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I’m feeling a bit maudlin today. Yesterday was another reminder that being a dad is always going to be a case of being ignored, disrespected, and probably largely disliked and blamed for all the wrongs in a kid’s life. Unless I make their life as easy as possible, I am the bad guy. This is mostly due to my ex being the one who makes their lives as easy as possible. Yesterday I watched my ex carrying a bag of supplies she bought for our 21 year old son to take to his first ever job while he walked beside her eating ice cream. That’s some nine year old type stuff. I will not do it and thus will always lose.

Acceptance is the hard part.

So, here I am feeling bad about myself and, to a lesser extent, about my choices. Acceptance is not happening to easily. My body is rejecting it, gathering the sadness and anger within as stress. My mind is doing the same and none of it is really working for me. What I really need to do is get some space for a while and think about what it means to be me as an individual and a husband.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Sen. Cassidy loses Louisiana primary after targeted as ‘disloyal’ by Trump over impeachment vote” Loyalty checks… I thought those were just for video games and bad nazi movies…
2. Also this: “Adults relive the musical camaraderie of their youth at band camps reprised for grown-ups” Yeah… just no.

Being a step dad is different than the standard dadding. It is really up to you and the kid to form that bond–especially if the birth dad is still in the picture. I feel like I’ve done a decent enough job trying to make it so these kids feel like I am a legitimate parent and someone they can turn to in moments of true need. How am I doing? I don’t really know. What I do know is that there is a graduation today. Unlike last week it is one of the step kids and I am equally excited to see it happen. This one doesn’t much go for pomp and circumstance so, arguably, I am more excited than he is for the event. That is not the point. The main point is that it is happening and I am a part of it as much as anyone else. That’s integration, folks. That is a family bonding and becoming one. I love that it is happening and love that everyone is involved.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “How conspiracy theories about missing or dead scientists went from online forums to the White House” Stop putting stupid people in charge. Please?
2. Getting sloppy. The previous blog was left unpublished. I need to spend more time locked in and off Starfield… maybe.
3. Check my kid’s 247 portal and you’ll see NAU and Idaho as legit recruiting offers. Look at his own feed and the truth shall set you free. 8 offers. 1 P4 (Oklahoma State), 1 CFP team (Tulane), Hawaii, SDSU, NAU, UNI, Idaho, and Idaho State. Keep up, people.

New mission: Spend a while with the Lady Talis sans kids and see what kind of life we can get up to. I am excited for the challenge and the opportunity. We’ve spent a great deal of our lives with kids but never this much time without them, and that is going to be huge for us. We are definitely taking a turn towards being healthy and engaging in a schedule and habits which lead to longer and stronger lives.

Also difficult is the lack of viable televised fiction for two.

We love watching shows together and talking about that engagement, but there is nothing of value new to watch. Perhaps we will give Andor a chance, because there is nothing else worth taking a shot on. Every time we do it ends quickly… and badly. I’ve gotten to the point of realizing that there is not a show out there that hasn’t completed its season or run at this point that we both watch. I’m still watching my “boy” shows on the side, but that is just for me…

Come on, big media. Give me something! Or let me write it myself.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Judge declares a mistrial in Harvey Weinstein’s rape retrial after jury says it is deadlocked” The original #metoo is getting to say #notme and it is irking my soul. I don’t now anything about the alleged victim, but given this man’s history… Yeah he should not be walking around free. Crazy how powerful a certain demographic can be. I’m still shocked they caught Epstein.
2. Also this: “North America’s largest commuter rail system faces a potential shutdown” I do not understand how a country whose lore is built on railroads has become so unwilling and unable to maintain and grow that system. I don’t expect Japan, but man I expect something better than this!

The hardest part about letting a child grow is when the other parent keeps holding on too tight. Not only does it negate the work you’re trying to do, but it sabotages the relationship you are trying to build. There are a number of factors that apply here and are impacted. I want to chat about how the impacted child starts to view one parent vs the other and, perhaps consciously, perhaps otherwise, begins to pit the two against each other. Obviously, this is a personal one. I have an ex and I have a youngest child. He’s been the one most lost and most impacted by the divorce. Today he received his 6th and 7th D1 college offers. His brothers knew. Pretty sure his mom knew. I had to find out from social media. I texted him today offering congratulations and expressed a little disappointment that he hadn’t reached out. Not in a petty way, but probably a little passive aggressively. He acted like he hadn’t had his phone on, which clearly does not fit the narrative, which argues he simply did not think to text me the way he clearly shared the news with his brother (who said he’d been texting for like 30 minutes) and social media. I didn’t factor in.

I don’t factor in.

It is what it is, and it doesn’t make me love him any less, but it does remind me that the rift there is not something I created. He only reaches out when he needs something. I reach out to see how he is doing. He only speaks when spoken to at home. I initiate conversations to see how he’s doing. The relationship has gone zero dark thirty and I am not sure if we are going to move towards dawn or midnight. I don’t know that I can do anything about it, because on the other side of the parental divide, he’s being treated very differently and very much not like a growing, independent man.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “The world’s reaction to hantavirus is tinged by echoes of something else: COVID” Yeah, this is a low-key problem. Not so much that it will turn into this, but that we are no longer trusted on the world medical stage…

I think…

I need to get back to writing better stuff. I keep saying it, but man I want to have a stronger voice. That doesn’t come back accident. It is a practice. Writing is a practice.

I think…

Politics are a very clear reflection of who can best manipulate the populace. I don’t believe people are inherently racist or evil. I think we all just want a leg up. We want that American Dream, or at least a shot at it. However, we are so often being told that other groups or other people who don’t look like us are getting better advantages and that makes us feel bad. I mean consider this: Ruby Bridges, the first black child to integrate schools did that in 1960. That’s, what 66 years ago that we had segregation? That means my mother was alive during segregation, a period in which one group clearly had a leg up. Since the Obama administration there has been this assumption that the roles are somehow reversed now. I find that disturbing. That is what politics can do.

I think…

My youngest is getting shafted in the press. We’re at the top, what 80 out of 150 FB players in the class of 2027? He hasn’t been mentioned in spite of offers from Hawaii, Tulane, Northern Arizona, Northern Iowa, and Idaho. He’s getting strong interest from Northwestern and Iowa State–both P4 schools. Yet he’s nowhere near the top of the list of players at his position? Yeah, It annoys.

I think…

A lot of things annoy me lately about the way life works out. Above all others is how some people can act like a complete idiot in public and there be no consequence for it. I find that disturbing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Appeals court spares Trump from paying $83 million defamation award to E. Jean Carroll — for now” He’s claiming immunity among other things as he continues to defame. Honestly, I think he’s hoping she dies so the clock runs out. Who knows, but this entire situation is bonkers… and allegedly headed to the Supreme Court. The grift is real.

So, I have a lot to work on. It turns out that I’ve not really successfully prepared these kids for writing the long form essay. Maybe it isn’t me–maybe it is the short form short attention world in which they live, but asking someone to write a research essay should not return less than 1200 words. I mean, how much of that is even the research and the works cited material? I suppose I was particularly harsh in year-end grading. There was, for me, this disconnect between what I got and what I expected in a final research paper for a number of students. It varied from class to class, but to see barely over a thousand words is not a good look.

So, I am going to start over and try to find another way to cultivate this into a meaningful experience. What does that mean? More focus on process and more feedback on that as well. I think I have a good shell, but there is room to grow here. There are places where I can substitute different types of assignments in order to get them to engage in more meaningful ways with the content. I am, as always, a work in progress.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “3 scientists were charged in worm smuggling scheme. Lawyers say China helped get the case dismissed” This is a real thing?

I don’t know what I want to write beyond this upcoming Justice Engine and the blog I post daily. I used to have so many many many many ideas in my idea archive and now it feels like the archive burned down. I don’t have any real thoughts on what I want to do moving forward. I have this immense fantasy world and history that I was trying to build, but I shelved it. I had a number of Shadowrun novels I planned to write (one is mostly done) but the company owes me a ton of cash, so after I finish this next project, I’m out.

So where does that leave me? I don’t know. I mentioned several posts back that it might be the end of the writing. I might just need a larger break to recharge and rediscover a passion for stories. The archive is empty. It is time to refill that old thing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Man charged in White House correspondents’ dinner attack pleads not guilty” My guy, we saw the tape. You’re not gonna pull a Shaggy on us. Wait.. Okay… Upon further inspection, maybe it wasn’t you. I mean it was you that ran through that checkpoint, but you plead “not guilty on Monday to charges that he attempted to kill President Donald Trump and fired a shotgun at a Secret Service officer who tried to stop the attack.” So, yeah. We might have screwed up the charges here at the governmental level. I am not surprised.
2. Haven’t done things I think I think for a while… maybe tomorrow.
3. Haven’t checked in on marble league either.
4. I did watch the end of Daredevil and it reintroduced one of my favorite couples–Jessica Jones and Luke Cage. I look forward to what comes from that.
5. I also heavily expect Spiderman to appear in the new Punisher One Shot that comes out on the 12th, with his new film coming out on the 31st and it featuring Punisher. So many questions on how they’re going to integrate the larger NYC Hero world…

Everyone says they have a crazy ex. I actually do. Crazy like announcing she is going to throw a fit in the middle of campus after a college graduation because she doesn’t feel the way she wants to be feeling, which is instantly my fault and responsibility. The best choice I made in my life was getting married again. That only happened because I made a very very smart choice to get divorced in the first place. Man, she was going to kill me–either directly or indirectly. The level of stress and loss of hope such a sad and empty person can produce is off the charts. What bothers me most is how much of that she transfers to our kids and how little they seem to be able to avoid it.

I cannot do anything about that, because I refuse to be the person who bad mouths her. With her latest eruption, she’s doing that for herself. In a public setting. With full assurance that everyone around her supports it because she is right and I am the evil of this world. Yet, I am not evil. Instead, I remain the person who treats my kids like men and tries my best to prepare them for a world where they will not be babied and will not be able to blame others for the things that go wrong in their lives. Blame doesn’t solve problems. It just makes you feel better about yourslef as not being the one responsible… especially when you are.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Cameras Caught Caitlin Clark’s Savage Message to Wings Player Trying to Defend Her” For perspective, Clark lost that game and shot 7-18 with 5 turnovers. She’s still considered an early favorite for MVP… What are we even doing? I get wanting “our chosen one” to win, but lets not bury the fact that she is playing out of position and is most likely better off as an off-ball shooter with a slasher PG running the flow.

One of the peculiarities of this reality is the automatic renewal subscription. Every few months a subscription drops and I don’t quite know what it is. At other times I will see subscriptions renew, know what they are, and struggle to get rid of them. Mostly it is newspapers. They are extremely hesitant to let people go. I have Rocket Money. I need to go through that thing and figure out what’s coming out. Financial freedom is a function of patience. Or maybe its the other way around. Regardless, I want to jump right into…

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “WHO head seeks to reassure Tenerife residents ahead of arrival of hantavirus cruise ship” Wait… I saw this movie. Did not end well for humanity.
2. Going to put this laptop away for the rest of the day. First time in a while I’ll roam around computer free for a significant period of time. This is what a true break feels like. Hopeful that it will reset me mentally at least partially.
3. Back on Starfield. The new mods and creations offer a deeper level of gameplay, but let’s be honest. I’m here to build cool ships, fly around the galaxy, and shoot stuff.
4. I really hate the tendency to double cap. By that I mean when my left hand leaves the shift button depressed a microsecond longer than needed so that words end up looking like THis. That is crippling depression.
5. That new UFO report is getting more coverage. Still, it’s being made about Trump because everything is… Should aliens actually be among us, they might believe we’re ripe for the picking…

Today I spent time with my boys for what is perhaps the next to last time I get to spend time with them for a very long time. I am in a state of mind of trying to transition into the next phase of my life while watching each of these boys do the same in their own way. Two are about to be graduate students. One is on to his 3rd college football team, another is readying for college and just had his first breakup. Another is in his first (and probably only, because its a good one) long term salary job. All of these are moments of growth and I am trying to grow along with them. Perhaps that is part of the letting go of the type of writing aI have been doing and taking chances to grow into something more.

So seeing them gathered around the table playing games is a great moment of reflection for me to see how far each has come.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “‘Somebody stole from me’: Mom mourns after 2 fatally shot in kids’ soccer dispute” We need to chill, people.
2. Also this: Scientists Continue to Trace the Origin of the Mysterious “Amaterasu” Cosmic Ray Particle.
3. Worth noting: The White House dropped a new UFO report and only Fox News covered it with any interest.
4. I am going to be known someday. I’ve always believed that.