Month: December 2012

I am closing in–again–on that precious state of mind and productivity that is oh so elusive to my ilk. I am at the end of a long hard semester and my responsibilities are shrinking. This coincides with an uptick in desire to be successful in life. I went through a well documented period of stasis when I started asking myself questions like, what the heck am I doing this for? The answer didn’t matter because the question was false, driven to the front of my thought stream by stress, distractions, and uncertainty. The fact is I lost site of the love. I let the distractions take over and turn me into someone who I didn’t like very much.

I am still lazy. That is going to take some undoing. I see the same qualities in my smarty pants 5 yr old. These are the qualities that match the slowly eroding intellect I am currently in possession of. Next week I am going to start writing about the things I learned this year, and foremost among them is that smarts are a gift that must be grown, less they shrivel and die.

Took too long to figure that out. I wonder what life could’ve been had I known sooner…

Been negligent on the Waiver Wednesday blog. Part of it is discontent from teams like the Jets who persist in sucking. Part of it is being disenchanted with the season and part is the level of disappointment I’ve experienced as a fantasy player. In the real world I’ve been playing ball as well. Every Sunday is Football Sunday, and I’ve been improving. I should never have expected to wipe away 8 years of inaction in 8 weeks. Yet, I did and now I’m feeling it.

I think people who are not in shape are not in shape because they don’t care enough to be or don’t know how. I cannot go to the gym without an out of gym goal in mind. I’m no gym rat, so the idea of exercise just as a way to look good is foolish to me. It needs to improve my performance in some other part of my life. It needs to raise my STR and AGI stats just that much higher. While football gives me a reason to exercise, coaching gives me a reason to study the game that much more.

The Flag season begins this next month and I have two team, both named the Jets, who are preparing for battle. I love being a coach and bringing the kids together to play. I am glad it is happening during the spring semester, because fall was a mess.

 

It is safe to say that this was the worst semester of my teaching career. While I fulfilled the minimum job requirements, I don’t believe I reached students the way that I am capable of. I don’t think I inspired, or changed lives, or enlightened. I went back to being disorganized and suffered from bad tech and even worse socio-political drama.

Life gets in the way of being successful sometimes. Life can even hinder success to the point where you stop trying. Every school I work at has teachers who have simply given up. They run through the routines like machines, collecting a paycheck to maintain a way of life. I saw myself headed there and it was a dark and scary place. I wish to always have a desire to be the best at what I do. I am not the best, and I don’t presently have the desire to push to be the best, but I expect to be better next semester.

Maybe that drive is not a switch one can flip to the active position. I’ve tried changing wardrobes and setting goals, even imagining what life would be if I were better at what I do. As I commented yesterday, nothing happened. I know I will try harder, I just don’t know how I am going to do that.

 

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Seems like only a little while ago I was saying goodbye to BSG. Now I am saying goodbye to Fringe. All the good sci-fi is ending. What comes next?

I keep thinking about that big red school house on 81st and Madison. P.S. 6 was where I spent my formative years. I shoplifted from the candy store a block away. I walked to and from this point so many times that the route to Harlem is etched in my waking consciousness. I remember how on those long walks to 135th I thought about my ‘stats’ namely the skills and physical attributes I had and wanted to improve. I never thought about the age 37. I never considered what it would feel like to get old–hell, I thought Batman was an immortal soul who somehow was older but not really old. Now that I am old–older–I often wander back to those ‘stat’ walks and think about where my stats are now.

The physical stuff took a dip. Just this evening my wife hacked my facebook account and posted that I was off to work on my grinch belly. True Story. So we can say my speed, agility, and strength all declined. The decline is in direct proportion to aging and weight gain. I’m struggling with finding the motivation to do anything about that. Likewise I am struggling with the motivation to improve other aspects of my life. Call it suburban comfort or even a lack of fight or flight instincts in this stage. I’ve gone on about this before, but there doesn’t seem to be much change happening.

What to do about that?

The shock of the Sanchez decision actually pushed the wire back a day. I thought–hoped–the collapse we’ve seen over the last few weeks would have meant certain change. Unfortunately, the Ryan-Tannebaum connection collectively abhor spending that much on a player they cannot play. So, Sanchez continues and the Jets may win, but the fact of the matter is that Sanchez is not the guy. He needs to be sold off or just cut and let the guys they have in the wings take a real shot at this thing.

New York, as it turns out, is a disappointment all around. The G-men cannot get out and on a roll, the Jets stink and the Bills…yeah, that is a real mess. Finally my RL teams and fantasy teams are on the same cycle of success and failure. This year we are all in various stages of injury and or suck. Giants lost a tackle last game and I still haven’t gotten back my RB. I did muster a handful of correct picks. 8-8 to make me 120 – 71. A lot of uncertainty this week, so it could be painful. Here we go:

1. DEN over OAK
2. BUF over STL
3. CIN over DAL
4. CLE over KC
5. IND over TEN
6. CHI over MIN
7. PIT over SD
8. TB over PHI
9. BAL over WSH
10. CAR over ATL
11. NYJ over JAC
12. SF over MIA
13. NYG over NO
14. SEA over AZ
15. GB over DET
16. HOU over NE

I better be right. I’m worse than Golic these days…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Speaking of Golic, I am getting too fat to live. I see myself in pictures and develop an instant complex. Need to be more powerful about my weight and health. I am not quite ready to die. Too much to write.
2. Terrible de ja vou today. I wish I understood why that sort of…resonance…happens.

Every year around this time I become a terrible liar. The lie is older than I am. See, I tell my kids about Santa and then I use that red-suited specter to keep the boys in line. Being boys wanting toys, the Santa myth is highly effective. I warn them about the naughty list. I tell them Santa will be sending them a video shortly in order to let them know if christmas will be happy or sad.

This is likely a form of abuse. Fear mongering at the very least. Still, in the world of parenting, fear works. Sometimes you need a stick and sometimes a carrot. Santa exists as a both at once. This is a small lie and one most kids seem to forgive of their parents. It is also a common lie; the one we parents tell in order to maintain peace and keep a bit of the mystique about christmas

The smoke hasn’t cleared yet. In fact I am still grading work, but primary teaching is over. We are at the point where the year has descended into reflection and planning for the next semester. There are some bright spots from this semester, like the poster projects, that also provide an opportunity to grow. I feel like I am going to make some strides next semester and perhaps find a project and a vision for my role at this college.

My writing role is pretty much where it has been. The only issue now is execution. I hail the end of semesters, because it marks the beginning of serious writing. I know there is a span of time between when the kids get out of school and when I do, so that gives me room to write. This is important, because I didn’t knock out a novel this nanowrimo, but there is a novel idea floating around in my mind that desperately wants to be set free.

Semesters are about the end, but they also represent new beginnings. All grades are forgiven and bad balances are reset. You get another chance to make an impression with a new group of teachers and students. Writing is the same in many ways. Often your last work is the one you are known for, so make every work crucial and priceless. I think it is time to stop writing here and do just what I said to do: Make something crucial.

Talis Out.

Deep down inside everyone knows that sports are a distraction. They are a way for us to step outside of our lives and and real-world allegiances and to dive into something that is a ‘safe’ gamble. We put a whole lot into these seemingly meaningless matches. In truth we give them meaning. We invest our love and attention in whether or not one team moves the ball across a line more than the other team and in that way our ‘side’ wins. But why? I think we do it because humans are competitive by nature. We, men especially, have little patience for non-zero sum competition.  Someone must lose in order for us to feel superior, and in order to feel superior we must feel smart or privileged enough to align ourselves with the winning side. That is why sports are important and it is important that we continue to watch them.

Here is why they are not. We have equated hero status to athletes, pushing aside the scientists, businessmen, and professors that actually advance our species towards expansion or actualization. Maybe it is a function of a species that doesn’t have a future plan past, perhaps, 100 years.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am still debating moving the talislegger site whole hog over to wordpress. The problem is, I don’t do anything with the site itself. Ostensibly, Talislegger is supposed to be my website for writing and promoting a certain me-ness. Still, I don’t know what or how I want to do with the website behind 10 minute gasps of coherence.
2. I need to improve the attitude I bring to the table when helping the kids with homework. It isn’t fun for them or me, but I cannot show that. If I show my displeasure I will turn them off.
3. Still wandering through the darkness trying to find my way back to that place of zen. Once upon a time there was a place in my mind where ideas and actions flowed freely. That is more of a memory than anything else now. It happens to the best of us from time to time. It is a form of writer’s block. I think the proper term is ‘overthinking’.
4. Watching the Jets I wonder if they even practice. Seriously, the offensive blackout they are currently under is shocking. I blame Sanchez, but it isn’t all on him. A lot is.

Lets go ahead and call yesterday an aberration. It had everything to do with the cat lounging behind me and licking my hair. Something about being groomed puts me immediately to sleep. I may require therapy in the future. In the present I find myself muddling through weekends alone. My wifey is doing night shifts to finish up her nursing practicum, leaving me with three little boys who absolutely think that sleep is some form of evil.

By the time they’ve been put down I am too exhausted to really focus on anything of worth. This is problematic, because I am hip deep in work and needing to get all that done in a matter of days. Can I do it? Of course, but there will be a price. Sleep mostly. I was talking with a professor friend of mine and in a truly honest moment about writing he said, “We make myths of ourselves.” He was talking about how writers and writing teachers say you need to work for hours at the craft each day, creeping towards Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of mastery. In fact we writers tend to lounge around a lot, and on the eve of a deadline we right like possessed things until finally a draft arrives, still hot from the printer.

My life is like that. My drafts are like that, and though I would love to see them be the other way–the fantasy world writer’s way–I doubt that is forthcoming. The key to that life tends to be writing as a full time professional. I mean, I can only play so much Mass Effect 3 before gaming itself gets to be a bore. That is when I grab hold of the keyboard to unfurl my creativity.

No, I’m not going to do that right now. I’m going to check on the kids and then play Mass Effect 3.