Month: May 2019

This is largely about…

Some Thoughts:

1. NBA finals are all that was promised and more. Lowry’s long distance 3 pointer was a killer late game move that was all about swag.
2. Tough day. Emotionally it has not been a good two days for me, and to make matters worse, my most important is in pain.
3. I’m really biding my time this time around. I’m not motivated to write and am trying to run out the clock any way possible.
4. These nights will happen.
5. One reason this night is happening is listed above. Another is the transitional nature of the day. I have my kids back and as with all transition days, they are a mess. Perhaps they are a mess all the time.
6. Long talk with the first born about his low level of maturity. It is a problem.
7. Beyond the kids I am adjusting to the summer schedule and that in of itself is a work. I am still trying to figure out my schedule and my routine amidst the madness of my kids.
8. The steampunk-esque novel kicking around in the back of my mind popped up again today. I think I need to wander back to it sooner than later. That one ought to be my Amazon novel or novel series.
9. Struggling with the football stuff. Joined up for an all star game and now we are out $400 with no game and no coach in sight. Hot mess.
10. Well, that’s all. Mission Accomplished.

I really wish I had the opportunity to be the Knicks GM. With everyone pointing fingers to explain the long time suckage of the Knickerbocker franchise (I’m looking at you James Dolan), I want to think about ways in which to turn things around. No, it doesn’t have to do with LeBron or any of the A-list stars out there today. I want to play Moneyball.

Here’s the thing: Superstars are only super in the right system. I’ve watched D’Antoni turn average players into beasts. I’ve also watched the draft produce all of the greatest players in the NBA. With that being said, I say we build from the ground up. I say we use the draft as an opportunity to get some pieces to build around and then use free agency and trades to get the pieces that bolster the pieces we’ve already added.

This is not the way of the new NBA. In the modern league you gamble for an all star and hope he can turn the franchise around. I don’t feel that is the best use of resources or fan energy. I want a team built around the philosophy of the coaching staff in-place or built around the ball movement principles that have been so successful for the teams that are winning right now.

I don’t want Durant. I want the next Curry. I want a point guard and a 2 who can both distribute and shoot. I want a slashing small and two bigs (interchangeable at center/forward) who an play solid D and scrub the boards like Mr. Clean. That is what feels like success to me.

So, that is my pitch in ten minutes. I’m still looking at you, Dolan. Bring me in and lets turn the crap boat into a damn cruise ship.

Some Thoughts:

1. Mueller’s speech was something. He straight up said the president could not be absolved of criminal action, but it was against the constitution to charge him. How hard core is that?
2. 412 words from the daily allotment. I wanted to finish before my date, but this will not happen. At least I won’t have to blog later too…
3. The cat drags bugs into the house to play with them… Bad kitty!
4. Yes, that small detail will wind up in a story eventually.

I spent a couple of hours on Minecraft this morning–about 2 hrs if my clock is right. In this time I built out a little more of the city I’ve been creating and listened to more of an excellent non-fiction work called The Last Stone. I have a fondness for such things: Crafting and Reading. I believe the two work hand in hand to create in me a sense of calmness and beyond that even a transportation to another place far removed from the reality I am saturated in. Part of my reflection today is a careful consideration of that reality and my actions as largely a passenger in such.

I float. I allow myself to be carried on the current of what is around me and adapt to that. It might be a pisces thing. It my be a survival mechanism. I’ve long been a social chameleon and what I am saying now appears to correspond to that. Still, 40+ years in (edging closer to 50 each morning) I should’ve discovered a sense of what makes me happy and what sort of daily energy I want to put out into the world. I haven’t, not really. I rely a lot on what my partner wants in terms of happiness because it works for me. My happiness is achieved through her own but also through gaming, sports with kids, and writing. I suppose all of that combines to make a life. Yet it doesn’t always feel that way. It feels more like I am life adjacent. It feels like I am an NPC in someone else’s life; a bot who shifts back to the shadows until again called upon to enhance the play of the player character in the scenario.

Yes, this is a bit dour for a Tuesday morning, but it has been on my mind. I feel as though I ought to be doing more in terms of leading in my own life, but I don’t entirely know what I am supposed to be leading and what I am supposed to be wanting to do outside of how those around me have chosen to define me through their interactions with me. Again, this oddly reminds me of the life of an NPC.

Some Thoughts:

1. Began the online class today. I’m using it as a transitional experience to learn about how I can improve as an online instructor. I think this is the future for me in terms of teaching.

Late night here and I nearly forgot to blog. This is a rare occurrence because blogging has become so engrained in what I do each day that it is a part of who I am. Nevertheless I’m here in bed on my phone blogging. The subject tonight is routine. I come to this after one week and one day of the six week work out plan. I’m scheduled for daily gym time every week day, with the hopes of building it into a habit. I need more time to officially form a habit but I can say it already feels normal and necessary to go to the gym.

The things I need most in life are the things I need to make into routine or they won’t get the attention they deserve. I cannot explain why that is how it is for most things, but for the gym at least I know it is about getting it done and over with. I haven’t reached the part where I enjoy what I am doing. I have reached the part where I know that it matters and as a result will continue the process . I’m looking forward to the time where I can physically see results. That’s the hardest difference to make up between writing and working out. At the end of the day I see words when I write. When I work out all I feel is the pain and no discernible weight loss. Yes, maybe it takes more time or maybe I’m not doing it right. Still the key is to not need the immediate recompense.

I haven’t gotten that right yet.

I’m feeling like an island right now. There is no real reason for it, but I feel like I am in a position where everyone around me except for my partner (She has a lot of people to please) has an agenda that runs contrary to what I want in my life. Part of that is not having a lot of oomph behind what I want in my life. My summer goals are very simple: Spend 1 on 1 time with the lady, spend time in front of a keyboard, rock out a ton of Minecraft, train hard core with the kids. That is really the sum of it. The toughest one is the space to do any of it. The kid part is easy work, but the middle two seem to be harder and harder to achieve and actually feel good about.

No, I’m not on the verge of quitting the writing. That being said I am also not feeling great about it. This is one of those undertow moments where I feel like I am allowing the situation around me to drag me down or at the very least using it as an excuse. I’m pretty good at making excuses, so it has become a major theme in my life to avoid them–at all costs.

Still, I cannot help but be emotionally invested and thus drained by the writing, so that makes me entirely off kilter when it is not going well and, it isn’t so there is that. How to make it better? Feel settled and dropped back into a schedule where I know I can find consistent time and space to work. Until I develop that I feel the writing will continue to struggle.

Some Thoughts:

1. The Talislegger is moving. Kind of. No, not out of state. Not yet. Just, well, forget it.
2. I miss football in every sense of the word, and I am growing more and more convinced that I will not be coaching tackle this year and will instead settle for some flag nonsense or something.
3. Feeling drained and empty and unsettled. This is life after Phoenix Fan Fusion.
4. I’m going back to lists. They work. They feel necessary and offer me a much needed sense of accomplishment.

There is a strange political situation going on with the Comic-Con. Specifically, other events around the country are being dissuaded from using the name Comic-Con. This is how we get Phoenix Fest. It used to be Comic-Con, but it is no longer (or never was) associated with Comic-Con international. This has led to a name change. What led to the general deflation of the event, however, is perfectly understandable. People were people and in this age of security, things got weird.

A few years ago a man showed up heavily armed with the intention of causing harm to police officers. Here in the heart of downtown Phoenix, AZ–the wild wild west–that did not go well. He was detained without incident, but the incident itself created so much tension that the event started to wither. Not outright, of course, but security became more stringent. No weapons–no large edged weapon sales. Vendors stopped coming. Whether or not related, we lost the film fest. The panels got worse and worse.

The con has been reduced to a homage to itself. It feels less like the con I want than it does the con I’m forced to accept. This leads me to think that maybe acceptance is not the way. Maybe instead I ought to be finding something new and something better to do with the family at the end of the semester.

Over the last two weeks I have had a lot going on. There was the traditional football stuff. This was not much of an issue, but the football party felt new and different and like more work. That was two days after I presented for a local writing group, which I loved but was an event that had me driving back and forth around the city (high energy stuff right there). There was the concert in Tucson a few days later (that we didn’t make) and the seemingly endless parade of homes for sale to be examined (that we didn’t buy). Then there was the graduation. Then the party after. Now Comic fest.

There has been a lot of things going on over the last few weeks and the parade of activities means there has been precious little couples or even individual down time. I need that. I need a balanced life that allows for one major event a week at most and better if it is one every two weeks. I just do not think I have that kind of juice in me at the moment to be go go go all day every day.

It could be the result of being totally run down at the end of an arduous semester. It could be me getting old(er). It could be me being totally spent as a human and in desperate need of recharge. Any number of these things could be possible, but it doesn’t change the reality of the situation. As it stands, I need just a few things happening in order to feel settled and right.

It isn’t my graduation or even my birth son’s grad day. Still it is one of my kids and I love him and hope the best for him. Truthfully though, the day is more about Mom realizing that goal of completion for her son and I love her for being able to accomplish that under the conditions she has faced over the last half-dozen years. So, while this ought to be a day of relax and celebration it feels more like a dad on wedding night. I’m a bit flustered and apprehensive and just want to be able to be there to staunch the river of tears.

Some Thoughts:

1. The entire thing could have been called some thoughts for as much as I am able to focus on one specific thing right now. Here’s one thing: I tool a new typing test and clocked at 51 WPM (following a dismal 9 wpm). This tells me that once I am in the zone I can turn it on a little. Man how I long to be back in that zone more often. At 51 of copying text I ought to be pushing 500+ words for each of these 10 minute excursions.
2. I am not doing that. Partly because I am not finding a lot of creative energy or consistency lately. This is a troubling trend that needs to be studied further.
3. Speaking of studies, school is out for summer! I’m kind of pumped because there is so much the kids can do and enjoy this summer. I’m kind of not pumped because I have failed to plan anything of worth save for a brief football excursion that may or may not be cancelled based on the failure of the squad to have a meaningful conversation about practices and, well, even a coach. No, I’m not going to do it.
4. I am still hopeful to be involved in the coaching conversation for the fall but I am also far less hopeful that this is going to happen. To be continued on a future Wednesday.
5. For now it is off to the graduation and off to feel hope and joy and success…
6. Then Phoenix Fan Fest.

Basketball just got interesting. At least in the Eastern Conference. What I saying is, the Raptors are legit. They possess a defense that rattles teams. While the Warriors split the season series with the Bucks, the Raptors beat them badly both times out. And here I thought the ending of the Sixer’s series was a fluke. It wasn’t. The Raptors possess a defense that is more than capable of flummoxing teams. This will be the death of the Bucks if it can be maintained, and unless Curry is CURRY, it is going to impact the way the final comes out. I would love to see the Raptors slay the beast. I would love to see defense win the day.

I don’t believe I will.

Meanwhile in the NFL, I have real hope for the Giants. They haven’t shown me much beyond signings, but as they quietly work towards a successful season I am looking forward to what can be. The RB corps is legit, especially considering the addition of Rod Smith as another FB pass catcher. The offense is going to resemble a number of the High School offenses I see with the short pass being king and athletes operating in space. We have some real hope here.

Meanwhile in Youth Football, I will not be HC this year and I am pleased about that. I’d like to be OC, but that remains to be seen. It is possible I wind up coaching with the older team vs. the younger one. Either way, the goal is to see both kids in a really good position to be successful and learn and grow from the experience. We are getting to the end of the road of Youth Football, and I am grateful for the journey for them and for me. I’ve had a great time and learned a lot and grown so much and been successful and fulfilled goals. Life has been really good for me in so many ways and watching my kids grow in sports is just a small part of that.

Some Thoughts:

1. Diet is not going well at all. It is going far worse than the actual exercise, which is going decent. The pain of the lactic acid build up is evidence it is working. Hurting, but working. Such is the price.

Yesterday I wanted to talk about GoT, but I really wanted to talk about story and expectation. Specifically, I am concerned about the relationship between success and fan service–particularly in continuing or long lasting series. I worry that the mountain of responsibility in the age of social media is shifting towards doing what the fans want vs. the author exploring and realizing their own arc. What is responsible for the shift? At least here in America the answer seems to be privilege based expectation and social media.

I remember the end of the Harry Potter series as it came out. This is back in the day when the movies were released after the books mind you. The ending landed with a thud, because it did not match fan expectations. Except JK Rowling wrote that ending and stuffed it in a vault years before she finished the books. In other words, the story came from that place where it started, not from the support and attention of the millions of fans who bought the work. This is important because the place where the story started is, IMHO, what brought readers to the page in the first place. To devolve into Fan service is to betray your own story.

Yet here we are in an era where that is not only expected but accepted–especially in TV drama where the work is not often written by a single writer but a room of authors who change as often as the seasons over the years. I don’t want my big work to be like that. I want to create it in isolation as a response to the zeitgeist. I want to put it out there and let it be as it should.

Not as the fans decide they want it when they decide to take ownership.

Some Thoughts:

1. 365 days in a year means I am pushing about 45 days until 3.0 is over. I’m on a new exercise routine and trying to stick to a new writing routine. All of this last minute stuff means that I have not really changed all that much. It isn’t the best look.
2. Several Amber Alerts here lately. Bad things, man…