Month: December 2017

I’m tired.

This should’ve been clear over the course of the last few blogs. I’m also sick, but thats a new development. So, in essence, I’m sick and tired. At least I am on vacation, and I have a few weeks to get my legs under me and come up with a solid writing plan for the semester. The writing needs to pick up soon, because I have a little fire that definitely needs to be explored. There are stories lurking beneath the surface of my skin, and I needs to get them out.

I’m tired.

It should help to have these days off. It should help to avoid the crazy rigamarole of teaching and being constantly ‘on’. in a sense I’m ‘on’ for my kids nearly as much, so turning off is incredibly important.

Lately I’ve been thinking that I am looking at the world in the wrong way. In one sense I felt it was the world that was slightly off, but I’m recognizing more and more that the world merely is what it is and I am the one who is (more than) slightly off. I pushed towards this topic in last night’s blog, but this morning I had the opportunity to wake up to NPR (the way I woke up to 1010 WINs as a kid growing up in New York with the smell of cooked eggs fresh on my nostrils) and the morning show was talking about how African-American babies die at a rate more than twice that of white babies. This is a significant jump–4.8 vs. 11.7 per 1,000 die within the first year of life regardless of social class and wealth. The report talked about additional research, which suggests this number may be based on the stress (in their opinion, racism inflicted) levels of the respective mothers. That is when it hit me.

I’m completely and utterly stressed out.

The news piece went on to talk about the way stress affects the body and the need for stress relief and a social support network. I sat back and recognized that I have neither. In fact, both are equally associated with the same complicated situation,  as I suggested last night. I think somewhere deep in the subconscious this is what I was trying to make sense of. If the primary stress situation in your life is also your primary support structure, that structure cannot be nearly as effective.

And you get what we have here.

As I anxiously await word on my next paycheck some things are falling into focus. My post yesterday helped me to understand exactly where I am at. I spent some time today thinking about what is holding me back. I feel like any good writer comes from a place where there is a reliable support system behind them. I’m struggling with that, because I legitimately have one person in my life that I absolutely rely upon and that situation, while drenched in love and devotion, is complicated.

The other part of this is that I’m doing it all alone. I don’t have a partner in the home to help me handle things, and I have three kids. This is manageable, of course, but it doesn’t leave a lot of room for creative thoughts. Most of my energy is spent on the kids or maintenance. It is a tenable situation, but not forever. They are getting older and the needs are expanding.

Some Thoughts:

1. My kids have a 4:30 wake up, so I ought to get to bed soon. I know it is going to be a battle to get them moving.
2. I’m drained–mentally and physically. I need to lose myself in writing something.

As my cats from G.I. Joe were fond of saying, “Knowing is half the battle.” So here is what I know:

1. I’m not going to the gym. It simply is not in my nature. Even when I was a player I dreaded the idea of the morning and evening workouts. I let my gym memberships lapse all over the country. I’ve been to dozens of hotels and only ever glimpsed the workout room. The last time I was in a gym was at my partner’s apartment. They have a small gym and I went down to use it for a bit and found that I watched more TV than worked out. That was two years ago. I’ve cooked up a dozen home workout routines since then with the aim of getting some HIIT in for myself and my kids. When I talk about being on the verge of something I’m talking about that desire right there–knowing that I want to do these things and being right on the edge of trying but not actually doing it. The gym, I know, is not for me. The Tabata/HIIT stuff in-house is far more likely but still just a little bit off from what I actually will do.
2. I’m not going to write a serious novel until I sit down and write it. Surface level this seems like an exercise in the obvious. Still it bears stating. Writing is a butt in chair process. I’m not someone who can jump into a story and it just flows out of me instantly. I need to dive deep into that ether of creation and really drown in that before I can transmit it back to the real world. When I visualize writing I see it like the formation of planets–worlds spinning into existence and civilizations sprouting from nothing until, certainly, a character arrives and it is time to share their tale. This is a process that takes time.
3. I cannot live in this space indefinitely. This is about headspace, physical space, workspace, and even playspace. All of it feels overcooked, like I’ve been here too long and should’ve moved on years ago. Yet I am still here and things are starting to spin apart.

I’ve relocated that spark for football love. As such I’m watching a thrilling Raiders v. Cowboys game and loving watching football. I still struggle with playing Madden. I struggle with anything remotely connected to the NY Giants franchise. In truth I’m libel to go change my franchise to the Browns, move the dang team and start fresh. The point I’m making is this: Being a fan (read: Servant) to a specific team can have a detrimental effect on your enjoyment of the sport if you allow the love of your team to override the love of your sport. I did that.

Maybe this Wednesday we see a waiver wire, eh?

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m thinking about the football semi-final where my youngest kid had the ball ripped out of his hand and it cost his team the game. That failure affected him. I watched the kid redouble his football research and completely change the way he holds the ball to the point where people openly comment about the new hold all of the time. He hasn’t fumbled since. That’s the kind of dedication you don’t see out of an 8 yr old very often.
2. Now I gotta get my butt in a chair and start moving on being that productive writer dude. I feel once again on the cusp of a lot of great things, but that edge is lined with razor wire and it’s electrified. It is simply a matter of fighting through–of battling my inner lazy and winning. It can be done.

Another night, another late not blog.

I’m not prepared to call this falling into old habits, but I am prepared to make it so it doesn’t get that way. I was intending to review Star Wars: The Last Jedi, but I want to settle my thoughts on the film first as well as make sure that those who read this (my partner included) don’t get any information about the film that they don’t want.

Bottom line: Good movie.

I will talk a little bit about Disney’s unfortunate purchase of 20th Century Fox. The idea that the Marvel universe can be rejoined is wonderful, but the consolidation of power is awful. It feels like another sign that everything is going to crap. Think about it: Net Neutrality is gone, companies are being allowed to form monopolies again, Crypto-currencies are primed to form a bubble larger than the .com and housing bubbles combined. All of this is pointing towards impending doom.

At least the football season is almost over and the 2017 Giants can finally rest in peace.

Some Thoughts:

1. How can people openly laugh at the idea of Santa Claus being real, but hold on with all of their heart to the idea of God being real? I think it is very much as Fox Mulder suggested: We want to Believe.

The space between consciousness and unconsciousness is thin right now. I’m writing this late and I have Star Wars on the brain. Expect a long and thoughtful 10 minutes of response to the film once I’ve seen it. In the meanwhile I have little here to offer beside…

Some Thoughts:

1. I still live in a universe where I can rock pretend lightsabers as a 42 year old man, and the 45 year old Rock can legitimately run for president in 2020.
2. I’m back to eating chips at night, which is something handed down from my mother and her mother before. When I think about legacy and heritage this is not what generally springs to mind. It is, however, what I have to work with.
3. This entire ‘Elf on a Shelf’ situation demands a level of creativity that surpasses me–a fiction writer. It has to do with the expectations of an 8 yr old who still somehow believes this elf is moving around the house. Or maybe he just likes the spectacle of the thing. Again, he could just be fucking with me.
4. I am a huge fan of breaks. I sure as heck needed one.

If not for the blog I would’ve been asleep hours ago. It is in a sense what I am here for–what I am alive to do. Create. The act of creation is so embedded into my being that if I don’t do it for any extended period of time then I feel like I am at odds with the universe. The absence of creation builds in me a type of sickness that can only be relieved by creation. Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to story. I love to see what others have created, so that I don’t feel alone in this… craving. It is not even a passion. The word is too small to contain it. When I am fully involved in a story I move around. I step away from the screen and walk around my house thinking about the characters and imagining being there beside them. I often act it out. I consider a particular walk or way of being or turn of phrase and try to carry it off myself. They are me in the fashion that all creatures of the universe are connected. I am closer to them, because I am linked into them and telling their story.

I did not create them. Not entirely.

I know and know of a handful of writers who won’t see that as a crazy thing to say, but as the absolute truth of one. I used to be a mentor to a writer who knew how to touch that creative force and I follow a writer whose hands are shoulder deep in the stream of it. When people call writing a gift, this is what they are talking about without even knowing they are.

In the intervening years between now and my first sentence I’ve found many other pleasures that steal me away from the words. None, save the touch of my lover, satisfy me so as a truly well formed sentence. As for her touch, it brings me ever closer to the page.

The page is where I am meant to dwell. So I will.

I had a moment the other day when I recognized that I am starting to enjoy football again. One of the things about being fiercely loyal to and supportive of a bad team is that it is hard to recognize the good in other teams or to feel good about getting behind them for a while. Sports, in that sense, is a relationship, and checking out other teams felt like cheating.

I got over it, eventually. At first I just watched Raiders games, exclaiming that I was watching Beast Mode and not the team itself. In time I grew to recognize the raw idiocy of that idea. That I even felt the need to qualify watching other teams is ridiculous. I have no tether, physical or otherwise, to the New York Giants that precludes me liking other teams. Any boundaries drawn in that sense are entirely social. For whatever reason we are taught that we are to like one team–usually the home team–and this philosophy is socially reinforced at every level of organized sports.

I showed up to my kids’ wrestling match last night accidentally wearing the other teams’ colors. People did not react well. Some of the more serious supporters of the team did actually mention the gear as a joke. I’d worn the colors basically as a personal homage to the days of street corner mafioso jumpsuits.

Some Thoughts:

1. More info came out on the NFL and ESPN folks suspended due to allegations of sexual misconduct. What I find interesting is that in the sea of women employed and the open ability of these powerful and brave women to make comments, the only comments have been directed towards the executive named in the suit and nothing outside of the singular claim has been said suggesting the behavior of the former players was in any way out of line towards other women. It continues to feel like part truth and part money grab and that is a sad commentary on our society.

This is going to be rough.

I’m afraid we’ve hit that point where someone may have shamelessly adopted the #metoo tag for their own personal gain. Full Disclaimer: I don’t personally know the people involved. I do not know any more about the situation than what the lawsuit alleges. I do know that the entire thing is peculiar to me. What I find odd is that the initial lawsuit was for wrongful firing and once the company decided not to settle, the plaintiff added all the sex stuff and went very public.

Lets start at the beginning.

The NFL network recently suspended multiple on-air personalities as part of the fallout from the amendment to a wrongful termination lawsuit. The amendment alleges that these six men all either sexually harassed or assaulted the plaintiff and that the NFL network knew about it. She doesn’t claim that she was fired as part of a cover up. She does however dispute the claim that she was fired for theft. Now, in this amendment she goes into details about how much these men all tried to force sex with her. Where it starts to go awry for me is right there. There has been no other mention of this particular culture at the NFL network, so it is completely reliant on her being the target–or at least the target willing to speak. That in of itself is not grounds to dismiss her claims. However, when you add to it the similarities between what all these men supposedly did and the fact that this was added to an existing suit once the NFL network refused to settle, there is cause to pump the brakes.

Just like X-files, I want to believe. However, the information here feels suspect. I’m more worried that one false claim will cut the momentum away from what is an important and useful conversation about the way we treat each other as humans.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I want to write a story that starts like this: Used to be that Tommy wanted to be the guy that was always around, but people rarely talked about. Now he felt more like the guy everybody talked about but was never around.