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We are considering combining households. In that I mean we are considering taking the space our daughter held and giving it to the two boys who live in the extra space. Financially it would be a change–though not necessarily beneficial to me as an individual but to us as a collective–and that change would also be social. We would be entirely on top of each other in a way we have not been. I’m not even starting to talk about the bathroom concerns of 4 boys sharing one shower that is already not doing so hot.

The kids would all be in one smaller area and thus the general area would be kid-landia most of the time. I have concerns with that. We both have concerns about the ‘culture of the house’ I also have concerns about designing a space that is amenable to two teenagers who will spend the majority of their home hours in that space. It needs to feel like they can have a inch of privacy (the other two boys each have their own rooms) and still have space for their stuff. Presently they share a room in the extra space, but that space is large enough that each boy has somewhere else to go when the other wants private time. Take that away and what happens? Maybe I’m being too giving or easy on them by making this my concern. I really don’t know.

So, I’ve been researching low bunkbeds (7 ft ceiling in the new space) and have some options there. I’ve also been researching capsule beds, which would allow max privacy in the initial bedroom space. Anything we do is going to be expensive. Buying a new bed, bunk or otherwise is a cost I have to absorb. I didn’t fully consider this when thinking about the move. As it stands it could cost several thousand just to make the move–after you factor in AC upgrade/repair etc. Still, the long term financial is better, and it seems to be what the family wants. So, onward.

Maybe I should go with timewarp? Regardless, this thing isn’t catching on all that well to begin with. Of course, I do write to an audience of (maybe) one, so there is that. I’m going all the way back to 809. Like the original 809. I was still buying kids meals and remarking on how $19 was a lot of money to spend on food for three kids. I just dropped $87 on 3 pounds of pulled pork for a kid after ruining the $14 rump I was planning to slow cook (the oven turned off. Apparently it does that on its own now). I was a different dude back then. I was still bright eyed about the future. I still felt like there was a chance of being wildly successful in life. I still had a bit of comedy left in these veins.

I was actually reflecting on supply and demand and monetization. I wrote, “The worlds financial engine is predicated largely on the principles of supply and demand.” Years later the oil market tanked due to nobody driving during Covid and then suddenly people started driving post-covid and the oil industry decided to cash in. Supply and Demand. No, it wasn’t because of Hunter Biden’s laptop. I honestly don’t really understand what that has to do with anything at all (largely because I’ve been avoiding Fox News). So, I’ve changed. The world has changed. Onward then. We gotta keep it moving.

Excited to be starting a new week and hopefully getting into a new groove as I start to develop a new novel and work heartily on the old one. The fantasy? It is still too big to write and I still don’t know the story I want to tell. In the process of developing the world I started thinking that I might come around to writing and publishing a book on building systems of magic for fantasy writing and gaming. I’ve learned and thought and created so much of that so far that it feels about that time to create this. So, in short order there are at least four projects available to me to work on. This means I am not quite used up yet. I like it.

I’ve been thinking about systems in general. I once developed a sport based around goal scoring that was meant for super powered individuals. The system of it was really fun to develop and it feels like, though that was a moment in time, the idea of system building that arose was meaningful. Now… apply that same concept to space and ship to ship gaming. That could be very interesting indeed. Space is huge and once you cannot see the enemy, it becomes a giant game of battleship. So, let us start there. I want to develop SPACE BATTLESHIP. Similar concept in three dimensional space. It is best suited for a computer game but works as a board game if you dial space into distinct levels. Not much but it is a start.

Some Thoughts:

1. Gary Brown and Dwayne Haskins both passed on this week. These things come in threes, yknow.

Tried a new custody strategy this week. We had the kids the entire week while the ex had them the previous week. The idea was to explore what this would feel like and what life could look like if we operated in this fashion. We couldn’t have picked a worse week. Between state testing jacking up school schedules and sports stuff spread out over the week, we (mostly me because I accept the task as mine) found ourselves driving all over town multiple times a day. I went through an entire tank of gas. I also had far less time to myself than I am accustomed to. Had I been writing steadily I would’ve lost at least 3 whole days. They wouldn’t have been balanced out by the no kids week either because that was largely couple time.

What did We learn? The kids like the schedule. They like sinking into each space vs moving every few days. I like having them for a longer stretch of time personally, but they need to develop better habits of cleanliness and of time management. I too need to stay on top of them more and make sure things are getting handled. Biggest miss: my first born didn’t get registered for college as planned.

The week off was great. We enjoyed a ton of us time. I had a lot of fun with my partner. I didn’t do enough work, but I’m planning on fighting that fight with myself tomorrow. All in all, the schedule was a win for me personally and we’ve a lot to talk about moving forward as a couple. This is only one of many possible options.

My kid is on the way to prom with two of his best friends from his entire childhood. They started together as early as first grade and, in spite of going to different schools in some cases, the three of them stayed locked in. I suspect at least two of them will ride to college together, and that would be nice. It would be a far better site than I dealt with, practically starting fresh until I linked up with a friend from high school who grew to be my brother. I’m so excited to see where life takes my first born. Prom is a rite of passage for many. For some it is about sex. For some is about love. For some it is about friendship. I’m excited to be parent of a kid who chose to be about friendship and let all of those other things fall into place where they may.

I remember my prom night and my date. I honestly do not remember making it inside the prom. We had fun that evening and connected with so may friends. I don’t remember how it ended. I don’t remember ever really having a relationship with my prom date other than the idea that we were supposed to go together and being friends prior to that moment. Time stretches the imagination in ways that change truth to fiction and vice versa. I don’t even remember who I was those thirty years ago. Yet I know I wasn’t a fraction of the man I am today in so many ways. Rite of passage is another way of saying moving into something new. So here is to my first born moving into something new. I hope he enjoys every second of his journey moving forward.

Some Thoughts:

1. Dwayne Haskins, back up QB and once heralded FB star QB, died recently as the result of a car accident. He was hit by a car, presumably while on foot. More details are emerging, but what catches my eye is that in a day where everything on the road felt so enraged it comes as no surprise that someone famous died to that din.

Okay. Take a breath.

I’m trying to figure out in my own mind why everything feels so stressed right now. As I’m listening to my division meeting and letting the accidental ASMR of my college president wash over me I’m realizing I have been quite stressed. About everything. It feels like I am teetering on a cliff at the bottom of which is imaginable misery. I don’t have that answer beyond it just being that kind of day.

Some Thoughts:

1. I need to stay off Instagram. Every time I see it I am tugged back into this world of youth football.
2. Why am I on? I’m trying to track down some of the research I did on Capsule-style beds through that medium. Turns out I am a terribly inefficient researcher.
3. Why Capsule Beds? Trying to create a new and smaller living space for the kids.

Honestly, the title is much ado about nothing. I thought of it, wrote it down, and had nothing to follow it up. If anything I could talk about the way Flores’ Truth Bomb blew up what looked to be a conspiracy to unite Tom Brady with Sean Payton, the Dolphins, and the fastest WR corps in the NFL. Once Flores dropped dime on the NFL (after not getting treated right or not playing along depending on your perspective) the Brady to Miami plan went away… for a minute. Miami hired the whitest black guy in known history and Brady will ride as a Buc yet again.

All of this is meaningless. I’ve discovered that much I trouble myself with in the world is trivial. This is likely because I can have no impact on the stuff that genuinely means something and rationalizing that powerlessness is a lot harder than watching grown men play sports and feeling a specific way enough about those sports that I play a digital version at home.

Some Thoughts:

1. I have 5 boys watching four different shows at this exact moment. Screens are everywhere!
2. I have a giant ‘bible’ of mixed drinks I gave my partner years ago and we’ve yet to open it up. Meanwhile, we keep looking for new drink recipes…
3. Water is the pathway to salvation.

My youngest keeps trying to convince me that his beloved Seahawks will get one of the Giants skill players this year. This week he’s saying Kadarius is going there. He’s not. With the release of Gil Brandt’s hot 100 and MMQBs first 10 taken mock we are legit in the season of the speculation. For me the only real speculation is ‘do the Giants get Ikem ‘Ickey’ Ekwanu. I liked him before but knowing he was offered scholarships to Harvard and Yale makes me like him more. Dude has brains. He was a Fulbright Scholar (Look at the brains on Brad). He’s a smart footballer which means he will be able to develop well as a lineman beyond his base physical abilities. Line is a mind game vs. the guy across from you and understanding how they operate and countering that over the course of a week’s prep. So, I am penciling him in as the pick if he is still there at 5.

Some Thoughts:

1. Writing scene might be heating up for me. Lord knows I need the deadline.
2. Meanwhile, I’m about to download Halo Infinite…

I’m actually running out of things to say again. Strange problem for a writer. Of course, we’ve recently covered that I am not writing. I have a tendency to go through periods of great drought when I don’t have deadlines. I find just about anything else to grasp onto. Instead I find myself sitting lifelessly in front of a keyboard trying to figure out how to spend these ten minutes.

Some Thoughts:

1. I cannot find a single xbox game worth playing more than the Elden Ring I’ve already downloaded on PS5. All the new hotness is scheduled for a post-summer release. That leaves me gameless. Madden is practically dead to me. I guess I can play some Apex, but I don’t want to.

Well, Kansas just won the NCAA ‘ship. They were down by a ton at the half and managed to storm back and overcome the largest deficit in NCAA championship history. Nice. Maybe not the cinderella story we looked for, but we got a story. Sports is always about the story. The story is often as important and at time more important than the skill of the players involved. That is why some expert players aren’t focused on nearly as much as others. We live in story. We believe in story. In story we conceptualize who we could be if the situation were just a little different–if we got to shoot our shot. Part of the story being told here was about Roy Williams having been the HC of both the teams playing tonight. The Roy Williams bowl. Nice, but for our household the story was about Remy Martin finally getting his moment to win the tournament–the moment he risked (and likely missed) his career for. He was a top 10 prospect when he was a sophomore and here he is, a 5th year player and a bench player on the Jayhawks and still the guy who carried them forward at the end. Only, nobody seems to be telling that story. Sometimes stories have their moment and then the moment fades, no matter how more interesting they get.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am, for lack of a better term, addicted to story. I just have been spending tons more time listening to and playing through stories than I have been telling my own. As the years flutter by I need to be thinking about telling more of my stories while I still can.
2. One of the stories I still feel I need to constantly tell is the sports stories of my kids. I guess it makes me feel involved.