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Having time–real time–to refresh and reload your mind is an amazing opportunity. I’ve had that and found that I still do have a modicum of creativity left lingering in my mind. In fact, I still believe that small bit of the writer I intended to become lurks in me, hoping to reemerge like a particularly virulent strain of special. We are all special–writers or not. What I live for (beyond the woman I love and the kids I love) is the ability to share story with people and create through that a community of understanding if not excitement.

I’ve truly enjoyed this time ‘in hiding’ and while I am not quite done, I am moving forward in my life, gathering strength beneath me, and becoming a better version of myself every day.

How’s that for positive thinking?

Some Thoughts:

1. Sens8 was cancelled. I hate when shows I watch get cancelled prior to completing the meat of their story arc. Often the arc is trash, but in this case this was a quite interesting if over the top in its efforts to draw out connections to real world ails.
2. I’m still trying to figure out my coaching future for the next year, but it looks like I’ll be coaching 12u offense. Ought to be fun to coach the eldest Talis.

A man ought to find fear when he stops having De ja vu. You see, time folds the way you fold a towel or a bedsheet. It collapses upon itself over and over again, condensing to the point where memory can bleed with what is happening and what is going to happen. In these folds a person can believe he’s been somewhere before, though he’s never been. In these folds a person can see a bit of themselves in the future.

But when you fold something imperfect there is always a bit left over. There might be a little bit of fabric left–not enough to make it to the crease. It’s that space, I guess, when a man can no longer see the crease–can no longer experience De ja vu–when you know your time is close to running out.

So you ought to be scared. You ought to worry and take note of those last few days/weeks/years you have left of living. You see, nobody knows how wide those folds are. Nobody knows how much space lives between the creases. I used to think it was a year, maybe two. I used to feel like that de ja vu came over and over again. I’d feel it when I was walking down the street, minding my own. I’d feel it and I’d find a comfort in it, knowing I’d be doing something like this again.

It stopped for me two year ago. I know, because that last one done come round finally. I was in a Walmart–what people back in the day called a 5 and dime. I grabbed a package of soap off the shelf and remembered doing that same thing before. Only this wasn’t no memory. I was feeling the other end of de ja vu I’d had two years prior. Felt like hearing the crack of a rifle long after you’d seen the puff of smoke letting you know it went off or thunder trailing behind lightning like a fat kid red faced and sweating to keep up.

Once I felt that memory slide into me I realized I hadn’t felt anything like that since two years prior. I knew then I didn’t have no creases left. So now I wait and I wonder and I hope I’m ready when my time runs out.

Ten minutes on a Windows based laptop is a form of hell. I should’ve gone to the garage to retrieve the laptop, but it is dark down there, and I am home alone, and I have been listening to a lot of  Stephen King. So instead I sit in my kids’ room swirling with nostalgia and a growing sense of disappointment as I watch the words I typed moments ago slowly take shape across this tiny screen.

It turns out I’m a mac guy.

I guess it started back in college when the mac was still a rectangular box with a cathode face and a mouth you could insert mini floppy disks into. I fed the school mac disk after disk, always making sure I had a fresh disk less my files get corrupted and I lose all my writing. It only happened once, but that once was lesson enough to make sure it never happened again. Back then the English department was spread across two buildings–the oldest ones on that part of campus. Even then I knew there was a stigma about English. It was a dead-end area–something that bore no connection to the real world job market. Hell, even acting had a public face to it. We’d walk across the street and watch movies and know that the musicians and the actors all had somewhere they could dream to go and go big! We writer’s didn’t have any of that. The Lit and Comp-Rhet people had it worse. I could, at least marginally, say I could be the next Neal Stephenson. They could say they would get a job somewhere in Academia.

The knowledge that our profession was to stay behind the walls of academia bonded us all in a way. We settled into the idea of the college life and dreamt it would be like this even when we were old. The professors were in on the joke too. They sometimes threw parties or had one of us house sit, all leading to a sense of place and belonging within the collegiate system. I think that is why I ended up teaching in the end. It just felt familiar and expected.

Wednesday is sports day. Normally I reserve this space for (marginally) useful conversations about football, but there is nothing of relevance really going on in football. OTA’s are not relevant. What is relevant is the showdown brewing in the Golden State. For the first time in NBA history the same two teams are meeting in the finals for the 3rd straight year. This is the rubber match. It is unlikely that both will be back next year (though the argument that Lowry is trying to get to Cleveland does change that conversation–if true), so this is the own where we learn who is the mightiest.

Only, that is not the whole story.

Today we discovered that Lebron James’ L.A. Mansion was vandalized with a racial epitaph. He responded by saying that no matter how much money and power you have, in the end you remain a black dude in America and that is a terrifying thing. In other words, despite his status he is still being subjected to this type of stuff. Will this affect his play? Nope. One has nothing to do with the other, IMHO. What will affect his play? Draymond Green.

Here is my guess for the finals: Golden State in 7. The real factor here is the play of the secondary guys–guys like Kyle Korver on the CLE side and Javale McGee on the GS side. These are the guys they brought in that were not the big names, but are going to be the impact players who create opportunities for the big 3 on each squad. And how about those big 3? Honestly, I think Cleveland has the edge, because Kyrie Irving is balling out of his mind. Everyone is talking about Kevin Love finally putting in legitimate work in this offense (and not sucking too bad on D) but Kyrie is that guy.

 

There is a theory being floated out there that white men are under attack–under siege really. The theory goes like this: We have, as a species, swung away from appreciating the contributions of white men to society and have swung towards embracing so-called diversity to such a extent that everything is acceptable. Furthermore, we have begun to openly blame white men for all that ails the world. Of course, none of this is new and some of this is true.

Here is where I stand on such things: It has nothing to do with color. It has everything to do with power. We have experienced a slight but measurable shift in the balance of power. Traditionally, the power was held by old money oligarchs who were, traditionally, white and male. They controlled the resources and the jobs, thus giving them control of the ‘democratic’ process. Things went completely off the rail once Obama was hired. Don’t get me wrong, he wasn’t terribly different from past presidents in terms of policy, but optics are extremely important in our country. We must see things as being ‘as they should be’ As a result we hit a hard reset and stumbled into Trump.

White men are no more under attack than they have been. Only now the white male movement is attaching itself to everything and anything that represents so-called traditional beliefs and gathering it all under one header–one of the oppressed. It ought not be done as it muddies the truth of what is happening.

People who don’t teach speak of the breaks that teachers get as too much. I was once inclined to agree–not knowing the profession as I do. Turns out the break is entirely necessary. You take 8 classes, 150+ needy souls, and more papers than one person should handle and, yeah, you need a break. Perhaps I’m really reflecting on the fact that I also have the vestiges of a writing career, three kids, no wife, and I coach. It might be a lot.

The classes are over for a few days. The kids are thousands of miles away. The grading has subsided. Now it is time to recover. I’m taking a few days to get my head screwed on straight again. Rediscover my passion for all things. Maybe write a little. A lot.

The original plan was to go away. A physical change of scenery to get me right, but going away only means coming back to things that aren’t quite right and trying to get them there while the new round of classes are getting underway. So, instead I’m taking a few days to go away from routine; to go away from the responsibilities that are the lines I live in between; to figure out more about who I am, what I want, and where I am going.

Ought to be a dope few days.

Yesterday I was at Phoenix Comicon when a lone gunman showed up laden with weapons and ready to kill cops. I had no idea it was happening. None. They didn’t evacuate us, tell us, or even make it all too obvious stuff was going on. By the end of the day I noticed more cops and that was that.

Today was different. The news reported the situation with the salaciousness common to American news media. He had enough guns to kill a score of people. He was hoping to ‘rack up a high score’. All of that gets people to tune in. All of that also added hours of security to the convention. By 11 am the wait to get in was close to two hours. The cops were screening everyone going in and as a result, there were thousands of people standing in a queue outside. Not A hundred or two hundred. Well over a thousand people waiting in line. Waiting with no security to protect them against the possibility of an attack. See, by securing the interior so well, the cops created a target-rich environment outside. It all felt like a brilliant plan–for the bad guys.

‘lets send in a rube to get nabbed, so we can create the conditions for a massacre soon after–one that can take advantage of the heightened media coverage. The security check was meant to do good, but quickly devolved into doing very bad. I just feel lucky things didn’t go wrong.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The calendar widget is unforgiving. And wrong. While it may seem as if I have missed a day here or there, in fact I still write everyday within the waking hours. Sometimes the post falls outside the boundary of the midnight hour. I ought to get better at that too.

You may have noticed yesterday that the theme of the site completely changed. Then it changed back. I tried something new. It didn’t fit. It doesn’t change the fact that change is needed though. I have used this theme since post 701, and while I do like it I have noticed the blogs growing shorter and less focused/useful. I’ve also noticed a steady degradation in chrome (unrelated) that coincides with this period of unwanted sadness. Here is what I think:

It is time for a fresh start. New look, freshen up the paint. While I know for a fact that the shell of a site does not make the content more worthwhile, the look of a thing does make me feel better–the way dressing nice can make you feel better about yourself. This website is going to undergo such a facelift. Meanwhile, I’m dumping chrome. The browser is a memory and battery hog.

I feel like there are times when you need to clean up some of the debris in your life in an effort to make things smoother, easier, and better. Often it is just a cosmetic fix, but looking good is intrinsically tied to feeling good.

I’m back in that space where I may step away from coaching. The problem is twofold: I love coaching and I have difficulty watching my kids play and being totally uninvolved. I don’t believe I am ready for that yet. At the same time there is a level of politics involved in coaching that I am also not prepared to partake in. To make a long story short, I’m standing outside the doorway of a youth football organization that is being built, and I can clearly see that my opinion is unwanted by those in charge of construction. Be it from lack of trust, faith, or no real value attached to my name, I am on the outside of this thing looking in and unhappy already with the direction things are going.

What makes me most unhappy is the lack of inclusiveness–specifically when it comes to me. I feel like I’ve contributed a lot to the team in terms of time and effort and even website. Still, no seat. The last football organization I was a part of found me in the same position where I was on the outside and not a single entity on the inside appeared to take value in my contribution–or even possible contribution. It is as if I need to prove to people that I can contribute and when I do, they attribute those contributions I’ve made to other people.

Story of my life so far.

It is no secret that I’ve been battling depression as of late. Turns out stuff like this is helping. Well, helping in a way, because that depression is slowly shifting into anger and spite.

Coulda said Netflix, but the now-obvious connotation would be wrong. No, I’m just in a kickback mode. It could be called a recharge. While there are still stories out there to be (and being) developed, the main portion of my gray matter is just soaking in my environment. My bestie calls it nesting. I would not argue with that connotation. I’ve spent the day cleaning small portions of the house, playing video games, and listening to Wings co-star Steven Weber read Stephen King’s It. 

Veg and Chill.

Some Thoughts:

1. People still really believe that Transexuals are actually perverts looking to molest girls and or join women’s sports and dominate. That is absurd. Stop watching Tyler Perry and the Wayans Bros right now. Anyhow, people looking to do that are few and far between. Just like we cannot stop a lone nut terrorist, we cannot stop a lone nut.
2. There are many many shitty people in my life who only seek to use me and my kids. They open themselves up to that crap.
3. I’ve quickly gone from the house where all the kids come over to the house where most kids can’t sleep over and many don’t come over so much anymore… You yell at your kid once with an open window…