Month: April 2017

So I have this writing project that I need to get done soon and its been a lot of planning and thinking and sinking into the world, which will be followed by an intense flurry of writing near or on the due date. The process (for that is what it hath become) is amenable to two things–high stress and last minute desperate creativity. I often suspect that sort of creativity is the best type. My Modus Operandi as a writer for some time now has been to make that desperation call to the ether and pull from it some wonderfulness that goes on to be fairly decent writing in our world.

The process is unsustainable. First off, the level of stress it brings to my mind, body, and soul winds up pushing me away from the keyboard at least until the next project rears it’s seductive head. At that point the process begins anew. Painfully. I do this with the blog too, though not as often. I wait until the end of the night and pour something raw and unfinished down the digital rabbit hole–a ten minute view into the peep show powered by the well worn coins of my psyche. Often the scene behind the glass isn’t at all what I hoped for or worth seeing. In time my other writing could become that way, unless I treat the ether with the respect I give the love of my life.

And the dedication.

So, now we are to the heart of it–the lesson, if you will. I have these jeans. For whatever reason the crotch of the jeans is always the first part to wear out for me. The more I wear them, the more likely the jeans are to give out. Oddly, the closer they are to giving out, the more I wear them, not thinking but perhaps thinking that I ought to get as many uses out of them now as I can. That only wears them out faster, because they don’t get a break or any time for the fibers to stiffen after repeated use. I’m not sure I’m even right about how to fix the jeans. I am certain that what I am doing is not working.

Perhaps the same can be said about my writing.

Not a lot to say tonight. I’m worn out. When you leave the house at 9:30 and get home at 5:30 and haven’t actually gotten paid but worked your ass off for a lot of that time, you feel more tired. Happy tired, because it was football and two out of three boys put W on the board, but tired. The elite team ends the regular season 7-0 while the rookie rising stars go 5-2, with one loss coming to the 7-0 elite and the 2nd a fluke loss that came down to a single play. In honesty, we had two games come down to one play and went .500 in the clutch. Now we have a bye week and likely get to face the team we beat by 1 point in OT in the playoffs. Winner likely faces the elite in the championship.

What a moment as a dad that would be to have a son on each team in the championships. What a moment as a coach to have been an integral part of coaching each of the teams in the championship and get to lead one into battle? But first, we have a playoff game against a team that looked like it could beat us easy today. The Elite whipped them, sure, but we aren’t the elite and they look better than they did the last game. Historically, we play teams better the second go round, but allow more points.

That cannot happen here. So, we work this week and next. 6 practices before the moment of truth.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m applying for a writing job–one that really intrigues me. Do I have the time to make it happen? I better. The learning opportunity here is pretty epic.

I spent ten minutes waiting to write this blog, and I spent the whole time thinking about how much I need a new computer. Apple is supposed to be classy & fast. Neither remain true after 7 years. All you get at this point is a whole lot of the kaleidoscope of death, an all too familiar spiral of doom that reminds me of the look my dog gets when he is trying to remember if he’s still supposed to pee outdoors. He is, and he too is creeping towards that halting state.

I wanted to start this with something more poetic. To write, ‘Spring weather made a guest appearance, chasing away the roiling AZ heat.’ Instead emotion took over and I’m here ranting again. This is the digital version of ‘Get off my lawn’ and ‘those meddling kids’ all wrapped up into one post.

But enough of that. This is about the glory of Fridays. This is the day of the week  am able to spend time with loved ones and catch up on work that needs to get handled. Seriously, I want my life to be an extended friday.

Some Thoughts:

1. I wanted to talk about the draft, but again tech failed me. This time it was the mobile stuff that failed to provide timely information. So, I’ll figure out who got drafted and talk about it when I have enough knowledge to stand on.

 

Predicting what 32 teams and 32 teams worth of management personalities will do is foolhardy. Mike Mayock and others try really hard to get the job done, but are rarely accurate. They may know the top 32 but not the order–perhaps within 4 picks at best. I lack the time or interest to do things to the level these guys do it, but I do know my team–the NY Giants. I believe they have a plan that includes Malik Hooker as a first round pick–if available. With the secondary they’ve put together, this team is one Hooker away from a championship. In fact, you add Hooker and put Revis in there as a one year comeback (and get a ring) and you get that ring. Tonight we will know and Charley Casserly and Mayock and all of those guys can go back to predicting which college FB players will get hot this year and work their way onto somebody’s board.

So how about the rest of the league? We’ve seen a tendency away from the run and towards pass attacks and agile linemen. There are few legit power runners in the league today, which is why Adrian Peterson was completely overlooked in the free agency market. Even as a 30 yr old coming off injury, he is still AP. There are a few names like that in free agency, but the thought is you can get a young banger deep in the draft.

I have to wonder how much of this is chasing. How much of this is media speculation and trying to explain what happened last year. A lot I suspect. I feel like the coaches and GMs are playing the long term game and the media is acting like people are putting together win now teams. If only this were the NBA, but NFL takes time. You cannot slam a bunch of players together fresh and go take a ring. You can add a piece here and there, but football is about trust, planning, and teamwork. There isn’t one individual in the league who can dominate a game by himself. Vick was that guy once, but we haven’t seen the likes of him since.

The dying whine of student activity pushed far past the brink can only mean one thing: My semester is cycling to an end. They start out so energized and eager, but 16 weeks later the energy is a fragmented pulse of protons with no real electrons to chase. This brief peace is forfeited by the understanding that the end to my semester marks the nearing end to my kids school year. Here in the desert that means wading into public pools and trying, quite desperately, to find an inch of shade on a 120 degree afternoon.

I don’t laud it.

Perhaps the best time of it all is the in-between when I can rise early with the kids, feed them, play with them, and then still send them of to school. In this green patch of days I find the hours to write and to clean and to clean more when I ought to be writing. Video games are rediscovered. Love is given proper time to bloom. In the space of a few weeks a person can catch up to himself. In the space of a few days I settle into a new routine, if only for a moment before the summer routine fully has me, and I think of what a life I direct looks like. Then I recognize how little I direct my life and it makes me sad. That frown is followed by promises, plans written on the back of napkins, whispered strategies over bottles of wine keeping time with the cadence of rebellion. I glimpse another in-between as the summer closes and the kids return to the classroom and I can breathe shallow until my school year starts anew. I think about what I can be, and then I fall back into who I am.

I’m breaking a covenant right now.

Today my kids and I decided to turn off the devices and be humans for just a little bit. That meant no TV shows, no video games, no phones save for emergencies. I slipped a little here and there, texting notes to my girlfriend and checking in with the coaches to make sure things were good to go for practice. I was discrete and, more importantly, I limited it as much as I felt capable of.

It felt good.

It felt real good to turn off and engage with the boys. I think they liked it too. We played beyblade and we went to practice. First born, who has a practice off day Tuesdays, opted to come with us and help coach the lil’ guy’s team. It was fantastic weather and we hung out on the field long after practice until we realized we needed to get home and eat and play more beyblade. The boys wound up in bed later than usual, but not for staying up for anything less than great quality family time.

I think this is about to become a thing in the house. We used to have taco tuesday and tournament tuesday and now turn off tuesday. It turns out a lot of useful situations rhyme with Tuesday. Between you and me, I’m done with it for tonight. After a long day of work and play all I want to do is blog, sip wine, and crush Mass Effect. I think I’ve earned a moment for all of that.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The difference between being young and being old is that when you are young you believe you can do everything. When you’re old you know you can do everything, and are fiercely aware of the amount of time and research it takes to do anything.

I am spending far too long watching film and deconstructing youth football offenses. See, the reason Belichick is fantastic is because he dedicates his life to the stuff. I can only offer a handful of hours without watching a major juggled ball plummet to the earth. Yes, I know that means I do too much, but we’ve covered that. In truth, I am at the end of a rope when it comes to doing too much and the end of a semester will allow time for deeper introspection on what I actually want to devote a lot of my time towards.

In the meanwhile, I’m breaking down youth football plays in hopes of creating the conditions to win the playoff game three weeks from now and earn a spot at the championships. My one persistent fear: I haven’t given any real thought to this week’s opponent. We dogged them 19-0 in what is easily our worst game of the season, but there is little motivation for my kids to stand up and play this one–especially in the heat. All I can really preach is finish strong, so I’ll do just that. In the meanwhile I’ll still be breaking down footage to assemble a gameplan to crush these guys in the rematch.

Some Thoughts:

1. Thursday is the NFL draft. This means football season has come round at last.

Honestly too long of a weekend to summarize in one ten minute gulp. I won’t even make the effort. Instead I will discuss another related subject: Where people go to get drunk.

I had the pleasure of attending a (pre) MLS soccer game and noticed two things: An abundance of overly perfumed and sluttily dressed women/standard and disappointing near-drunk dudes. And a preponderance of people looking for ways to connect to a team that they knew about and could appear cool for doing so. This is very much the realm of early adopters. My relative proximity to Scottsdale has a lot to do with the first point, but it ought not to be responsible for the second half of the equation. Still, I am quite tired, so while I know I am on to something, I will leave it to a post-sleep brain to work it all out.

Some Thoughts:
1. You know you are tired when your hands cannot completely type a simple word without that dreadful red squiggle making an appearance.
2.

This is the end to a very long day.

It is yet another reminder that I don’t lead the kind of life that benefits anyone but my kids. We spent the day running between three games and finally a party. It is a lot. It is a lot for me even, and I lean into it. I thought i’d gotten a better sense of balance, but that isn’t true just yet. I’ve leaned into more things and away from others, and that is not how I would describe balance. I have a bunch more to do.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The thing is, I have a certain level of arrogance. I suppose I still think that I am pretty smart and can figure out a few things. Belichick is a hero to me, because he has this ability specific to football and usually can beat any team. I’m about to face a team that has the ability to beat us, but I also have two weeks and a bunch of game film (with more on the way) to break down and scheme ideas on how to Belichick the heck out of this situation. I want to take my team to the championship.
2. Gremlins ate my alternator.

Just going random tonight. No trigger warning, just whatever spews from me brain.

Some Thoughts:

1. I cannot decide if leaving when you are not wanted is a good thing or a bad thing. On the one hand there is definitely an advantage to walking away, because you likely have a chance to start over somewhere new. On the other hand when you leave you reinforce their idea of who you are in their heads and maybe a little in your own as well.
2. Perhaps instead of running all the time the answer is better found in staying put and defining more reasonable limitations around what you do. A Jack of all trades is not only an Ace of none but is the weakest and most easily neglected of the face cards–barely more worthwhile than a ten.
3. first encounter with lice has my skin still feeling itchy. My first born was infected briefly and now I’m terrified that I have the lice. This is likely not the case, but I can feel things crawling all over my head–at least in my head.
4. Heel cups. This is the answer to a great many issues with kids’ feet.
5. My son’s cat secretly wants to eat me.
6. Coffienerdness: Folgers crystals is a terrible instant coffee, but it reminds me of spending time with my ex mother in law. I bought a case.
7. I made it to my desk. I found the brown (who knew?) surface of the expanse and managed to eek out a few useful words. Good thing too, because my writing group is expecting words strung together by Sunday.