listen and experience and taste and love–especially to love. I am grateful for the kids I have — even when I absolutely despise them. I am grateful for the time I have with them. I am grateful for the choices I have had the opportunity to make in my life and the way those choices have gone. I am grateful for life itself, even in the moments I’ve wanted to end my own.

Thanksgiving is about food, but it is about family before that, and it is about realizing the contribution you as an individual have made to this strange world before that. It is about being grateful for the chances and for the people and for the things and for the sun and the moon and the many stars haunting the evening sky.

I am thankful for all of these things, and thankful for the hope of experiencing even more of it tomorrow.

As this is a new start for me, I thought it too should be a new start for the Giants–a chance to fix the things that’ve not gone as well lately. For me it is the numbering system. For the Giants it is staying healthy and staying within that margin of not giving up big plays and points to protect a rather anemic offense. Today, I’ve started fresh. Tomorrow we get to see if the Giants can as well. A win would move my G-men to 8-3, and put them largely in control of their destiny. They’ll need to win a few more conference games, but that is absolutely doable.

It feels a lot like my fantasy leagues, where me and three of my boys play in a single division with hopes of battling it out in the playoffs. I think the Giants and the other three teams have a real chance of doing that, given how their records put them so far forward of the rest of the NFC. Heck, if it doesn’t go that way and the Giants can win just half the remaining games, they’ll be a 10 win team for the first time in a long long time. That is enough for me. Thankfully, it is not enough for them. They want playoffs and they want to build from there.

Let’s go Giants. May tomorrow be the next step forward.

Meanwhile, the other team sharing the Meadowlands fully crapped the bed on the QB situation yet again. They haven’t had a reliable starter under center in a decade and then some. How to fix it? Bring in a young backup who can get the job done. Bring in a guy like PJ Walker who can take advantage of the talent he is surrounded by, or a guy like Davis Mills whose proven he can win, or a guy like the Eagles backup QB Gardner Minshew, who has all that it takes to be successful. I think that last choice is the best. I think they ought to think about it too, because Minshew Mania could bring a whole lot to the Green.

Some Thoughts:

1. Welcome to the 7th iteration of the ten minute rule. We’ll keep the number schedule rolling right this time. I think I’ll institute weekly checks. I’ll also make sure I stay on track with some of the weekly style posts. This is going to be a good 1,000 or more days. Let’s see how long we can take it.

I tried to turn back the clock a year and found out something very disturbing… My numbering system is WAY off. 6.676 happened a year ago. The math doesn’t –cannot–possibly add up. I’ve made these numerical errors throughout phase 6 of the blog, which points to the fact that maybe it is time for a fresh start. Tomorrow I will move to 7.0.

It’s odd because I am clearly in the 1000’s of posts in phase six and I have been reflecting on milestones that I already passed. The entire thing makes me feel funny inside and moreover, makes me truly wonder about how much I am mentally still holding it together. My back hurts. My mind is slowed. I’m bad at video games. I survive mainly on coffee and love. All but the very last part ought to be fixed. I’m way beyond that time to start fixing.

Honestly not the best day for production. More so it felt like one of those days where it is easier to just give up, quit being productive all together and slip into the comfortable routine of a drone who does just enough to register a pulsed trigger the occasional endorphins spill but adds nothing to the world. I cannot explain it other than to suggest a level of burnout that makes me quite uncomfortable.

I’ve had quite a bad day. I spent most of the afternoon in a store and then out of a store looking for my car, because I somehow lost it. All the while I felt like I was somehow losing my mind and, honestly, that is probably the case, because I am a mess right now and don’t know how to get right.

The haters are having a day with Daniel Jones and the Giants. The G-Men were walloped by the Lions-a team that has an outside chance at the playoffs and at winning their division. Following the major beat down the Cowboys gave the Vikings, I am left to wonder if the Lions can in fact pull off a four game win streak and get close to pulling even.

Even if that happens, it doesn’t excuse the Giants for getting beat. Here’s the thing–and its a feel thing. I knew the Giants were in trouble. I felt it all week and it settled into my bones when they came out flat on the first drive. Once the Giants fall behind by two touchdowns, it is over. They simply lack the passing game to score quickly and lack the line to explode for quick hit runs.

The Giants are, imho, on pace to go 11-6 this year, which is enough to make the playoffs as a wild card. They’ll do better down the stretch in these five conference games. What folks need to remember is this is a team clearly in a rebuild and working hard to play with a number of backups in starting roles. In fact, our top corner went down in the first half. We are a deep team because most of our talent is equivalent to what we pull off the practice squad or waiver wire, and that is never a good sign for a team. That being said, this IS a playoff team. And growing.

Losses will happen. Two happened before today. It doesn’t mean it is time to give up or fall back to hatred. Hope is the true course.

Some Thoughts:

1. When I wrote Daniel Jones and the Giants, I really wanted to find a way to connect that comically to Daisy Jones and the Six. I think there’s something there… comically.
2. Discovered a solid offensive strategy in Madden. I played well against the son of mine that puts up the best defense. I played well… offensively. For a while. I lost 77-28. I need to get better to compete in a league with these dudes. What happened to my skills? I suppose that lack of play is an issue. They play hours a day. I play hours a week… At any rate, I was able to hit the run for some big gains and even threw well. Until I didn’t.

I spent the first ten minutes assigned to the post trying to get to the point where I could get to the post. My computer was largely unresponsive and now is struggling to even keep up with the words I type. There are a slew of background processes running that probably should not be. I don’t think it is a virus but it isn’t good nonetheless.

I’m not here to talk about that or about Wolves, the story I’ve started dreaming up based in the Amish community and seen through the eyes of a young girl. It is tangentially related to that though, because I want to spend this time talking about the writerverse.

I think writers reach into somewhere else for their stories. I think research and experience help guide our minds and fingers to the place where stories come from. I think writers can lose connection to that place based largely on why they go there–specifically they ought to be writing from a place of wanting to tell stories. I’ve been writing from a place of wanting to get published and popular enough to publish again, which is not the way.

I didn’t even recognize this until my partner and I were discussing why and how I can no longer tell her stories to put her to sleep at night. I think of every story as a sales point, and those tales were not ever that. They were never meant to be more than moments, and I forgot how to have good moments. So, I am trying to get back to a place where I can have those moments again.

Is social interaction shifting to a non-contact sport? The more I observe my kids the more I wonder about the future and how people will interact as we move forward. My five boys are very different, but without being forced to, they each fall back into a near purely online engagement with the world. This isn’t about COVID. It is likely that the pandemic exacerbated an existing condition. My boys won’t leave the house unless required. They have all they need on their screens. I have one who went away to college and he’s been experiencing an entirely different social life than the others. He’s hardly online in comparison to the others. He spends every day hanging out with friends and exploring and playing in RL. The two high school boys only experience the outside world as a result of being in school. The other two, both college students hardly ever leave the house. The one who doesn’t work only leaves for the handful of classes he takes, and doesn’t really interact with people in person. He interacts online and on his terms.

I think that is the key to my concerns here. These boys are all learning to interact with the world on their terms. They don’t want to leave the comfort zone and be challenged – even the ones who are out in the world are experiencing it in their comfort zone. I’ve predicated my parenthood on making sure my kids are more comfortable than I was as a kid and that comfort made them complacent. I don’t know what steps I need to take to break them of that, but I do want to try.

Some Thoughts:

1. On a side note, I found myself in a high school classroom and I saw two students plop bags down next to each other and they were the same exact (and not common) bag. Later they accidentally switched bags. What makes that interesting to me is that I have a student whose screenplay is built on that premise, and I’d been really uncertain about whether or not that old school switch would hold up, but dang. I saw it in real time, and it totally does.

So, I’m old. I realized that when I was sitting in the classroom and recognized how disconnected from the students I am. They find it giggle worthy that the old dude knows slang. I’m him–that old guy who doesn’t know he’s old. Except now I’m that old guy who doesn’t quite care.

There were other signifiers. The inability to sleep, the blurry eyes in the morning, getting tired merely trotting up the stairs. The act of moving up the stairs makes me feel old in of itself. I can feel my knees cratering on impact and my mind wanders to five years down the line when I will be, as one of my 5 boys suggests, ‘decrepit’.

I’m not doing anything about it. I’m supposed to, but I am in a moment of resignation. I’ve been turning towards the grim acceptance of my eventual demise and recognizing that time can be counted in decades. On one hand. As long as I have been in the world may not be much shorter than as long as I will be in the world, and that is me feeling gratitude and hopefulness for a long long second half. Yet I recognize that in order for that to come to pass I need to do things on my end. I need to put in the work in order to live and I have yet to really accept the work of doing that.

Lazy gets people killed. I just never realized that I’m people too.

Giants got another one! I’m a bit nervous about the weekend game because the Lions are dangerous and pretty dang good. They don’t have a ton of wins, but are still in contention. I think I may have switched my obsessive nature as a coach to a somewhat less obsessive nature as a fan. I’m a data guy. I want as much info as I can have so I feel like I know what the outcome will be and what to be prepared for.

I’m recognizing that it is a part of me and I am learning what to do with it.

Some Thoughts:

1. Getting old is not great. I’m losing some of that reflex talent.
2. In regards to my work life it feels like I am just hanging on… Need a real vacation.