Month: June 2018

I am finding that I have precious little to say this morning save for a rant on the state of video games. I’m talking Fortnite. I’m troubled that the present state of the video game industry is totally controlled by the ‘cool’ of Fortnite. I don’t believe the company is very good or has wonderful ideas. They fell into this by copying a mode from others and making it fast and meme-driven. Still, the coding is weak and the gameplay is ordinary. They try new game modes long enough to get us interested and then pull them to make us want it back. Then they bring it back as a classic.

My boys wake up every day and play all day the way I used to do with Madden. There are similarities there, but this is no Madden. I want to believe this is a lightening strike. I want to believe that this too shall pass.

Some Thoughts:

1. Almost a year later and where am I really?
2. I’ve been devoting a lot of thought to the next iteration of the blog. I am not there yet. I am not the man I expected to be or even on the path towards creation/revival/growth. I think this year of healing has led to a year of growth for real.

Great early morning discussion about the blog before the blog began this morning. My partner and I talked about the negative affects of writing this–especially at night. I tend to check out on writing once the blog is checked off my list. I do that largely at night, because the responsibility is off my back. Of course, when I am struggling to find ten minutes worth of energy and substance to write about at the end of the night for so many days and weeks, it makes sense that having it done earlier puts me at peace. However, this only reaffirms her point: It is an excuse to no longer write that day. So, yes there is truth in the allegation. So now what?

It falls to a reevaluation of the circumstances. I need to get back to writing first thing in the morning. No matter how uncomfortable it is at first. No matter how much it constitutes a change a circumstance in my life, I need to make writing a temporal priority. That is more than merely blogging for ten in the morning. I ought to write.

Some Thoughts:

1. Still watching The Staircase. I won’t give anything away except to say that the documentary is very interesting and engaging and teaches me a lot about how to keep a reader on the edge with the introduction of new information. What I find the most engaging is the idea of who people think you are vs. who you actually are once the layers of obfuscation are peeled away. Yet still, people are still salves to believing in what they believe.
2. Also getting back to the basics of words. In other words, I am back to reading. I have a backlog of texts sitting on my desk, but the opening act here in the ‘back to basics’ is to read a number of myths. I want to do one thing at a time in terms of reading. I think I got myself in a bad habit of reading multiple books at once, which led to me reading no books at all.

The struggle is real.

I am trying to get going and get my energy level up and firing forward. All I wind up doing is hanging out with family. There is a large place for that, but I also need a place for getting my work done too. This is my lifelong struggle. This is my Waterloo. This is my moment to decide how the next forty or so years go. I gotta get it right. I gotta get me right.

Let’s look at the tale of the tape: I’m low on ideas, big on excess fat and gluttony. Any good writer starts a project hungry. I believe the hunger is what keeps us motivated for lack of other motivations. I have stories–some good–but I also have a life that drains away a lot of the attention that ought to go to writing. Just moments before I touched finger to keyboard my mid kid wandered in to let me know how bored he was. My little always needs attention and my big is so locked into a world of video games that I feel bad not spending more time prying him away. This is without bringing up the coaching stuff (and the failures and hunger to be good at that). This is without looking into my own love of gaming and how much that has faded due to inability to put any real time and thus excitement behind the endeavor.

All of these reductions and I’m still struggling with getting going. In truth I feel like I am fading–finding less and less joy in the things that once drove me and finding less and less time to fix the problem. Instead I fall into TV show after TV show. Some are worth the time. Some are simply escape routes from what is real and what needs doing.

I’m considering bringing my kids into the Fantasy Football fold. This might be the season we do a family league, draft, draft party, etc. It could be a really good time. The idea plunges me back into that world of stats and analysis and considering offensive schemes and defensive stoppers. It gives me an angle into the world of football that I lost by no longer coaching.

So, if this does happen who am I going to pick? Well, the Jenkins murder investigation sure raises some questions about the Giants defense. There were already lots of questions given the 3-4 switch and not knowing what we have at DE.

Offense is an entirely different situation. My doubt is melting quickly. I believe the Giants intend to do big things with the 12 personnel package. I’m a fan of the package–especially out of a pistol style or shotgun look. Of course the fantasy game is about picking individuals. It is about going team by team and figuring out who is going to shine. These are answers I don’t yet have.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am in withdrawal from coaching. Full on withdrawal. I want to coach and have been doing everything but asking my kids’ team coaches to put me on and my partner to tell me I ought to. None of those things are happening and that is probably for the best. It doesn’t stop me from wanting it.

I’m watching a documentary called The Staircase, which tells the story of a mysterious death. I’ve become more and more interested in these things as I move closer to a fall semester where I intend to teach a class about mysteries and find a few key cases to start us off. Memento Mori. For we too shall eventually pass. The dark tone of the blogs lately make me wonder where my head is at on such things and if I am seeking some personal resolution and preparedness on the matter. I’ve been wondering why now; why at this time death takes such precedence over other thoughts. I think I’ve been subconsciously reflecting on the death of my father and when it was I lost him. I was 12. I fear he was 43. I am 43.

It isn’t that simple, of course. Death is also metaphorical. These thoughts reflect the fear of failure and of being overwhelmed and succumbing to the load of work pouring over me. I think that this workload, while workable, comes at a time where my mind is not in the best shape to handle such things. It makes me wish for the days where I had the juice to write for hours. I keep on likening that ability–that point in time–to a switch that was flipped to the off position. It is a useful mental trigger, should I figure out a way to turn it on and not rely on the knowledge that it can be turned on.

The fact is I’ve been remarkably lazy and unsure of myself as of late and those twin concepts are crippling. All of it is in my mind, so I ought to have the power to reconfigure the obstacles matrix-like into a pathway back to success.

I love Luke Cage more than I have a right to love a show. It is a me thing. It is a Harlem thing. It is a childhood thing. It is also a good writing and integration thing. Many stories have problems translating on to the big screen–especially when budget and ‘power level’ demands that you limit CGI. Agents of Shield is terrible at this, despite being the one show that deals with the least amount of powered individuals (at least in theory). Instead of building in the rich history of the Marvel characters and their unexplored backstories Agents of Shield chooses to, unwisely, fall upon the creation of new powered individuals and mix them with icons and aliens creating little more than a hot mess (Ghost Rider pun!).

Luke Cage ain’t about all that. Cage is the antithesis of wrecking things to try to build your own thing. Instead Cage gently reshapes characters from the story canon–sometimes depowering individuals vs. pumping them up into super villains and heroes. For those who haven’t read the comics, Luke Cage is one half of the original Luke Cage and Iron Fist duo known as Heroes for Hire. Many of Cage’s original supporting cast have already appeared on the show and have been integrated into MCU: New York as part of the collection of shows on Netflix. This new season goes a bit deeper into the original run of villains and does so without really raising the power stakes but instead raising the emotional stakes for all of the characters. This is about how you feel about these people, not about how strong Cage is as compared to other heroes. Don’t get me wrong, you are going to get a villain that can trade blows with Cage, but if the first season is any indicator, that is only the start of the intrigue in this season.

Watch it. Love it. Go do it now… I mean after you read …

Some Thoughts:

1. I weigh more than I ever have in my life. I am legit fat. It is not a happy or healthy situation and demands a course correction–should I have the courage to correct the situation.
2. I’ve been thinking about death more and more lately and I cannot for the life of me (ha, pun!) understand why. I’ve resigned myself to the reality of discontinuation, but I am not yet at peace with the idea of it. Not yet. Not ready.

Another day, another blog almost missed. I am amazed at how quickly the habit falls away when the mind is cluttered by a great many other things. Stress is eating away at the core of what powers me and I can do very little about it other than to believe that this too shall pass. I am stressed about my living situation and what that means for my life and love moving forward. This too shall pass. I am stressed about my classes and the continuing failure to stay on top of the grading and to effectively release new material at the time (schedule) I want. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the writing projects not getting done in a timely manner. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the number of stories I need to read and judge for a competition over the course of this week. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the schedule for the week not being clear in my head. This too shall pass. I am stressed about how tired I have been lately–to the point where the fatigue seems to effect me in other areas. This too shall pass. I am stressed about not coaching and slowly coming to terms with leaving that part of my life behind–even if it does feel unfinished and always will feel unfinished and unproven. This too shall pass. I am stressed about tomorrow and not having a good gift for my sister. This too shall pass. I am stressed about my new writing class and not having prepared the required information in any timely way. This too shall pass. I am stressed about letting everyone down when it feels like people need things from me and need me to be organized and I am just not right now. I am overwhelmed. This too shall pass.

There are half a dozen more things I am stressing over that I can’t even list because they are further down the list of stresses and have been largely overridden by the larger scale stresses. They are the pain I’ll feel once I’ve dealt with this pain. I am stressed and all of it comes back to not taking time for myself to deal with any of the stressors. Instead the time I do get alone is spent checking out on reality in any way possible, because dealing with the unreal is far easier than dealing with the mountain of work and drama I need to hollow out in order to have any sense of where things are in my professional life.

It is wearing on me to the point that this key moment of my day in which I actually write is being totally overlooked.

I opened the computer to the window of an unfinished and unpublished blog. My heart froze in my chest. The air and sense all draining from me at once. Did I screw it up? Twice in less than a year? Does that mean the blog is over and done for?

No. I refuse to accept that. I left it as is and published it. Then I went to work on this one. I can admit my failures. I’ve spent 356 days wallowing in my own failures and inability to do things as they should be done. Yesterday I seized up in so many ways. I recognized so many failures. I saw the darkness in my finances, my parenting, my relationship, my writings. It was a day of realizations that saw me disconnect from the blog in a way that is unforgivable. The blog became another loose thread, unfinished and largely forgotten. How many threads are there? How many projects fall into ruin because I just don’t stay on it; because I cannot stay focused or pay attention long enough to get the work done?

There is a list that stretches down one arm and crawls back up the other. There is a graveyard of projects and failures and misstarts. There is also a realization in their remembrance. There is the realization that this will continue so long as I let it. My greatest failure is carrying too much and doing too little.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am more and more intrigued by mysteries of the world–both criminal and otherwise. I think I will indeed theme my research class around that concept.
2. Planning for class: Another thing that remains undone…

 

Today is movie day. At least that is the plan. I want to create a situation where we are falling back into something more organized than let’s play fortnite for 8 straight hours. It is a plan with little resembling form. At least I can rely on my kids wanting to eat popcorn and watch movies if not even theming the event to include games and what not.

August means back to school, so mid June is sort of a peak where we all hit the limit of what we can stand for freedom. Tomorrow the boys will be going to football practice and that means a sort of formality. All of these things are starts towards something. I too need to start towards something.

But what?

Some Thoughts:

1. Life is hard. Seems like it will be that way for a while.

Well, the NBA draft came and went. The Knicks continue to experience Cubs-like mediocrity which is further amplified by the pick of Kevin Knox, a scorer who can spot up and shoot and plays well around the perimeter like, well, that is pretty much all the Knicks have anymore. This is a collection of tall shooters who aren’t built to pound the glass when they inevitably miss some of those spot-up jumpers. Lebron James is not coming to the rescue. Sounds like Kawhi Leonard isn’t either. He just got rebuffed in the effort to go to LA. He’ll get there eventually, but it might take another year of his career in order to do so.

Back to the Knicks…

Blech.

Seriously?

The lack of inspiring picks and trades has me thinking the Knick front office is playing money ball and leaving it to a solid coach to come in and fix things up. Sorry, my NBA 2K character is not real and cannot come save the squad. Apparently nobody can. Extended mediocrity it is then. The really odd part is that Knox is clearly not the best SF that was left on the board at the time. They passed on a lot of talent to reel in this fish, and I have to say I have concerns about the mindset of the front office. No, I still don’t trust them even after Porzingas.

Some Thoughts:

1. Rough rough day in the life of love. Everyday feels like it should be better than the last, but tomorrow definitely has the legs to do just that. Today sucked overall.
2. Better blogging and writing tomorrow. It is getting near July and I have not been great about the words. Not great.
3. Or the stories needing review. That is also on the docket.
4. Big ass Docket.