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I’ve been meaning to talk about the pro football game and I haven’t really had the chance to do so yet. So, let’s get into it tonight.

Giants over Falcons
This is about love. This is about watching an offense try to come together given the lack of depth along the offensive line. I don’t know how far the G-men can go this season without more cash spent along those O and D lines, but they are grinding and trying hard to win games. I think this is the week it happened.

Titans over Colts
QB questions in Indianapolis because their guy sprained both ankles. Yikes. King Henry is getting on track. That spells doom for a team that is gonna need to come from behind early.

Chiefs over Chargers
Chiefs just don’t lose two games in a row. They aren’t that team.

Bengals over Steelers
This is a big one for the Bengals. They have a lot to prove here, and I don’t know that the Steelers are the Steel Curtain without Watt playing this week.

Browns over Bears
Sure, Fields might be the great hope of Chicago, but he is still a rookie against a sick Browns defense and a Browns run game that is still underrated.

Cardinals over Jags

Ravens over Lions

Saints over Patriots
Too much of the deep ball. There will be picks but there will also be TDs.

Bills over Washington

Broncos over Jets

Raiders over Dolphins
Another QB goes on IR. Yikes. The Dolphins won’t be good for a long time. Still, my RB gotta eat.

Some Thoughts:

1. Surprisingly good turn for the youth game. We are 2-0 and we are a tough, physical team with the chance to break some big plays through the air and on the ground. We haven’t had the scoring we are expecting to see, but we will get there.

The thing about writing in public spaces is that you have to be able to shut down the world around you. This is easier to do in public spaces because, for me at least, I don’t have a stake in what is going on around me. There are all kinds of distractions to a writing life. Often the ones that are most egregious are the ones that are the most personal. At home I can lose an hour tidying up while I am supposed to be writing. That tidying needs to get done. That text needs to be responded to. That game film needs to be watched. Those games need to get played. That sweet partner of mine needs to be kissed. Yet out in the bright confines of a breakfast spot all of the distractions are of the ‘don’t really care’ variety. None of the people have any real meaning in my life, so the stakes for paying attention are extremely low.

This is by no means a long-term strategy. I can’t afford to eat out in a crowd every day. Likewise I have yet to establish an office vibe that simulates white noise effectively while allowing myself to forget the dust in the corners or the cricket I absolutely need to murder. I continue to work hard at developing the writing in that space, but from time to time I need to get out, get a hard reset, and write some stuff.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve written quite a bit about sadness and quitting the blog, etc. This is likely the result of a type of emotional co-dependence I’m happy to endure. I’m happiest when the people around me are happy; my partner most of all. I recognize that I need to maintain an emotional health/upside even when the two of us are out of balance.
2. My Fry’s card didn’t work this morning and it messed me up more than a little. I’ve been reading and watching a lot of corp dystopia stuff that always has that scene where a character’s data gets flagged as unusable. That is some scary stuff…

For as much as I pay for the internet, you’d think I would be able to type a ten minute post without having to wait for every single word to load letter by letter. You’d be wrong and I be pissed about it. The first few minutes of this blog were chewed up by such nonsense until I eventually scrapped that entire position and resorted to a word doc.

Word scares me. It never did, but I got used to the cloud and apple stopped making computers with ports that would readily accept a flash drive—I have adapters but that crap is cumbersome to lug about. I’m editing my novel on this laptop and if something goes wrong, the novel goes away. Such is the past of computers and ought not to be the present but here we are. I’m still using word as the world spins on towards the future without me.

But I was talking about the internet.

My sister in-law is back in town briefly and trying to convince us to move to Honduras where we can live as expats. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a black expat. While they may exist it is more culturally honest to recognize that black folk aren’t trying to leave the USA to go anywhere in South America. Africa? Maybe. Europe? Also maybe. Canada? Nah, son. That being said, I’m more interested in going up than down (relatively speaking given the Ameri-centric maps I rock).

I’m also out of time to write about it.

This football season has not gone at all according to plan. I’ve managed all of two wins total in 3 leagues in two weeks. My Giants look like Gnats and it is a real question whether or not they’ll break the losing streak this week.

On the youth front the youngest faces his toughest test yet this weekend. He faces a legit Force Football Academy team loaded with speed and talent. We haven’t been able to generate a run game and he hasn’t done a good job holding on to the ball, so he needs to step up or he’ll wind up 3rd string and not playing.

On the High School front my eldest may have suffered a shoulder tear and another ACL injury. So he’s probably done with his HS football days. He won’t dress this week and sees the doc in 2 weeks. Gotta love prompt medicine. The 2nd son is now a starter on varsity. Quite the little 14 yr old sophomore. He’s only going to get better. Of course, he plays in the same league as two of the top 20 (one in the top 2!) teams in the nation, so he’s up against serious talent.

No time for predictions… I’ll handle that tomorrow.

I’ve been writing reflections for days now. I noticed it when I pulled up the blog and saw the titles of the last few. It is apparently reflection week. Tonight I want to reflect on the concept of time spent. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal as of late. Most of my time is spent with other people. I spend it with my partner or my kids or my students. My time alone is spent either writing or gaming or occasionally watching a show on my own. I think I spend a lot of time alone on some days and not much at all on others. I don’t know that I need more time alone. I don’t really argue the quality of that time either. I think where I need to improve is in the quality of time spent with other people and who those people are I am spending that time with.

I am starting to think that I will be leaving a lot sooner than I thought. I’ve gotten around to accepting that need. I’m ready to go. I’ll be able to finish this semester, which is hugely important to me, and then it is likely time to go somewhere else and start over and build a new life that doesn’t have many of the aspects of this one here and doesn’t have hardly any of the people. I’ll need to figure out a way to still be a good dad, but I am sure I can find a way to do that and still see the kids occasionally. That change is huge for me. It is something I never thought would happen, but the neccesity is there, so it is going to happen. Such is how life goes.

How is it that a missing person’s case grips the entire nation? Is it because of who the victim is? A little–in the type/trope model of the situation. However, it can also be said that our collective national conscience loves a whodunnit. SPOILER ALERT: The boyfriend did it. My guess is that he got fed up and struck out in anger. I am not justifying his actions or even approaching anything resembling understanding, but I am laying out what it seems the facts do indicate. Now he’s on the run and that too is newsworthy, because maybe the channels can catch a glimpse of him being brought to justice and further appease the American conscience. However, if he kills himself it becomes a conspiracy and is less rewarding, though it does get to live on. This is the stuff we think about here in our nation. We can alleviate our larger fears of the direction our nation is headed in by thinking about one man and one woman and what must have happened for them to fall apart so dramatically that a life was lost.

I don’t understand tiktok. I suppose I should, but the idea that these dances and vignettes that shape the media is just dumb. Sure, it is powered by 50 million children and bots pretending to be children. This is a really sad reflection on human society as it stands in this day and age. There is looking for fame and distraction and then there is this. Tiktok is humanity at its most useless and at its most powerful. We could be using the media to propagate real progress, but instead people are dancing and begging you to like and subscribe. Yikes.

Some Thoughts:

1. Watching the Ravens v. Chiefs game I am amazed at the crazy athleticism.
2. Falling into this week I am excited for what is possible. I am also slightly terrified in a premonitory way about Tuesday. I don’t know why.
3. One thing I love about this present life: joy on the faces of my kids after winning a game.
4. One thing I hate about this present life: How lazy of a home lifestyle my five boys all lead.
5. One thing I’m excited to learn about: How my students feel about climate change
6. One thing I’m messed up about: My roof got ruined in this last haboob and I hope insurance fixes it.
7. One thing that makes me feel blessed: My partner still loves me and wants to be with me. I mean that is a big deal. I’m not that great as of late.

Not a ton to say to the world, so I will mostly rely on…

Some Thoughts:

1. The cricket that lives either in my office wall, in my office, or just outside needs to die. It is ruining what little zen I have left.
2. I wish my book was being released at GenCon this year. It isn’t. I’m revising. That is on me.
3. I think I figured out a little bit about how scheduling works in this new era of youth football. It seems like the hosting team gets all home games and presently we have a few hosting teams. We are a hosting team, and one that has only one team playing, so they can jam the schedule with a number of other squads in search of a home. I hope that means we get all home games. I enjoyed having that. Of course, that means we won’t play other hosting teams, which leads me to the conclusion that next week’s opponent will be from a short list of teams not hosting games. I am guessing we get Devilbacks, Renegades, Toros, Eagles, Lions, or Argos. I fear I may be wrong, because sometimes hosting teams travel anyhow–thus having a ton of games at their stadium and them not play. Who knows….
4. I actually want to play the Toros, Renegades, OTB Hawks, or Elite Reapers. I want to know what we have. If not them then more specifically, the PHX Dragons or Mustang Football, because I don’t think we are at the Argos level, but I want to see how we stack vs. their competition.
5. That being said, we won our first game 18-0 but the league recorded it as 12-0. Nah, son. What makes it difficult for me is how badly we played. We are a better team than we showed ourselves to be on film. We have a lot of work to do and hardly any time before the next game… 2 practices and a ton of change coming.

Well, I didn’t quit yet. I also am not in a place where I really have anything ten minutes worthy to say. So, I’ll slide right into…

some thoughts:

1. Turns out the odd font issue is only on my side . It doesn’t manifest beyond the edit mode. Doesn’t show in the blog itself.
2. the only thing more compelling than a dead white girl (see: any news show airing on any night.. be it 48 hrs, 20/20, etc) is a missing one. The gabby petito thing is out of control. Apparently the boyfriend is missing now too. He better stay gone less he wants to find himself in a cell.
3. Hamilton High just did the w, coming back from being down 24-7 with 1:10 left in the game to the #7 team in the nation. They won 25-24. Crazy.
4. my mid kid started his first varsity game. Not bad for a 14 yr old. They won 45-7.

I’m struggling as a person at the moment. I am trying to make sense of a life that, for all intents and purposes, is pretty basic and rote, but is not at all the magical existence I expected it to be and especially not the existence my partner is looking for. I am struggling with guilt and lack of meaning and no real purpose beyond getting stuff done that needs to get done interspersed with a few hours of gaming whenever I get a chance. The gaming is my drug of choice. It is a release from a home reality that is all sorts of horrible. It used to be that gaming was something I did for fun and how I wanted to spend my alone time to clear my head. It is still that, but it being that also makes it a way to escape from the other option, which is sitting in the dark and feeling bad about life and not having any real sense of how to change anything.

The hardest thing for me isn’t when I feel alone and isolated even when among people. The hardest thing for me is when I want to isolate because I know that being with people just incurs long term damage; where every word I speak is slap of paint on the wall of my life covering up something vital to my existence and masking it as though that word–that phrase–cancels out everything else. That is what my life looks like these days. It isn’t a pretty place to be.

Some Thoughts:

1. I was about to end this blog entirely last night. I still may. It’s become more and more probable that I will stop writing–stop expecting to have the mental clarity to be able to and even want to create stories. What stopped me was the voice in the back of my mind that said I would try to pick it up again eventually. If I’m really about something and expect to see it continue, then there is no value in stopping. That is true in all aspects of my life. I want to stop right now. However, I’m going to Dory this out as long as I can until I know one way or another.