Month: September 2017

Late yesterday afternoon I resolved to live life as fully as possible. This resolution came in the midsts of a very difficult transition and, at the time, seemed rash. When I woke up this morning I recognized that it was not rash at all. In truth it was liberating. Part of it was watching the twenty and thirty somethings I hang out with live these extraordinary lives. Part of it happened later. That part of it was a much simpler recognition that the life I’d been hoping to create further down the road was not ever going to happen. My first reaction to that bit of news was an utter surrender. Part of me still lives in that state and perhaps always will. But surrender is a type of freedom too.

It left me with a choice. I could keep on as I have been doing or I can accept the reality I face for what it is and learn to stop wanting what isn’t ever going to happen for me. I’ve long claimed that life without hope is a dark thing, and I still believe that. Yet in that darkness there can be possibility and growth. I asked myself, ‘what if you only had one year to live?’ I knew instantly I would not spend that year sad and broken, but would milk every possibility out of life–do the things I have always wanted to. I would care more about my joy because I knew I only had a little while to use it.

So that’s what I resolved to do. We don’t last forever. In the limited time we have we must be true to ourselves–to our wants and our needs. We must embrace what is possible, what is folly, and what has been lost. We cannot dwell on such things, but reality allows us a window and once we see that for what it is, living becomes much easier.

 

Sometimes I write for ten minutes and the word flow out of my consciousness like water from a ledge. Other times there is no water; nothing to come forth. I started this blog three times before this and deleted everything. That happens sometimes too. But I came back. I didn’t quit. I’m here and I’m typing and the words, though weak and meaningless at first, are coming.

Writing has never betrayed me, though I have failed it time and again. I have often not afforded it the attention it deserves. I have often not loved it as I should. Writing has and always will be there. I can come home to writing and I will again. Perhaps not now or even ten years from now, but I know that I will always have stories buried inside of me waiting to emerge.

When it comes to football, I want to be a mad scientist. That might also be the problem. A key tenet of youth sports–of life in general, perhaps–is Keep it Simple, Stupid. I have never done that in life, and trying to do that in 12u football is breaking me. Honestly, I probably should coach a younger team where I am not expecting as much from my players. Not only do I want these kids to execute the plays, but I want them to understand the sequencing and I want a QB who knows how to make audible calls in the huddle. Barring that, I have a lot of work to do in order to streamline my offense.

At least I figured out a play call system that is working.

Two, actually. I’ve been running plays in and out of the huddle with my wingback, because they are largely interchangeable. This is a good look, because it keeps teams guessing as to which back is the real breakout back. I’m not even sure yet, but I know that each of the wings possess speed, but one is a better between the tackles runner and the other has a bigger arm. Each play I switch them out to get the new play call in. Sometimes I’ll keep them both and pull the QB to go into a pure wildcat package. This, however, is not the complexity that concerns me.

All my plays stem off the idea of jet sweep. Simply put that means if you can beat the B-gap, you can likely disrupt what I am trying to do. I’ve developed some on the fly calls to challenge that–particularly running opposite the sweep with the FB and RB. It works to confuse a defense that starts creeping heavily to one side or the other, but the execution has to be money and it has not been thus far. Part of that is not having a fullback I can completely rely on. As with all things it comes down to personnel and practice.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Rough night in many ways. Still, I’m doing my best to be that rock.

On any given day I have no less than 15 windows(tabs) open in my browser. That’s just one browser. I usually have a second browser open full of the carryover stuff from the previous day. That’s 30+ windows of media content open at any time from a kid who grew up rocking a Commodore 64. That is to say that the computer age has seriously enabled my ADD. Hell, it probably created it.

The inability to stay focused and locked in on a single task is a real problem for me. Case and point: I haven’t worked on my novel in nearly a week. That’s my passion project. I haven’t played any Madden and only have watched a smattering of football here and there. Yes, this is sounding more like depression than distraction, but the truth of it is I find my self deep down the rabbit hole on most occasions. ‘Checking shit out’ if you will.

The real issue is how much I expose myself to. I teach a novel writing class in which students dream up very cool things. They also expect me to have a basic understanding of the media that influenced them. So I look it up. Rabbit holes.

Did you know that Haruki Murakami ran a Jazz bar in Tokyo? That’s the kind of stuff I’m talking about. All of this inspires my students, but they aren’t the only reason I’m checking stuff out. I too seek inspiration–the logs to further my fire.

Some Thoughts:

1. First scrimmage for my new team and my primary concern is that I don’t have the right colors to wear. First world problems.
2. Loving is easy. Letting go… not so much. Still, people have to do what they must and you have to trust in what you know to be Ka.

It pains me that I broke the streak. I haven’t thought much about it, but nearing 100 consecutive days of writing is a stark reminder that I was nearing 3,000 consecutive days of writing before my better demons took hold. I quit because I was depressed. I tripped over a failing relationship into this cavern of darkness that felt somehow more comforting than the pain of the loss I faced.

See, I’ve always had a deep and active imagination. I have created worlds and stories in my mind since I was capable of thought. Back then there was no way to share such things without writing them down. Unfortunately, I lived in a household where nobody cared about my stories or even recognized my voice. I wrote purely for me for a very long time. It wasn’t until 4th grade that anyone else recognized that I told stories and showed the least bit of interest in hearing them. That is when I started to write in earnest. I finally felt like there was an interested audience–someone who cared what I was thinking and sharing.

I wrote more and more over the years, striking the balance between writing for me and writing in order to share with others. After a time the outside interests peaked. People wanted to hear one type of story and I grew bored of telling it. I created a home life that mirrored how I grew up. Nobody was interested in what I had to say. So, I told the one type of story over and again until it killed my desire completely.

Then I found a special relationship. Then it broke. Then I stopped writing entirely.

My special relationship survived–changed but survived. Recognizing the depths of what I had–what I refused to let go of–helped me to understand that I needed to accept her into my life as who she was and wanted to be to me. If that meant coping with the demons of her choices, then so be it.

That was 78 days ago. Not long by anyone else’s standards, I suppose. But it feels like another life to me.

Cary Fukanaga gets It.

Born into experiences and history that reflect struggle, the man has always been blessed with stories of struggle. This presented him with a point of view you aren’t ever going to see from a Hollywood insider raised in the isolation of that media circus. No, Fukanaga gets it. Moreover, he gets The Dark Tower. His latest release, It, ties the book back to the Dark Tower roots that helped cement the series lore. It is about 7 children who encounter an other worldly creature in the sewers below Derry. It is really about an entity of evil that is of the Dark Tower and furthers the argument that the tower, being the nexus of all things, is not inherently good nor evil, but simply is. And from that place comes a hunger both for love (the connections between this particular Katet of seven kids) or of fear (what the creature feeds upon).

Fukanaga handles the material with expert care. It covers roughly half of the story, focusing on the lives of the seven kids and leading up to the other part of the story in which adults also face the horror of It. He also handles the deeper angle of the story with precision. It is also very much the story of the Turtle and the 12 guardians of the 12 portals pictured below. He takes care to include each in a scene.

Fukanaga gets this, but doesn’t force it or beat us up with the imagery. What we see is largely subtle and purposeful. For example, there is only one scene that focuses on a rat, despite the time spent in the sewers. That scene doesn’t even take place in the sewers.

I could go on all day about this, but I only have 10 minutes…

Some Thoughts

1. Fukanaga is about to drop a Netflix series called Maniac. It is the dark spiritual cousin of Ready Player One–sans computers. It stars Jonah Hill and Emma Stone among others. I’m in.

Last Sunday’s Giants game showed me that the G-men are a playoff team–so long as Odell is on the field. That game proved the value of the colorful receiver in many ways. It was also a week in which a lot of other teams’ futures were laid bare. This week will start to harden the cast.

 

CIN over HOU
The vaunted Houston D gave up far too much O and the O-line offered up their QB as a sacrifice. This bodes poorly for the Texans, who never fully got it going in week one and even at full tilt seem like they aren’t the team of two years ago.

BAL over CLE
I’m actually torn on this Cleveland is legit building something here and I believe they will get wins this season. The fact that they played the Steelers fairly tight means they have hope, but BAL has a stronger run game right now, with two 70+ yard rushers coming out of week one.

CAR over BUF
They gave up 12 to the Jets. Nuff said.

ARI over IND
This is ought to be a bounce back week for the Cardinals, but it is actually a trap game. They don’t have David Johnson for a few months, so they need to find a warhorse in the backfield.

TEN over JAX
KC over PHI
NO over NE
PIT over MIN
TB over CHI
LAC over MIA
OAK over NYJ
DEN over DAL
SEA over SF

GB over ATL
Another tough one. I question the GB running game, but the passing has looked solid and the ATL secondary looks a little flat.

NYG over DET
This is another trap game. If Eli gets Beckham then he has enough time for the protection to start to get confidence and allow those downfield plays. If not, he’s doomed.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve gotten to the point where I wake up in the morning gearing up for what I have to say in the blog. The routine is the same, but it comes with a sense of pride once again–I’m happy to be writing in this space.

This is the 75th day since the period of darkness where I did not blog. Nearly three whole months since I lost contact with reality and fell into a stupor of depression. I did not intend to ever write again. Here I am today powering through a novel outline and gathering momentum to write that first tenuous draft. I write this all to reflect on the idea of rising from the ashes/being born again from those ashes. That idea grips me, because most of the stuff the forced me out of the writing game is still real and evident, but my perspective on all of it has shifted dramatically. In other words, it isn’t what you’re dealing with it is how you’re dealing with it.

One thing I’m dealing with is the loss of Shadowrun. I have lost the thread of that world, and until I find it within myself I will not be able to write in that world any further. Instead I am going to start looking at stand alone sci-fi pieces whenever I take a moment away from the fantasy novel. I’m going to try to hold two worlds in my head at once. So long as the first continues to grow.

When I quit writing I felt at that moment that I as done for good, and that felt good. It always feels good to be finished with something. Now I think I felt good because I no longer needed to worry about writing things that I had no interest in writing. That feeling is a part of what killed my drive to begin with. From the ashes me is about the passion project and about writing for the sake of writing. I want to set the words free and let them dance about the page in a rhythm only they can create. A rhythm that reverberates in my soul.

Man, I’m cheesy.

Sunday morning through Tuesday morning is my two-day. It is the 48 (or so) hour period when I don’t have to deal with kids or officially even go into the office. This is becoming my passion period. I spent yesterday working on my novel, binging one of my all-time favorite shows, and watching the Giants look absolutely lost without Beckham.

I made leaps and bounds in the novel realm yesterday, because I connected with my partner and she put her heart to the project. If I’m being honest with myself, I stopped writing for personal pleasure years ago. I wrote to get published and I published a lot of first draft crap. This project is different. It is an evolution of the one true project that has lived in my psyche for most of my life and played out there over and again. At some point it no longer needed to find the page, because the imagined version gave me a settled feeling. Knowing her and being with her makes me want to share all of this with her. So I am writing it down. I am figuring it out and she is a part of it.

I am also coming to the end of HIMYM. Feels like the right time and is very reflective of a lot of what lives in my heart. Not much to say about that yet. I’m still thinking it through.

Some Thoughts:

1. Brandon Marshall is not the receiver he was. That is to say he is completely shut down by safety help. The Cowboys showed help on Marshall all night and held him to one catch on three looks. When Beckham returns, the three WR combo will be lethal, but it is built based on having that kind of weapon. Without Beckham, the team is in trouble. I very much hope they try to get Landry next season.
2. Youth Football can be all consuming–especially when involved with a team that treats it like this is the center of the universe. I got an email yesterday stating that we may or may not have a scrimmage game on Saturday. In other words, I was specifically told to put plans on hold if I want my kid to get playing time. I’m going to see if I can make it work, but this is our last pre-season weekend, and I was expecting to have big fun with the boys. I don’t intend to give up that opportunity.
3. My cat, having the appearance of pregnancy, is merely fat.
4. Grammar week in my English class cannot come soon enough. I’m going to put out a new schedule with Tuesday grammar workshops, because these papers are trash.

I’ve been quickly assembling the outline to a fantasy novel. I am following Alan Watt’s rule for writing in that I’m working to, “Get it down before the hobgoblins of logic and reason kill the drama and aliveness of what you are trying to say.” What I have to say is less than perfect, a little difficult to get through, and not entirely a complete thought. Still, I’m getting there. Today I’m showing it to my partner–my alpha reader–and I’m straight up nervous.

That is new.

That is entirely because I’ve based a segment of the content on a fear-based interpretation of a major conflict in our relationship. By ‘A’ I mean ‘the’ because there isn’t a lot we battle about. This is pretty much it, and this is openly a lost battle on my end. So it went in the book. It serves as a form of catharsis the way it is written and I fear it is going to hurt her, make her uncomfortable, or affect the way she sees me–even if just a little bit. The conversation tag, “We can’t keep talking about this.” has affixed itself to nearly every interaction of late, and I feel like going through this process truly helps me excise the demon of the thing. So, it has to be done.

Now that it is done, my mind is free to do what creatives do: take a smidge of reality and screw with it so dramatically as to make it into story. In a sense, that small action reminded me that I can do that for a lot of what is happening in my life. In truth, that is how I used to write fiction. When I went away from tapping the real, I quickly ran out of the unreal.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. My kids have been playing this game where they breed monsters on an island and the monsters each sing or make different sounds. They then can put the sounds together at different tempos and pitches–literally laying them out in 4/4 time like music notes. What I’m saying is my kids are flat out composing music in a video game and don’t realize it.