Month: May 2018

Long before we reached the point of White House officials openly joking about sitting senators dying, we had already lost all sense of decorum. I recall hearing a journalist note that Trump is not the cause of such things but more likely the result. In truth I think it goes deeper. I think it goes to a corporate-driven social order more concerned with gaming the system than adhering to anything resembling finding shared ideals and culture amongst us all. Instead we fall victim to the same nonsense that plagues every nation. We crawl to our corners and regroup with those who are more like us than not and in that we forget our individuality in the face of what we see as a threat.

Some Thoughts:

1. It is not lost on me that the days I spend with my partner are infinitely happier in tone and substance.
2. Today is case and point as I am writing this blog without her near and the blog is not, IMHO, sufficient. This is not to place a burden upon her closeness but instead to reflect upon it. If you open your heart wide enough, you will be affected by who you let in. I am affected by her.

Sitting poolside early in the afternoon with a pitcher of Mojito, I forgot it was even Wednesday. This is the sort of thing that happens in Scottsdale. It is a version of the Vegas effect when time slips into that chasm between the chairs and you decide it is not at all worth retrieving. We showed up well before noon. It was 4:30 PM before we even realized what time it actually was. This is the kind of thing that doesn’t happen if you work a 9-5. This is the reason I will never work a 9-5. I lack the stamina for such things. I can (and have) sit and write until the sun falls behind the horizon, but it is something I love. I cannot (yet I have had occasion to) sit in an office for 8 hours and process the detritus of the modern world.

I want to live a life where research means laying under a canopy reading books or locked away in a colorful office where a half dozen flatscreens are casting the latest and greatest in science and fiction and literary wonder. I live a version of that life. Less flatscreens and color, but I am blessed with a ‘day job’ that permits me (rewards me even) to live the life I have desired since I was a little kid lining up baseball cards on the living room floor and wondering what sort of batting average I needed in order to have enough cash to make my dreams come to life.

Batting average never got me there. Yards per catch didn’t even get me close. I found the route to my dreams through a classroom and in the spaces between the lines of a novel where I best imagined what was not said and should be; where I considered what I would say if I could.

I know now that I won’t live forever. That childhood dream slipped behind the horizon. I do know now that I can live. I can live the life I dreamed of and love and languish and have the things that make me happy. All I have to do is reach.

Spent the evening making a balloon-powered car with one of my kids while the other two played much Fortnite. I’m enjoying this moment in time as the kids do interesting and fun science and math projects. I’m excited for the solid writing projects, where I can start to teach them about story design and help them explore my writing lab.

Yep, I’m officially calling it that now.

The project is not quite a dud, but it isn’t really that successful either. I need to start brushing up on my science and math. I haven’t used any of those skills in quite some time, and I recognize now how much I need them–if only to teach them to my kids and be able to be of service in the HW department.

Some Thoughts:

1. My bookshelves need to be arranged properly. This place is a mess.
2. And it smells like cat in here.
3. That is exactly what I get for working in the sitting room. I’m going to have to spend more time here, so the cat spends less.. or just clean it more than once every lunar cycle.

Working on the office and starting to fall back into the space a little. I need to rough it up. My partner talked about making these project boards and that space is ripe for it. What has held me back is a strange commitment to the stuff already on the walls. I think I ought to start with tearing it down–taking things off the walls and putting up project information reflective of the projects I’m working on now. I also need to get some new energy in the space–new images, new passages of prose. I need brain fuel.

And maybe snacks.

Definitely snacks. The space building has been a bit of a crutch. I do it when I want to avoid writing, which is absolutely counterproductive to what the space is for, so that is a problem. I need to work harder on getting the space in shape and getting myself in a mindset to actually use it.

Some Thoughts:

1. I need to know how my Giants are actually doing and why they haven’t picked up Dez.
2. School is about to be done for a little bit, so now is that time to buckle down and be a writer. In truth, it is always time to be a writer.

I am well aware of the fact that nobody is going to see this. The latest bit of migration drama upended the code that redirected those who hit the front page to this blogspace (powered by wordpress). It affords me the opportunity to, simply, not write. Only I can’t do that, because I am not doing this for any particular visitor. I’m doing it because it is my passion. Though passions can flame up or flame out, this particular one keeps driving forward. I am reminded every day that this is what I am meant to do. Likewise I am reminded that I am not giving it enough of my attention. I’m not doing enough to be producing enough, so most of the stories I’m meant to tell remain untold.

I thought up an exercise as I was driving home this evening. I thought about writing down a list of all of the things that are a part of my life and creating columns below each to consider the role and responsibilities of each. I should do this and I should journal about it because it sounds like a very effective life management strategy. It is the type of thing that will help me to understand where time is wasted and what is neglected.

So, there are more kinks to be worked out in this new service. Specifically, adjusting things so you all can actually see this page. The bug in the system this time governs where you land when you type in the site name. Folks are not landing here where it matters. Instead you are being directed to an old page (like 2012 old) where this thing first began. It will be fixed. I will blog on.

But for now…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. The game went just as I feared. My kid hardly played on offense. They left him in on defense and he did well. Coach said it was about missing practice, and I get that. Still, I cannot help but think that there is more to it. I became ‘that dad’ in this scenario, and I am trying very hard to not be. Two more weeks and I am done.
2. Happy Cinco de Mayo, people. My kids reminded me that most people don’t even know what is being celebrated beyond drunkenness.
3.  Colony is about to jump the shark, or at least fall into full cliche. Season two opens with the question of whether the initial attacking alien force has space faring enemies that may also be on or nearing earth.

I am not a fan of the person I become when my kids are playing sports. Specifically, I’m not a fan of who I become when they are training. I am not the kind of dad to be awful and get in the coaches way and break message and cause problems. In truth, if I am on the sideline it is by invitation and I absolutely stay in my lane. Unless, of course, I don’t.

Recently I ‘loaned my kid out’ to a team. Even the way I just described it smells of ego. It absolutely defines the problem. I’ve treated the season like my kid is slumming. I’ve been an absolute gentlemen on the field and at practice, but in communications with the coach I seem to constantly remind him that my kid is straight up slumming. To that end he’s stopped communicating with me via text and I am entirely curious as to how much he will be allowed to play on Saturday. I am likely overthinking it. I know the coach is human and I do not think he will take my attitude out on my kid. I feel like I ought to apologize nonetheless, but somehow that seems to me like it would make things worse.

 

I’ve grown accustomed to safe hires; to people ticking off marks on the list. Chance is something we do as kids. We risk and from risk we expand. We grow. We learn the limits of our capabilities. We stretch those limits to become what we are meant.

Then we get older. We slink towards safety. We are quiet and controlled. We turn our backs on our younger and wilder ‘selves and turn towards what we describe as reason and even survival.

We punt.

Consider the idea: It’s fourth down and the first–the second chance–seems far away. You punt the ball, play defense. You hope they screw up enough for you to have a chance. Punting is a way of giving the responsibility of action to someone else. The responsibility ought to be your own.

Oh great game Gods, I cry your pardon! I have strayed. I have felt my faith wither beneath me, rushing from me as tide draws water from the shore. I am not the gamer I was. I ask if this cloud of disinterest (you’re going to have to ignore the mixed metaphors here, folks) is of my own doing or if it is you who hath forsaken me?

I seek only truth and understanding.

Games have increased in number and beauty. There are so many platforms–too many to keep up. I’ve played nearly all platforms. I own nearly all the platforms. Yet I believe I play less than ever before. Is this truth or perception? I know that I play games on my phone. I cannot track the amount of time spent doing so. I know I play far less on the ps4 than in the history of my gaming life. I watch my children sink four hours into Fortnite and I play once, if at all. I am not engaged. This does not rise to the level of that which once sucked me in wholly as if the world on the screen was of far greater importance, demand, and even depth than the world of tactile sensations all around me. When I found EvE Online I played so much that it felt like I needed to put in a second work day just to advance in the game. The lure of levels and loot was so complete that I worked at the game more than my job and even during my job. I wanted to explore the great realm. I wanted to tell my story in the digital space.

RPGs are where the Martin brothers were born. I played both characters (call signs: Spartan and Jaeger) and wrote stories about them and their great Mechs as they strove to find their place in the Battletech realm. Games defined me. Playing was my pastime. Now I play less. I love less. Yet, I fear I have not replaced that love with other interests. It has simply retreated to a place beyond my reach. I know not how or why or to what end.

Some Thoughts:

1. LeBron James is a basketball deity. Straight up. He remains the best player in the sport today. Yet not even he is enough to push the Cavs to a NBA title.

I remain convinced that America has lost it’s collective mind. Consider the evidence: We’ve leaned so deeply into the turn of trusting symbols over substance that we elected a man who we all basically accept is a deeply flawed and egotistical liar who puts his personal interests over the rest of the known universe and insists still that the former president might not have been born American. He continually litigates past victories and relies on pithy one-liners and ill conceived attacks to get his way. He is, in essence, classic Flash Thompson without any of the athleticism and all of the bluster.

He isn’t even the biggest problem. No, the real problem is how we’ve ceded control to the corporations. America is corporate and the corporations that lead America are more often than not located outside of America (for financial reasons… supposedly). The largest educational supplier, Pearson, is located in the UK. Cengage, a rising force on the learning scene, is also located in the UK. Nobody cares, so long as books are cheap and speak to the facts that make them feel comfortable and safe.

That last point, safety, is a disturbing trend. More and more we are picking up guns and disguising fear of the other as fear of the criminal. In truth, it isn’t really disguised at all as the criminal is most likely to be portrayed as someone brown. It is as if the Obama victories were a wakeup call to a slice of Americans who got really tired of being blamed for things that weren’t in their control (slavery and historical racial politics) and sometimes were (like the high unemployment numbers among uneducated whites). So they grab their guns and say, “We got these and we got this.”

I’m worried about what is happening to my country. Most of all, I am starting to wonder if it is moving in a direction where our position in international standing is going to slip to a point where we are more likely to be the engine of finance than we are to be the engine of democracy. After all, if we are going to continue to see Trump as America’s Id, then perhaps we ought to also see that the begrudging attention he gets is more about how he can be used and manipulated than it is about how he is someone to be admired and perhaps revered.

Just Like Us.

Some Thoughts:

1. Contacted site5. Got the site back. Change happens when you force it.