Author: admin

I’m supposed to be working on my novel (or at least the bloganovella) right now, but I don’t have the juice. It’s been a longstanding problem these last few weeks and I am trying everything to get fired back up. While I’m doing that, I’ll entertain you with…

Some Thoughts:

1. Lists are a really powerful cueing device and, as I am making one now, I thought it would be good for me to get back into the idea of daily listing and mindfulness as a way to think through the slate of issues I’m dealing with. I didn’t make one today, so I have no sense of what got done vs. needed to get done. I know that there is a bunch more that needs to get done and hasn’t.. That much is true.
2. Eastwood’s new film, Cry Macho looks terrible from the previews. He seems over the hill, especially in a role as an active cowboy. No, I’m not going to insult the name… that feels like a trap.
3. Spent too much of the day digging through old teaching files to cobble together something that works for this week. Gotta get ahead of the game.
4. Took me this long to get to youth football. I’m excited. The 6 teams that played this week were very unevenly matched. In each game, one team beat the other in a blowout to donut score.
5. Office stinks like mold… don’t know what is going on.

Gonna talk Fantasy Football now.

I’m in three leagues and I won one out of my three matchups. This is largely the result of not having a very good team, but also partially due to factors out of my control–like injuries. Overall, I have a great deal of work to do in order to salvage my season in a meaningful way. I can do it. I have to get on the wire and make some moves. I feel like if I can get a few more wins I can move closer to the possibility of breaking even this year, but I don’t expect to make money this season. No, not at all.

Some Thoughts:

1. I don’t have a lot to say these days. Call it a response to emotional calamity.
2. Here is what I’ve learned about puppies–you cannot feed them enough. They will cry for food until they explode. Their mom is basically the same, so it may be hereditary. Once, she snatched an entire pie off the stove and ate all of it. Begged for more food later on in spite of the fact that we could see said pie hanging in her belly like a swift-onset pregnancy.
3. This blog may not last as long as my entire remaining years. It’s been really rough to keep going lately.

Lately a lot of the blog has been about this slow spiral around the drain into depression. There is in fact a lot to that. There is quite a bit of rationalization attached as well as surrender and above all else an inability to effectively communicate with the people who matter most in my life. What kills me most is that I don’t see a way out of this. I look for it every day and all I find in the shadows are moments of passion sparking like the dying flickers of an old lighter. Again, I don’t know what to do about it… that I am willing to do. One solution is to get up and go. Today. Grab the things I need the most and just flat leave everything behind. That would bring a temporary thrill of joy and a renewed sense of ‘in this together’

It will also bring down regret like the fall from a drug high. Leaving means shedding the responsibility of being a parent. Yes, in some sense it doesn’t have to. I could evolve into a custody situation where I have my kids for the summer, but that is not actually being a parent. That is being a vacation from their reality as opposed to being a valid part of it.

Staying could be done differently too, I suppose. Different would require releasing the tight strictures of a schedule dominated by school activities and sports. I am father and driver at this point. I am also observer. I suppose one of the ways to tamp down the inequities in the house is to not be an observer. I don’t have to watch my kids play their high school and youth sports. I want to be invested and involved, but at what cost?

There is also the possibility that I am wrong about all of this and the real issue is the communication barrier and the lack of trust and understanding that formed that barrier and perpetuates it. Finding a way through that would be great. It would get my hands back on the keyboard in a meaningful way. After all, if I can’t get the people who love me to understand me, then a stranger has no chance.

Dating ideas are called moonshots. This is named after the plan our government once developed to get to the moon–feeling the task was way beyond anything else and that all of the attention and focus needed to be shifted to get there. I’m not a person who can really understand that these days. I don’t appear to have a sense of creativity.

Yeah, you just watched a writer write that he isn’t creative. As crazy as that looks on the surface, it belies a reality that is dimmed down by personal responsibility, emotional confusion, and fatigue.

I have a ton of things happening in my life and many people who I ‘answer to’ in one way or another. I spend so much of my time and energy being a partner or dad or writer or teacher or coach that I don’t have much left to think about me as an individual and focus on what that individual is thinking or feeling beyond responsibility and escape. I don’t get into a big picture because often there isn’t one. Like Dory, I just keep swimming and enjoy the day for what it is and enjoy the next break from the regular for what that is. This is how most people tend to live. This isn’t how I want to live forever–slaved to the grind–but it feels like where things are at now and will be until the circumstances of life change enough that there is space for movement.

This superstructure determining my daily life feels like a sort of roach motel I crawled into. It’s a gilded trap. I bought a house that I regret. I needed a car after I wrecked mine. I have these responsibilities that drive me back to the daily tasks and so on. Still, this is entirely antithetical to my partner and my partnership, which leaves me feeling ripped apart in terms of responsibility and desire… on both ends.

In many ways I am flat worn out on life. I’m just tired. I watch people flow into my workspace with an energy and aplomb I just don’t have anymore. I get excited about little things, and that is wonderful to see, but the big picture rounds out pretty dimly. I suppose I need to find a way to get off the wheel, because I am becoming more and more of a rat.

Continuing the conversation from yesterday, because there is no way I go through week 1 without talking about my new-look Giants. However, I’m not going to start there. Let’s pick up where we left off…

SF over DET
I’m very curious about the QB carousel in San Fransisco, but honestly, the running game is what has me believing. The D is healthy again, and given what they have the chance to do on the ground this year, teams like DET have no shot.

BUF over PIT
This is going down to the wire. I don’t know what the PIT line will look like this year in light of the loss of a key end, but they won’t suck. BUF isn’t a solid running squad, but Allen is the truth. So, I’m picking BUF in a close one.

ATL over PHI
I don’t think philly is very good. I could be wrong, but how wrong? ATL has line issues, but Ryan gets the ball out quickly. Then win big here.

KC over CLE
Look, the Super Bowl was basically a fluke. That many dropped balls will not be repeated. Period.

NO over GB
This is a straight shootout. High scoring affair to be sure! I don’t really know who wins, but I’m going with NO because of the energy that team is bringing vs. Green Bay being a bit of a mess coming into the 2021 season.

NY over DEN
Yep. I said it. Check it: Danny Dimes sucked in pre-season. Still, he didn’t have his best weapons and he will come Sunday. It will be close, but the W goes to NYG

NE over MIA
duh.

LA over CHI
Also duh.

LV over BAL
Monday night is going to answer a lot of questions about what BAL plans to do on the ground and how teams have grown to stop Lamar. I’m curious, but I don’t think the BAL run heavy O is quite at the place it needs to be given the lack of viable RBs.

I initially planned to blog about the Van Gogh experience, but I don’t know I am entirely ready to talk about it. Instead, let’s settle into the week 1 Waiver Wire and talk a little football!

Tampa Bay over Dallas
Dallas puts up quite the fight in this one and it is quickly apparent that the run game is back! The passing game is the centerpiece now though and this is what keeps them in it late, because the Bucs can score.

JAX over HOU
The poo Bowl is the best way to start Trevor Lawrence off right. Houston will not win more than 3 games this season and this ain’t one of them.

WAS over LA Chargers
I believe in Fitzmagic for the first few weeks at least.

SEA over INDY
I don’t believe in the Indy QB situation at all. They tried and failed and inspite of great talent overall, they will not beat that Seattle Juggernaut.

NYJ over CAR
Sam Darnold is about to be exposed by the team that knows him and knows exactly how to dissect him. Meanwhile, Wilson gets it done. McCaffery will roll, but it won’t be enough.

MIN over CIN
I’m not all about the MIN run game, but so many people are that I have to accept that the team is likely legit. CIN… not so much

TEN over AZ
Henry time, y’all

I’m taking us back 100 days or so 6.152. Where I found myself focusing on 911 calls posted to a youtube channel. I haven’t been to that channel since that post. I suppose that is a very good thing. For one I don’t need to add more horror to my life–especially not real life stuff. Another reason is that I haven’t been sucked into the youtube vortex where all my kids live and experience some curated version of reality. They are so deep into the ‘tube that the Jake Paul fight was relevant and streams of people playing Apex is a daily occurrence. It’s their version of my Gammy listening to 1010 wins in the morning before work.

I said back then, “Humanity is crazy. People are really and truly crazy. Through all of this we work hard to find some happiness and peace and truth and companionship in our own lives and often we fail at that. Sometimes we succeed.” I was happier 100 days ago it seems. I was moving towards hope as opposed to drifting aimlessly away from it. I’d like to get back to who that person was and how hard he worked and how organized. I know, Always Forward, but even moving forward we should be able to remember the best versions of ourselves and aspire to that. The person we want to become is a moving target shaped by who we think we are, who we need to be, and the environment that paves the road between the two. I want to be a better partner. I want to be a person who can be trusted as much as he is loved. I want to be a person in whom faith is worthwhile. It is a big goal with a thousand benchmarks along the way, and the climb is so very difficult. Yet we persevere.

Sometimes we succeed.

Groupon is back to offering me moving services. Perhaps they know something I don’t or at least suspect it. Perhaps it is another example of the algorithm listening in and taking any opportunity to craft my digital experience in a way reflective of the things I say and write. Once upon a time it was silly to say my computer is listening to me. Now the question is merely “how often?”

This hasn’t been the best holiday weekend and the last few weeks have been absolute dog crap for me in the personal realm. Sadly, there are no indications of anything getting better. I don’t want to adjust to the new normal, though I’ve expected it from the moment I boarded the plane to leave Seattle this summer. Things just don’t go well here anymore.

My partner has Gremlins. I used to get them once a year, but now she seems to get them on a regular basis. Are Gremlins transmittable? Hers seem to focus on laptops–macbooks to be specific. Her mousepads fail on a yearly basis. We’ve gone through three macbooks already. We’re on the 4th. I don’t get how that works. I blamed it on her electro-chemical makeup. That’s probably a stretch.

Calling this a reflection is probably a stretch. It feels more like…

Some Thoughts:

1. One of our puppies is a punk ass. He cries all the time because the others bully him. By bully I mean they play with him the way puppies play and he doesn’t like it and cries. Loudly. It’s rough.
2. All my kids hate English. Makes me wanna hate all my kids.
3. Revision is damn hard.
4. My favorite class to teach right now is Mythology.
5. My favorite show to watch right now is Jupiter’s Legacy.
6. My favorite food… I’m not all that into food at the moment.
7. I am into the Madden Franchise. Fun! The updates are meh, but it is always fun starting something new.
8. Excited about the upcoming youth season of football. Not remotely ready as a coach. I gotta start that process Tuesday by learning more of the play calls and getting the rhythm of who is good at what and which plays work together so I can be helpful to the OC and be able to run more of the offensive practice when the man is gone.

I’m writing this as the fourth quarter rolls in the ISU v. UNI game. My Cyclones are up by six thanks to a pair of field goals. My kids lost earlier in the week at the high school level and now I am watching my alma mater do their thing on a Saturday. I haven’t watched college football in a very long time. I haven’t had the opportunity to watch Cyclone football for an even longer time. It feels good to see the team look good and play good and I love that the program has evolved from my old ass era to become a top 10 team. It reminds me of how old I am and reminds me of being a part of something that would eventually rise and have a shining moment.

Football is a fundamental part of my existence and largely will be for the rest of my brief time on this planet (brief as in probably only 70-90 years if I am healthy and medtech catches up with the sci-fi version of where it should be now). I want to be able to watch the games and play the video games for as long as possible, but the in-person relationship is already fading as it peaks. Weird, right? I have two kids on Varsity and one of them is a senior. I only get to see him a few more games. His brother has a few good years ahead of him, but also doubles as a JV player. I don’t even plan on going to those games beyond the ones that match up with the youth practices. As for the youth stuff, my youngest is in his last season of youth to be followed by a year off of tackle and then back into it as a freshman. I won’t be going to all of his games either, which means it is winding down for me.

That time in the stands and on the sideline is being replaced, but by what is yet to be determined. Whatever that is, I want it built around a relationship with my partner. We’ll grow together.