Month: March 2015

I had the opportunity to sit with a woman who was openly ranting about her husband fearing for his life and being discriminated against largely based on his race and his profession. I felt for her in the early moments of her rant. Then she dropped a bit of privilege and reminded us that we shouldn’t be discrimnating against him, because he’s a white cop. She went on to suggest that it wasn’t just affecting him but his entire family–especially her having to be a wife standing up for her man and fearing for his safety when he walks the streets. I thought to myself, what a strong moment here. This woman has a chance to finally feel like what it means to walk through the world with brown skin, or with a Koran cradled in your arms, or to be from a part of Korea no one wants to speak proudly about, or wanting to have sex with someone who has the same parts as you. Unfortunately–and realistically–it mattered more to her because it was about her and someone she loved and it was about someone and something she always group up thinking was the ‘right thing’ and had the identity of the majority and was something to be believed in. I thought, isn’t it ironic that the people I mentioned above all likely felt just as badly about their experience as she did about hers? I’m willing to bet that not one of them identified as being the ‘bad guy’ either, and also like her, complained about how mass media is driving the interpretation of their group. Too bad she didn’t seem to realize that.

1. Georgetown College was founded in 1789, 102 years before basketball was invented. 226 years later they suck at basketball.
2. That was also the year we named Washington our first US President.
3. Later that year Kentucky rolled out the first bottle of Bourbon Whiskey. The correlation is obvious. From the first ‘crowning’ of an American president we’ve been driven to drink some hard shit…especially when thinking about basketball.

I’ve been thinking about moments lately; thinking about the things I remember best–being down by the water with a loved one and feeling that tingle of a shiver, missing the turn on the way to a new location and realizing at once the promise of that future place. I can paint my entire life in moments. Some of these moments bring me pride, some pain, and all of these moments are how I register memory. I believe that one of the most important things in life are to create moments. As I slip deeper into the tech stream I’ve recognized that I often spend these potential moments recording them as moments vs. living them. Alongside that comes the realization that I sometimes speed through moments in search of what is going to be great next. I see that tendency in my kids as well, and that is unacceptable.

This all came to a head in my mind recently when I was thinking about today’s Wrestlemania event and how my kids are so excited about putting on costumes and parading into the house to watch the event and to have a moment to remember as part of their childhood. Today isn’t about pictures, its about memories and having a moment with my kids that we can remember forever.

Some Thoughts:

1. CNN’s preference for symphorophilia is problematic. They spend so much time focusing on plane crashes that they neglect all of the other stories that are out there in the world and important.
2. D.C. and Sierra Leone were both founded in 1788. Count this as another interesting historical coincidence given that one was founded as a seat of national government and the second was built as a location for freed slaves. Both wound up being extremely important in terms of our understanding and the international conversation about slavery. At the same time, both were immediately mired in corruption and strayed from the original purpose of the founding.

As the summer approaches and I ready for my creative writing and mythology courses I find myself drawn back into a web of fantasy an sic-fi writing that both thrills and annoys me. There are conventions I see in authors that help define genres in ways I enjoy and in ways that I detest. For example, Brett Battles, a noted post-apocalyptic thriller writer is as noted for his inability to create legitimate female characters. He uses the ‘As good as it gets’ method. In other words, he, thinks of a man and removes reason and accountability. This in turn creates a host of female leads that reflect badly on the genre and often alienate readers (that same chick he writes for every female character is super annoying).

In the same vein, the best fantasy authors tend to focus mainly on the same part of the fantasy world. Few write about Joe the cobbler. Many write about Prince Joe and his many devious friends. I am no different. My epic fantasy presently focuses on a series of characters adjacent to the crown. It is a milieu piece at heart, which attempts to show the life of the commoner by having characters who either came from those roots or masquerades as such. I’m disappointed in myself. I feel that I could just as easily tell the human story–the commoner tale–from the perspective of a commoner swept up in all of the crazy of the high society. In truth I’m better equipped from a knowledge standpoint to do so. I don’t almost entirely because everything else I’ve read has been about the people who ‘matter’ and there is a sense of trepidation about pitching a book about people who don’t matter.

Tropes run sci fi and fantasy. They run literary fiction as well, but it is more often viewed as a starting point, with the character story driving the value of the literary work. Hell, Jane Eyre is a trope built with tropes as building blocks.

I guess all this is to say that we need something new in terms of vision from the sci-fi and fantasy realms. Harry Potter was cute but it was just another coming of age story set against the backdrop of the out of place rich kid with skills in a school of established people. New is difficult. We’ve long operated on the premise that there are only seven basic plots and we multiply that by character, location, and perspective to create limitless tales. However, these tales aren’t limitless. It is time for an 8th and 9th plot. We need something new.

Some Thoughts:

1. Last night I was reminded of a valuable lesson: Sleep. Do it often and fruitfully. Without such machinations ones writing resembles the slow and random hacks of a monkey at play.
2. Monday I cut the cord. Bye bye DirecTv.
3. 1787 marks the publication of the Federalist papers in the U.S. This also coincides with the George Mason’s offering of a bill of rights (which was immediately and vocally shot down) and, perhaps more tangentially, when Arthur Philip launched his fleet of criminals towards Botany Bay in Australia–yet another British effort to rid the kingdom of undesirables and upstarts. I wonder why Australia never gained the traction USA did. On the other hand, perhaps Australia’s time is yet to come…
4. There is something to be said for waking to the howls of young children waging war over minutiae. They want to fight each other and it doesn’t matter what they fight over. The question is why?

A few days from wrestle mania and I am prepping to throw the first party I’ve thrown in years. This and the painting of a hallway has me slipping in and out of consciousness… Another night where ten minutes mean very little.

Some Thoughts:

1. 1786 was the year of Shays’ Rebellion, an uprising which has long reminded me of The Boston tea Party. That’s the thing about perspective. The powerful tend to write history in their perspective and whitewash what they do as fundamentally right…

Movement is the key. In returning to AZ I recognized the cardinal (pun) difference between here and home (NYC) is movement. In New York people live in the street. People are out all day and night moving and doing and dancing and generating that frantic energy the city thrives on. Here in a state full of sleepy bedroom suburbs a much smaller percentage of people are moving and doing. Most are trying to make it through the day in order to get to their evening shows. I fell into that trap immediately and repeatedly once I returned. In fact the only things that kept me from disappearing into my couch were the mountain of work needing to be done and, more importantly, the awareness that I was falling back into bad rituals.

Tonight I broke the spell by climbing off the happy couch and painting a wall. I’ve long discussed painting parts of the house, even going so far as buying the supplies. Putting the paint on the wall was a huge step because it meant that I started a job that needs to be finished, and in some ways that jump started me to perform other needed chores.

I no longer feel like I am on the verge of something. I feel like I’ve rolled back down the hill and have to pick myself up and start climbing again–with a different path and plan to reach the summit. I also recognize that I need to incorporate ‘save points’ into that climb–moments of pure opportunity to reflect. I’ve gotten better at it, and reflection has made me aware of a great many things about myself and my life–including the obvious need for further reflection.

But enough about me. I think it is time I got back to blogging about things that mattered  a bit more than just one spry fella.

Some Thoughts:

1. In 1785 the London Times printed its first issue. Today blogs and other digital media are more widely read by the population of London than any print paper ever is. These times a’changin.

It is still so hard to talk about sports. As a former Cyclone I wretched at the one point loss in the first round of the tourney. It hurt. That particular Cyclone ball team had the best set of match ups to get to the round of 8 and even further. Instead the team seemingly overlooked a defensive-minded UAB team whose matchup zone defense was built to defeat versatile offenses like that of ISU. What state didn’t have was a true #1 scorer who could take the weight of the game himself, and that is what beat them. Now there are 16 teams left dancing and Kentucky still looks as strong as ever.

Back to football: Rex Ryan feels like Buffalo is his last shot at being a head coach. He may be right. If he doesn’t do well then he is done. Maybe he can be DC for the Jets… Still, I don’t think it happens. I’m still waiting for an RGIII draft day trade.

Truthfully professional sports have taken a backseat to the youth sports my kids play. In fact I get to see my son play tackle for the first time in a week or so. I’m stoked to see him perform at his peak and I hope he does well. I think it is more fun to watch him and the other kids play, because there is more purity in the game at that level–from fans and from players. There is no threat of a ‘dark stain’ on the career of a player for bad behaviors or TV worthy scandals to excite.

Some Thoughts:

1. For whatever reason, 1777 got stuck in the drafts folder. I published it out of order. Messy.

The following posts were written and collected from Wednesday through Monday while I was in or traveling to NYC. Despite the Emerald City’s massive wireless state, I was very mobile and unable to access the internet stably enough to post. That’s on me, but it doesn’t mean I stopped writing… Here is Wednesday:

I debated about talking about my trip. The internet is pretty clear about not announcing you’ve left your place of residence for fear of being robbed. Fortunately, I left folks behind to tend to that, so I can talk about this: US Air is the worst airline on the planet. I’m saying this knowing that Malaysia air lost multiple planes over the course of a single year. They are still better than US Air.

The airline in questions is a cheaper solution to flying across the country. Whenever possible I use Southwest. I occasionally fly with Allegiant, but in so far as customer service and flight readiness goes, Southwest is king, and usually cheap, but not when it comes to flying to New York. I started my journey at 8:20 in the morning, preparing to board for a 8:58 flight that was scheduled to land at 4:54 Eastern time. The flight was cancelled. The airline claimed a runway at JFK had been shut down and as a result our little plane wouldn’t be able to land at JFK 5 hrs later. It was a half truth. Indeed the runway was being maintained, but there were other options the airline could’ve applied.

Here’s what they tried to do: Push everyone to a flight to Ohio that was leaving 6 hrs after our original time and from there wait six more hours in Ohio for a flight that would arrive in the city at 7 the next morning. I opted for the faster and equally circuitous route to charlotte and into Newark.

The result is 13 hrs of travel and a very worn out talislegger. More talks from the road will follow.

I am a better teacher than I am today. I am a better writer than I am today. I am the person I choose to be and I am proud of that man. I believe in who I can be as much as I did yesterday and tomorrow.

Part of my new morning ritual is to write and to read before I turn to television. I noticed that while in NYC I only watched TV twice. Sure, there were shows I could’ve caught but there was no need. There is so much excitement and entertainment in Gotham that the TV becomes a secondary thing. Not so in the suburbs where outside all is quiet. It is easy to fall into the routine of watching TV on the couch and remaining there indefinitely. There are certainly enough distracting shows to keep me going–for days at a time. I suppose this is where the term binge watching comes from. I feel like cutting the cord will help me in this regard, though it means telling my kids that they can no longer ‘record’ their favorite shows. Still, they too need to develop better rituals.

For me it starts with writing and reading–putting my mind in that space where I am reminded of the power of creativity. After comes the hard work. I intend to be more devotional to my job moving forward. I am fortunate enough to work in academia and, for the most part, not to be in a place where politics rule the day. It is still about the students and the learning and giving them what they deserve. For me it is largely about delivering a experience that is engaging, enjoyable, and academically fulfilling. I haven’t hit the stride I found at my last college before that was disrupted by administrative duties. I recognize I can’t get that stride back but instead have to find a new stride that matches who I am now and how I’ve evolved my understanding of teaching and learning. It is however the essence of the goal that mattes most. I am a better teacher than I am today. 

Better at most things is the trajectory I prefer to have. I feel like when a person tops out they have nothing to do but get worse or step away. I see the getting worse aspect as much in teaching as I do in sports. I’m seeing it more and more in writing, and I recognize that some of the writers guilty of it see that in themselves. You can tell by the afterwords or the shift in the bio and often even the tone of the books. It isn’t a matter of burnout but instead flameout. The fuel is less or different or not there at all. I’m not at that point. I am a better writer than I am today.

All of this becomes about choice and dedication. I am willing to put in the work and pain needed to be that guy. It is a choice and a difficult one to stick to, because giving up is easy. The TV is waiting for me outside this door and it is so darn appealing. I’m not ready to give in though. I’m still developing, still trying, and still accepting who I am each step of the journey. I am the person I choose to be and I am proud of that man. I believe in who I can be as much as I did yesterday and tomorrow.