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Last night my son’s HS football team was beaten 52-14. The game wasn’t even that close. They scored first and then proceeded to give up 52 points before scoring again in deep garbage time. They have become a deep garbage program over the past few years and I don’t see any way the thing turns itself around. The problems are notoriety and access to players. The talented ones who can afford to make the trip to Brophy, and play for a team that is constantly competing for a state championship. Then there is the lure of Mountain Pointe, who chose to bus kids in from a different town when Desert Vista refused to do so. It was that moment of refusal that triggered the fall. It was that moment of a school deciding they wanted to be insular and not attract the sort of kids who would make them successful that led to all sorts of kids leaving. In fact, almost every MP starter began at Desert Vista. Many of the Brophy starters live in the DV area. Academically the school is good (not Brophy good). The track team is consistently a state competitor. Yet football has become a black hole over the past decade, marred by 5 head coaches in 5 years. The first retired. The rest all quit. This new one has never coached as a HC before and the inexperience not only shows on the field, but from what I’ve been told in parent interactions and generally in the way the team is failing to attract new talent.

So, what do we do? The kid is a starter. He’s good enough to be a starter anywhere he goes. The issue is what it takes to get him out of there and then where he goes. If he stays he has a real chance at racking up a lot of city-level awards. That will help him get noticed, and the schedule will help him get noticed. He won’t win at the HS level, but is that the goal? Or is the goal to show that you can be a really good player no matter the situation. On the other hand, is he merely showing that he is a really good player on a bad team?

It is a lot for me to consider, but in the end it comes down to doing what is best for the kid and his future. If he does leave it needs to be to a place where the academics are good, the culture is solid, and the opportunities run long. It is not about being a starter. I expect him to earn that no matter where he winds up. It is about the opportunity to get better and give himself a chance to reach the next level: D1 college ball.

Some Thoughts:

1. Speaking of D1, the kid at Drake had a good game and a good win. The team looked solid defensively. They need to clean up the offense because they face an undefeated next week.
2. Alabama is no longer undefeated. Vanderbilt fixed that up.

No fiction. I think it might be too hot for fiction. In fact I think it might be too hot in general. It has been over 100 degrees for over 115 days straight thus far.

The National Weather Service says this is abnormal. The Lady Talis tells me it is always like this. I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. It is not always like this–not at all, but it is always hot. It happens to be quite a bit hotter now. 61 days of 110 or above. It is so hot, in fact, that I have lost all sense of what it means to not have 100 degree days. By now I should be cooling off and taking lovely morning walks. Instead I’m hiding from the sun like Riddick. Honestly, it is a clear scale up of global warming that people will continue to ignore.

But this isn’t a post entirely about the weather. It is more about life and the quality of life here vs. elsewhere. I keep thinking about the time I spend outside of the desert, and it is hard to rationalize why I continue to stay. The bugs are bad. The weather sucks. I don’t have a single friend I am staying for. We ought to up and leave. I am sure we will once the retirement hits. However, there is a part of me that wants to relinquish even that–cash it all out and find a new job and work in some capacity until I die. Retirement isn’t going to provide the easy street I want out of life. I’ll need to work anyway. So, maybe the plan should be to find another faculty position and put my heart into the next act.

It isn’t a bad plan. So long as it happens in a good place.

Some Thoughts:

1. Basketball is back. Sports are taking over the timeline. Did you know that there will be a college or pro football game televised live every single day for the next 54 days? It is like Lady Talis pointed out in the past, they cannot keep saying Sunday is the football day. They’ve literally made every day that.

I had to ask myself the other day if politics have gotten more divisive or am I just older and more aware and finally part of the target audience? I am unsure. Long have there been canyon-esque divides between the parties and I’m certain the vitriol level was often high. The Obama campaign represented a significant turning point, as racial fears were closely married with political discourse in the rise of Fox News and its kin. It can be effective to go negative, as this article points out..

Picking a president is not just about the candidates’ strengths but also about how their weaknesses can manifest themselves. Imagine if, in 2000, Al Gore’s advertisements had hit George W. Bush hard over incompetence on foreign affairs and as a trigger-happy cowboy. ~Politico

Yet the problem we face in modern politics is the echo-chamber of online media that serves to shield the people from any and all aspects of a reality different from what their party wants to portray. That reality is reinforced through every socializer that those in power can find. It hits you in church. It hits you among your friend groups. Your family is often a reinforcer. In truth, the only places it doesn’t (or is not yet guaranteed to) hit you are the places where the Republicans are determined to make it hit–work and school. The plan of the right is to make most major governmental “cog” positions political appointments. The plan that has been effective in many states is to control what is and is not taught in schools in an effort to reshape the reality and the history of this nation. To

In 2021, the Texas Legislature enshrined a ban on public schools teaching that “the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the United States constituted the true founding of the United States” — a reference to the acclaimed 1619 Project from the New York Times. Texas schools are also prohibited from teaching that “slavery and racism” were part of the “founding principles of the United States.” (University of Houston Public Media)

Now you could look at the above as splitting hairs, or you could consider it a gateway statement in terms of how we codify slavery in the US. I choose the later as a futurist, because when I look at debt solutions and this history of chattel slavery I continue to see how we are inching towards a community of wage slaves. There is a fundamental difference between the parties as of late and that difference is more and more of a social one than anything else. Unfortunately we don’t get to see it like that because it is generally portrayed in the light of freedom. However, that freedom is riding on the back of fear. Fearmongering is the soul of at least one of the two parties at play here… I don’t think I need to tell you which one, but just follow the voice screaming Migrant crime.

I am, at this point, desperately out of shape. A mere walk across my small campus pulls my heart rate up to 115. Later, after I sat for a while I felt it in my chest. This is a clear and present sign that all is not well and I am not on a healthy path. Yet I continue to delude myself in moments that I am on the up and things are going to be okay. TLDR: I’m acting like the New York Giants.

I am not the only one to realize they’re using up Malik Nabers. He’s been targeted so much that teams are starting to let him catch the rock only to rock him once he lays hands on ball. He wound up concussed last week. It won’t be the last time this happens, because everyone knows the rock is going to one of two places. The other is into the hands of the shifty RB turned WR Robinson, though he is getting about 3 yards a catch. He’s not worth worrying about unless you’re in a pure 1 to 1 ppr format or a defense in a short yardage situation. I don’t see a bright future for the Giants this season. My ultimate hope is they fall far enough to secure Travis Hunter. Pairing him with Nabers would be filthy. Still need a QB who can stretch the field with his arm, and Jones is no longer that guy. It may be that he never was. That means that Hyatt is worthless in Giants blue until the QB issue is fixed. With any luck, the G-Men will be able to navigate their selections towards a solid QB. There are enough coming out this year that a high round 2 pick may yield a starting QB.

As for me? The Talislegger franchise is definitely in trouble. I’m starting to understand that it is going to take more than good vibes to get me back on track.

I had a specific thought in mind when I went looking for a turnback. I wanted to look back as far as I could into when I was married to, well, a toxic person. I wanted to look back at it because I remember feeling guilt for leaving that person behind. I remember thinking to myself, “she needs you.” along with “She is killing you.” It turns out she was actually killing me. I ate in a fashion that would have killed me by now. That in conjunction with the terrible daily stress was going to be my end.

The reason I wanted to reach back that far was to reflect on how I felt then as opposed to now. I’m healthier physically and mentally. I have a partner who loves me in spite of as opposed to in order to… I don’t have to worried about being called stupid or a plethora of other demeaning and degrading things when she or her sisters don’t get their way. My boys get to see what a happy couple is supposed to look like. I’m grateful for where I am today. I am grateful for who I am with.

I was triggered to stare back by it being Tuesday, but more immediately by the ex attempting another controlling rant. I honestly have gained the peace to largely tune it out now. That’s another moment of growth for me. I find that I’ve learned quite a bit since back in post 1876 when I suggested,

I fear many relationships are torn apart by a failure to communicate and if we could all just reiterate what we want and need–without getting angry or defensive about the need to reiterate–a lot more relationships would be happy ones.

I am learning to communicate even now. I am honest in this new space and love and I feel like that will take us far in our shared future.

Predawn I have my coffee. Our dog is sitting near the backdoor entrance to our shared office space. In the distance I can hear the hum of AC units beginning to churn as the weather boils up towards what always promises to be a hot desert day. Even in this I am grateful. I can hear the sound of cars streaming along the highway a few blocks away and I am grateful not to be part of that commuter rush. There was a time I would rise early in the morning and join the stream, desperate to make it to the office early enough to have time to relax before I started teaching. Now I am relaxed before I start teaching. I made a million choices in my life; a series of variable encounters that led me to this. I am fortunate to have been able to be anyone or anything. I toyed with the idea of being a stage performer, singing along with a group of very talented men. I tried my hand at athletics before dropping out under a veil of laziness. I was going to be an engineer. I was going to be a lawyer. I was going to be a great many things. I am what I am now.

Some my choice matrix as a series of failures. It could be seen very much that way. I see it as a series of chances taken or not taken. I see it as allowing the thin winds of fate to blow me in the direction I thought it meant to lead me, though not quite understanding why or especially where. I have slowly shifted my way across the United States, moving from one coast and meaning to terminate the movements on the other. Each stop represents a fundamental phase of my life. Perhaps this is what the last post hinted at so strongly. My time in the southwest is nearing an end, as so is this phase of life. Soon I will be along a different coast and what will come of that?

This phase of my life is marked with a lack of energy and a longing for things that I grew up with. Everything in the southwest is geared towards leisure; towards a post-life life–a retirement or even luxury party phase. This is a place where athletes go when they cannot play any longer. This is a place where elderly people come to retire. This is not a place where someone comes when they are craving the frenetic creative energy of a major city. Perhaps this is why I leave so often, as if I am a thirsty man seeking a well to quench my needs for interaction beyond these placid mornings.

I mean to be a better me. It will require a better tomorrow that starts with me, but has the help of place. Here I am surviving, but sinking as if in quicksand. Elsewhere… who knows?

I don’t have a title for this one. I do have a slew of things surging through my head, but nothing as coherent as to form a general idea. I could go with the classic “Some thoughts” but I thought I’d hold that one back for the list-style thinking that I learned from Peter King. No, this is more of a random stream of consciousness stemming from the collisions of realization I’ve had about a few things over the past 24 hours. The prime one being that I am old. I am nearly 50 years old, which argues that I have lived longer than I will live, which is not a wonderful feeling. That sense of finality is troubling to me because I don’t want to be old and I certainly don’t want to be dead. I want to be vibrant and vital and have meaningful days (with occasional lapses into nothing but frivolity). But not the ‘old fat guy on the beach’ vibe that I always found terrible. Yet I am primed to be him sooner than I imagine.

So what can be done? Not a lot. Maybe a lot. There are things I can overcome and things I need to accept. For example, I am lazy, therefore I need to accept tighter reins on my freetime, so that I can be productive. I also need to not be topped out where I am right now. I ought to be doing more than I am professionally. I ought to be strengthening my resume as a professor and an author. I enjoy teaching (if just slightly less lately), and the pay is good so there is little need to not to save for publishing a legit best seller or getting some other sort of writing gig.

The other thing I need to accept finally is not being a coach. I struggle with trying to be a student of the game but not actually being as engaged in that world. It simply will not work. In short, I need to move down the path and devote myself to the things I claim to devote myself to. This matters. I ought to make sure I match words to action.

There is a part of me that shifted over the last cycle. By cycle I am referring to the old science (fact?) that the body replaces cell types over every 7-10 years. This is not an all at once type of situation. It happens faster or slower depending on the particular system. The Neurons effectively don’t change at all. While there is evidence of adult neurogenesis, it is limited at best. I am getting away from the point. I am not who I was. Not physically or mentally or socially. I am not happy with who I am. That leaves deciding who I must become.

This moment struck hardest yesterday when I noticed uneven development in my pecks. I have not been working out lately, so there is no external factor motivating this decline. That fact alone struck me with huge disappointment. At first I assumed it could be part of a larger medical decline. I thought I may be dying very quickly. That thought forced me to consider who would be at my funeral. If I died right now I could hold that funeral in a double wide trailer.

I don’t have a lot of family or friends. I lost my local social circle as a side-effect of divorce. I have a brother who is not a birth brother but a friend I’ve been through so much of my life with that he is family. I have the Lady Talis and her family, the kids, and anyone beyond that small circle exists outside the realm of close contact. It is this self-imposed isolationism that has been the largest change/largest impact on self. I spent a life cultivating connections and through those connections building a lifestyle and activities and even gaining new access and insights to the world. Now everything is through a filter of articles or stories that other people have created. I’m not even on social media. My only access therein is as an echo chamber/promotion engine for my kids’ sports stuff. I am not entirely sure I am a person anymore.

I do not cultivate healthy habits. In truth I attempt to get such things out of the way. Last night I woke at 1:30 in the morning. My first thought was to check the score of my kid’s football team. My second was to blog because if I got it out the way, I would not need to worry about doing anything for the rest of the day. I would be ‘open’. Therein lies the nasty truth of my present reality. Open, you see, is what I aim for. I try my hardest to be available and not engaged in something that matters to me in any real way outside of, I suppose, two hours of video games. I am degraded in that fashion.

So I am learning what it means to not be a person. I am mirroring negative behaviors I see, and I am closing off and shutting down more and more. I don’t want to be that person. I want to be a different flavor of human. I want to turn this broken down old ship around, get it into port, and (after I stop mixing metaphors) get it fixed up right. However, I need to decide where I am going and who I am going to be on that journey. All I do know is it needs to start now.

I have to admit some confusion here. Recently I learned that Israel bombed a residential area as part of what they referred to as “a “precise strike” on Hezbollah’s “central headquarters,” which it said had been “intentionally built under residential buildings” in Beirut. Here’s the thing though: Kids died. Children were murdered because they would not risk their own troops in trying to eliminate the enemy. Instead they presumed moral authority to kill anyone who was in the path of their target at the same time they scream that Israeli civilians should not have been murdered and kidnapped. This double standard is at the very heart of what is making me less and less sympathetic to the plight of the Israeli nation. At this point they are killing more children than militants on both war fronts, a truth that threatens to eliminate an entire generational population. At the very least they are doing more long term damage to the peace effort than anything else and I believe they absolutely know that.

Here is a fundamental truth: Israel believes their people has more of a right to life than their enemy. This is a fundamental truth of war. However, when it dips towards genocide the world usually gets mad. The world DID get mad. The ICJ said, “you guys are wrong. Stop.” Israel said no. The USA said we will agree with the court but continue to fund the Israeli war effort because we are politically hamstrung to do exactly that. The real concern is that Israel will not stop and will in fact expand the war effort. This is about Iran proxies right now. Once it grows larger than that; once it crosses a certain threshold it will become a world war. Why? Because if nobody steps in then Iran will feel vulnerable enough to need to accelerate its own nuclear defense and that is a line nobody will let them cross. Once that line is crossed, the game because an endgame.

I am still bad at making lists. I do HAVE a list now. I called it the Fall 24 Master List. It has subsections and daily categories which remind me of the needs of self for every day of the week. It looks neat. It has some things on it. I have not used it once since creating it. In fact, it is only open right now (for the second time ever) because I am writing about it and in order to do so I needed to have it open because I could not remember what it said.

I am not good at using lists.

The reality is that such things–such structures–are necessary for me to be able to stay organized. I have yet to find the proper structure–the one that works in real time with me. I suspect this may be the one true way I interact with AI through the future. Perhaps it may remind me of what needs doing and to automate the process of remembering and locating time for things to be done.

On a brighter note, I am doing stuff. I did work butt in chair on writing today and I made real progress. I am not where I need or want to be but I am ahead of where I was and presumably in a much better place now. I have the general underpinnings of what is going on in all three of these interactive stories I am writing. I also have my head stuffed full of older stories and novels that I really do need to write. Here’s what needs to happen. Time on task really needs to be time on task. I have to spend that time working, thinking, planning, and when I can reliably do that, I am going to be pretty darn good at getting this work out and done.