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Knowing your bag is too heavy is the worst. It could mean an extra $100 if I cannot get this back below 50lbs, and I have no idea how to make that happen. Some of it is a space issue–I can only take two bags and a personal item. The smaller of the two is lighter but already is holding a few heavy items. The thing is, I do not get why the bag is so heavy–a few shoes, an otherwise empty pair of backpacks and some cords. I dumped the heaviest electronics to save weight (and still have no idea how to deal with that…) but still the problem persists. It is largely a ‘feel’ issue as I do not have a scale on hand, but it feels dang heavy. Like over 50lbs dang heavy and I don’t know how to reconcile the situation.

The trip is costing more and more every hour. I think I will need to grin and bear the $100 fine, because I honestly cannot figure out what to shed, if anything. Everything I am keeping is stuff I want and need.

There is a deer standing in our front lawn. Well, it isn’t ours per say–it belongs to the owners of this BnB where we’ve spent the past month and will spend the next and final 48 hours of our trip. Home then, and away from this magical place, this wonderland in which I am able to find peace and happiness alone with the love of my life. Oh, and very good Cava. Spain level Cava. I don’t miss Spain the way I feel I’ll miss this place.

All I want to do in this moment is go downtown and get some wonderful Napoli-style Pizza, then spend the night cuddled up with my wife. I get to say that now–wife. I get to say we’ve taken another magical step on this journey we’ve been in for a long time. I can remember sitting in the back of my XB in tears believing I’d never get here and never get to be with this slice of the heavens who’d blessed my life. Now I’m thinking about what slice she wants…hell, she deserves the entire pie.

Life is good here in ways I hadn’t perceived until realizing the leaving is approaching. Yet there are the vagueries of what happens next and the more consistent drum of how to maintain a life and, as importantly, a productive schedule. I’ve not worked much these past few days, sliding headfirst into video games and the things that separate me from the world. With the rains there is no beach, but there is no beach without knowing what and how to write. Those same old fears hold me back from writing what might not be good and what is not easy.

Life and love are not easy, but I’ve found my footing in both, and found great success in the latter. Now I must again strive to be grounded and move forward in the former. At least now I have a partner in it.

I am going to speak of the word anticipation, somewhat in the sense of Margaret Atwood, who spoke of science fiction as anticipation, though I am speaking solely of sports at this juncture. There is expectation and anticipation and the two often work together, though not always for the better. At this point, people expect the KC Chiefs and the Philly Eagles to be good teams. There are tiers to these things. The Bills and Ravens are on a tier of positive expectation. The Browns and the Cowboys are very much not.

Anticipation is different. In this regard it is the feeling of possibility–the wondering of what could and what may come of a thing. In this regard that thing is the NY Giants season, and to an equal degree, the New York Jets season. When I think about both I find that expectation enhances anticipation. I expect the Giants will be a terrible football team. I expect them to be ‘in’ six or seven games this season. I expect they will win 2-4. I anticipate there will be far more exciting moments than I expect. Likewise, the rebuilt Jets are expected to be better on defense, but I anticipate they will be a fun watch–primarily because I have no real expectations in regards to the ball club. Are they a playoff team? I don’t know… Probably not.

Both of these NY teams are teams I love and while I expect more from the Jets, I hold an equal level of anticipation for both teams, namely because both teams are not expected to be very good and when the expectations are lowered, anything that does happen is a happening. This occurred once before under Daboll when he was able to lead the G-Men to a playoff win, which unfortunately set them back two entire seasons while releasing Barkeley to become the Madden cover star he is today (watch out, quon!).

The season is close. I’m here for it. I’m definitely not excited as I was in the past, but that has to do with expectation. Anticipation is at a high.

I just did the drawing for draft order for the beach draft–our family-based league. By request I tried a new format, which is reliant on the number of ‘balls’ you get in a way similar to the NBA lottery. I lost bad this season. I did not get the first pick. That went to the lady Talis. I fell to fourth pick–middle draft status. I like the system, though it clearly means I am cooked this year in terms of picking the best available. Still, if I work harder, I may have a chance to pull off a comeback. Man, do I need it.

In RL, I continue to be amazed by the growth of my boys. They are starting to get that ‘imma be a pro’ look in their forms. It feels like they both have a chance to make it to the league. There are many many steps to go before that–the D1 FCS is trying to put up big numbers and go FBS. The High Schooler needs to go from all region honorable mention to all-region and all state. He’s got the look this season, and I am excited to see him playing on both sides of the ball. He’s going to turn heads this year, which could land him on that (stupid but useful) social media hype train. His school and district do not appear to like hype. Every other relevant district is having media nights. His is not. No idea why.

Nor are they connecting with the local news the way other teams are. Regardless, coaches are coming to see him. That’s what really matters.

The clouds above the mountains rolling through olympic national park look like an explosion. My mind is trying to convince me that it is—that I am a shore away from a cataclysm and perhaps the cataclysm promised in early Shadowrun. Yet we are still in this 5th world with all of its maladies and my home country is going downhill quickly. 

We are not at the point of civil war or martial law, but we are being led by an old man who is so full of himself that he is unwilling to accept that other people are responsible for the governing of the country. Moreover, he is unwilling to admit when (which is often) he is wrong. This is a problem—all of our problem, in fact, but not one I can presently deal with. I’m more focused on the fact that I got married yesterday and today I am watching the waves creep towards my toes as the tide moves up the beach and towards my happy place. 

Today was a beautiful day. Every day here is such a day, and I am going to treasure this and treasure the last remaining moments of this honeymoon before the world calls out to me and demands I do the work. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Very few times on this trip have I been stressed completely out. The majority of them have involved my mother. 

2. Happy to end the day on the shore. It’s my second trip to the beach today.

3. Lady Love is the wife now. Lady Talis forever….

4.

Funny how things add up if you let them. 8+1+5+5 = 19. 8/11, which is today, adds up to 19. The number 19 is central to the legacy of Stephen King. It is a part of the lore that is the lives of myself and the Lady Talis. Today we extend that lore by joining hands in marriage. To call me excited would be to misinterpret the sensation I am feeling. Blessed, loved, in the right space and time, all of these apply fully. I am not so much excited as I am enamored with the idea of what is to come and what is to come from it.

This morning, sitting with my future wife, we were talking about what part we were looking forward to the most and I said I was looking forward to the walk home after. That brief and steady moment would be us captured in time. It represents who we are on this path and represents the journey we are taking together. If I am excited for anything, it is for that walk. It and everything that comes before are moments to be held in time, suspended and cherished as though a life could be lived between the seconds, between each breath, each kiss, each smile, each word.

I have loved, I have been in love. I have never had a true partner and companion before her.

I love her, I love what we have created together. It doesn’t feel like this is a rush to the alter and there is no excitement of having that moment of saying I do, because I say I do everyday of my life. It falls from my eyes in a cascade as I look down upon her while she sleeps. It leaves my lips when I praise what she means and who she is to me. I say it without thinking. There is nothing else to say.

Watching our kids talk about us around a dinner table tonight is a strong reminder of what family means to them as well as what role we’ve played in that. Watching our in law, my brother and her sister do the same raises the level of reflective energy to the next level. Watching my mom say good things brings it all home.

tomorrow I get to marry the woman of my dreams. Tonight we celebrated what it means to us all to be a family and I was brought to tears by the love and the energy and the raw emotion on display. A wedding is a procedural celebration. It is a dance between two people and around them dance several others all balancing their emotions on a knife’s edge as the couple carves promises into the foundational stone of their future. This marriage comes later in life for us and it is the second for each both us. We intend for it to be the last, because this is different. It isn’t built from lust or expectation or some fundamental belief that the other can be molded or will change into a selfish ideal formed in one partners mind. This is built from a spiritual connection that transcends the physical while still being encapsulated within it. This is us living a life in which we strive to see each other’s dreams come true as much as our own. This is a partnership and one that is true to form and constantly evolving and growing.

I am excited to continue spending my life with this woman. The pomp and circumstance of the event is only a moment to further unite our family—a touchstone we can all look back on and see that we have done something wonderful together and for each other.

I’ve been thinking about bringing Dj Malik back. I’m not ? on this situation by any means, and nor would this mean coming back as a professional DJ. I just love making mixed media. I love designing mixtapes and such, which are very directed. I want to build such a thing around the CoyoteCon event we do every year at my college. I want to be able to drop a DJM 75 for the crowd to absorb over the course of a period as a backdrop to an event–a medley of songs and images drawn from the various comics, anime, and such that reflect the culture we are attempting to promote and in some cases refine.

That is the whole game there–I want to put my stamp back on what I think the culture should look like. When I think about what the event has been lacking over the years, it is that sense of “we are for the culture” and any effort to show what I think the culture looks like. I teach a course on games and game culture and I don’t even think I’ve done a terribly good job of reflecting that cultural aspect there–it’s been mostly a rote academic course masquerading as a game. I have forgotten the face of my Sociologist.

As the teaching season approaches I find myself needing to think more and more about these things, because I don’t do it often enough. It is high time I locked in and created a mood again. That is what I’ve always been good at as a DJ and as a professor… even as a writer. I need to get back to being that Talislegger and all of which that entails.

This was not a work day.

In truth, this is the first touch to keyboard all day. I did not write, I did not read. I listened to the Gunslinger quite a bit online and I listened to music on the beach, which was magic. I didn’t have that feel to write and that left me wondering where I am at. Between projects and afraid to really dive in, it seems. I am not in the headspace of doing that as I am three days away from my wedding and totally not in the routine of being able to go do the writing the way I want to. I will get back there–after the wedding.

In the meanwhile, I am loving these last days in Victoria. I am in a strange moment in life where I think I am coming to terms with the idea of dying. I am not dying soon (I don’t think) but I am savoring these moments and this life with the idea of an end state and not really recognizing that end state beyond that state. In other words, I don’t find any truth in the idea of heaven and hell. I don’t see those places as real in the sense of how they are drawn up in popular fiction.

I don’t know that an after exists where I know who I was. I suppose I am realizing that who I am is a collection of moments and memories and I will do myself a disservice by focusing on the end state as opposed to enjoying the moments of life and energy that I have now. This moment that is approaching is a milestone. I need to spend more time locked in on those. This is the way.

I am learning the way more and more each day. So, I need to lock in on that and focus on developing truly good fiction. I need it. I need to put it out there.

I am beginning to wander into the realization that I am old. It isn’t just the gray hair. It’s the way people look at me anymore. I’m used to being seen with a sense of strangeness as a black man in primarily white or asian spaces. That brings a certain expectation of stares along with it. Lately these stares reflect a different kind of otherness as I find myself spending more and more time in spaces inhabited by younger people who, unsurprisingly, view me as practically ancient. I am a 50 year old man who feels like a 35 year old man most of the time, and that sense of being part of that grouping rarely plays well with that grouping or the much younger souls (be it students or basically apparently everyone else on the streets or the beach) that I am around. To the world, I am an old head. To the actual old heads, I’m… I don’t know what I am to them, to be honest.

This wasn’t supposed to be the subject of the post, but 5 minutes in, here we are. I’ve spent quite a turn thinking through the strangeness of age, and I do not have more to say on the matter. So, I’ll fall into…

Some Thoughts:

1. The high schooler received his first Game Day invitation. These are not formal offers and may or may not constitute an official visit. An official visit usually features a phone call and the flights and room are covered. If this winds up being what it is, then this is an incredible achievement for the kid. He’s been super geeked to get an offer, and junior year is when these things start to really become solid, as opposed to freshman and sophomore ‘offers’ which basically amount to a team being interested in seeing how your HS career actually unfolds. So, we’re gonna see what they are really offering here in terms of what we can afford to do…