Month: April 2017

I spent time in a high school classroom today, remembering how it felt to be in a space with so many kids being strained through advanced courses. This particular school is better than most. No, seriously. In fact by the grades measure they are tops in the state. By learning and teaching measure, they are offering a solid technical education, if one that lacks the diversity of age and life experience.

The lesson focused on satirists and satire, picking up on the growing argument about the role of satire in our society. We moved through conversations about Trump and other great moments in satire, landing finally on the importance of education and education on satire. That led to a question: Where are the conservative satirists?

Few and far between. I believe conservatism eschews satire for anger, seriousness, and conspiracist rants. For every Daily Show there is a Newsbusters. For every SNL there is a Breitbart.

Don’t get me started on the Onion.

This is reflected in the perceived attitudes of the perspective ‘sides’. The conservatives react from anger while the so-called liberals chant of freedom from behind the joke. Thus is the way of stereotyped things.

Today was the first time I had to face the possibility that my kid might want to kill himself. Nothing in his behavior or make up ever gave me that impression before. He is generally a happy kid who gets ahead and works hard and has a lot of fun in his life. Still, that is only the kid I know.

He wrote an essay for school called ‘The story of my life’. The first line reads: ‘Life can be hard sometimes, but you just can’t give up.’ The essay goes on to cover memories, who he looks up to, and obstacles he has faced in life. The overall message seemed positive, Still, that first line…

I could be wrong about this. The first sentence could have been the prompt the teacher delivered–the same opening line everyone used. Regardless, the situation opened my eyes to real neglect.

I grew up a latch key kid. When the boy turned 12 I gave him the freedom to hang at home by himself. That slowly morphed into a form of my childhood. He spends his hours at home buried in video games and powerfully alone. When I was alone on the eighth floor of that apartment I wanted to run through the window more than once. Especially when I felt nobody cared.

So that is where I am: needing to know more and needing to give the kid an outlet.

I was happy today–legit happy–for the first time in a while. I spent time with my love, I taught a class I love, I talked with students totally engaged in writing and even gifted one a book! Then I went out and led a pretty solid football practice. This was as close to self-actualization as I’ve been in years. So, what made it so special? I allowed myself to live in each of these individual moments and did not allow myself to get bogged down in what if and what more and, well, whatever. This is the very seed of impermanence flowering into a day that exposed my raw emotional needs and at once fulfilled them.

In other words, happy day.

Now what? I live the next day. Somewhere above it all I am forming the scaffolding for wha could be described as a life. I don’t know where that life will happen or who or what it will contain. I know that, once upon a time, I had a life that was about my needs and my happiness, but not in a very selfish way at all. Since the pendulum has swung to the needs and desires of everyone else with little attention paid to what I desire and need. Today I allowed myself to be and to do the things that make me happy. If I continue that then I feel my needs will be met as I continue my life path of making those around me better.

What more could I ask for?

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I need a maid. Seriously.

I’ve busied myself with watching vines. Vines are dead now, but the meme-driven media left behind gems like this. I’m doing it to avoid taxes! No, I merely neglected taxes. I’m actually zoning out to avoid a more important reality. Ours.

I think it is harder to do things like get in shape when you see everyone else in the ‘get in shape mode’ already in shape or working so much harder than you already are. The activation energy needed to get going is so high that I have not been even in the realm of turning it on. Meanwhile all around me I see writers stepping up, turning it on, and engaging completely in their opportunity to be successful.

Hungry writers make me more hungry. At least they used to when I had that activation energy to care as much as I should. That right there is something I need to delve into more. When I have the energy, of course.

Ten minutes to write and probably ten minutes left to be awake on this Sunday evening. Long week capped by a long weekend. This being the frenetic part of the year, it is not going to change any time soon. This week is jammed with events of some nature every night through Sunday. I need to take my chance at sleep now, because the next opportunity will be after finals week.

In other words, there is a break coming. A solid break, which gives me a chance to move into a new home and, in a sense, a new life. I’ve long been a person who integrates himself into the town and neighborhood in some fashion. That is not going to happen in this new phase, leaving me to wonder what things are going to look like for me, socially.

So, why not post the blog I wrote yesterday–yesterday? Lazy is the quick answer, but the more measured and thoughtful response is that I knew my one reader wouldn’t completely flip out for it being late to post and likely would read several in a bunch. More to the point, I know I have but one dear reader.

Thank you.

I started publishing these thoughts in an effort to keep myself honest about my craft. It was an open space to write about anything that stuck to my brain over the course of a day. A lot came down to rants. I’d secretly imagined publishing the mess of it a la Allie Brosh and letting folks in on the warped mind of this writer while drawing a slight profit. My wonderful partner published a year’s worth for me and it was a clear reminder of how much effort I do put into the blog on somedays and what I can be capable of on a semi-regular basis. This is of course before I let life kick me in the teeth and hold my head under water. Life is a bully. I’ve played the victim for a while now.

Preparing to move has enlightened me to several facts about myself and habits and shortcomings. It also reminded me that my brain, though aging, ain’t dead and that I need to force more space into my life for words. I recently took a writing gig solely because I needed a deadline to force me to do what I love doing. I love writing and teaching and planing to write and planning to teach. Just today I devised a new strategy to make my novel classes successful. I am going to create notebooks for the students with all the handout and work they did to plan and structure their novel all organized in a way that brings their novel to the writing stage. It’s gonna be dope.

Turns out brain age is a thing. I first heard about it as a high school freshman when I remained convinced that immortality was possible. The articles on brain age bounced off my psyche. Now that I feel so much slower I have done the research and there is definitely something to it. The human brain peaks in multiple phases from 25-40. I’m past that peak point and I need to figure out how to make use of the brain I have today vs. complaining about what was.

Complaining won’t change the universe.

Some Thoughts:

1. Destroyer by Brett Battles is awful. I continue to read out of respect for the author. He absolutely mailed this one in. The protagonist is barely likeable from the last book, but book two of this series raises him to a new echelon of bad decisions and flawed logic. Battles is one of those authors who gives really good audiobook, so when I finished the first of the Rewinder series I went in for book 2. Bad idea. I fear a trained monkey might make better choices. Better yet, an untrained one. The best part is when the dude stabs himself in the leg and doesn’t notice. By best I mean low point of his stupidity. Everything else he does is fa dumber, and we have to listen to him explain each bad choice. There is a writer’s saying–If a character takes an action that makes no sense, you must explain said action and the motivations behind it. This is often done a few times in a giant novel. Here it is every page. I want to stab the protagonist with a fat spoon.
2. ‘Will you coach next year?’ If you’ll have me. Sounds pretty much like a dude who isn’t expecting a lot of respect and desire from the guys he coaches with. Also sounds like a dude waaaaay out of the loop. I’m that dude. I have a horrible habit of losing self confidence in settings where I am not sure of my value or role.

The coach said, “man you’re in the running for dad of the year” I gave a sad smile, which did little to mask my disappointment–not in the kid but in myself. After all, I was the guy who brought tears to my kid’s eyes in the first place.

Maybe I should start at the beginning.

The practice was already going when I arrived. Traffic to the suburb meant an hour on the road to go less than 30 miles. I tend to bide my time with audiobooks and today was no different. I selected something easily digestible by Brett Battles and locked into the much traveled road home. Ten minutes late, I was already frustrated at myself. It didn’t take long for that frustration to extend to the kids. They were playing scared and acting up between plays. Few seemed to have a sense of the plays we were calling and fewer executed them properly. I looked for the silver lining and found my kid and a few other captains also sucking.

I let it be. I try not to be the negative coach to my own kid, because he’s one of the youngest on the squad and not entirely mature for his age. Still, he is expected to be a leader–a big strong boy with the thoughts of a seven year old who has been babied for much of his life. When I watched him he was playing like he no longer cared and offered that kind of effort. I let it be.

Then I didn’t. I yelled, ‘catch the damn ball!’ and he broke. It was a quiet break–something another coach noticed first–as if his personal levee found the first crack. When we got in the car it all came out. He cried and shut down and then cried again. We got to his mom’s house and he said, ‘you cursed at me’ but would offer nothing else. He cried in her arms and then, reluctantly, let me hug him. I apologized and held him for a while.

We will see how it turns out. I’m definitely out of the running for any good poppa awards thus far.

I was typing in a blog about the woman I love when I decided that this content is far better suited for a love letter. I was left with a jumble of thoughts and ideas that swirl around the concept of belonging. Today is my mid kid’s 10th birthday and we spent it with our extended family-her family. It made me happy beyond measure and more thoughts best reserved for her alone. As for the boy, he loved it. He was the center of attention for a lot of the night and totally hammed it up. I am fortunate to have three boys that are anything but milktoast. They are loaded with the potential to be very special in this life, and what they need most is good parenting to keep them on track. I hope I am up to the task.

It is a task I’m doing alone these days. I’m sure they get good parenting from their mom, but without any actual communication between us, I might as well be tilting at wind mills.

Sleep is finding me, slowing the tap tap tap of the keys and waisting my ten. I ought to listen this time…