Month: June 2020

Two hours from my first tele-meeting of the day I find myself in a reflective mode. I am looking at myself. I am looking at the professional and the personal. I am looking at the failures and seeking out the bright moments of success. This is not coming from a place of sadness or anger, and that itself is an evolution. I am finally approaching these thoughts from the doorway of ‘what can be done’. So, accomplishment.

Beyond mindset I am deep in the struggle of creating (and curing) a healthy personal life. One tough thing about being a writer is that if you have deep personal stuff to write about it means you are or have gone through deep personal stuff. Let’s say that I haven’t ever stopped. My old stuff impacts my new stuff and all of it just rolls down the hill of bad things until I am overcome and can no longer function. I am still functional, and that is a plus. I can’t say the same for the people I care most about and watching that situation erode is absolutely terrifying. I realize that I am a huge part of the problem and have no way to quickly solve the problem in a space where it feels like some light at the end of the tunnel is needed less everything collapse into darkness.

Also, I am bad at vagueness.

I am good at writing once I hit that flow. There have been moments of that in the two new (NDA) projects I’m working on. What I can say is that I am writing two novellas scheduled to be completed by mid August. Both are on track. I’ve had moments of falling into both, and that is really good. It is a huge step up for me to be writing two of these projects at once and I am excited for the outcome. I also am writing them in a rough draft fashion, which means I am going to be able to make time at the end to polish and lord knows I rarely do that. Hopefully that turns out for the best.

In short, things are rough and there is a mess of darkness and change swirling, but in holding on to the promise of story, I am holding on to the light for myself.

We are slipping back into this pandemic. As of today the governor has shutdown gyms, bars, and movie theaters in an attempt to limit the spread of Covid 19. We were here a month ago, hoping to move away from the problems brought on by the growing pandemic, but we failed to maintain what is being called ‘social distance’ and even more people came down with the virus than before. It feels bleak.

I am surprised to live through a situation such as this, but not so surprised that I don’t recognize the role that bad leadership plays in all of this. I don’t blame the governor entirely. I blame him for wanting to please the president and trying to open the state too fast in order to show that we are especially good at overcoming this problem. We are not. This is proven by the at or near capacity hospitals across the state and the people who, in spite of this all, are continuing to behave as though nothing is terribly wrong or are actively fighting against the call to wear masks.

It is at times like these that science fiction fails me–as though the warnings of writers of generations failed to actually see what was coming and how people might choose to react.

Of course, how can I blame people for not predicting or understanding reactions when I have never been so clear to even gauge the reactions of the people closest to me?

Some Thoughts:

1. I have lasting doubts that the state will be able to have sports this fall.
2. I am beginning to believe this pandemic will last into the new year.

I am exhausted.

I am tired of walking on eggshells. I am tired of every word feeling like a probe into the darkness, guiding the way to someone else’s right path because I don’t know my own right path and I know that the path I am on isn’t right for anyone–even me–and doesn’t lead anywhere except to loneliness and an empty life at the end of a quickly shortening road.

I am exhausted with the act of choosing. I am drained even in success when every moment of success met with a flash of joy followed by a continuing deluge of fears and i told you so’s. I am tired of feeling like nothing I find value in in my life has value to anyone else and feeling that all my choices wind up in failures and dead ends.

I am tired of being told that I am a good person, but to the one person that I need to believe in that, I am not good in the way I need to be in order for them to be happy, successful, healthy, and bright.

I am tired of being other people’s darkness and that shadow dimming my own light to the point where it is hardly even there anymore and, in most ways, I am hardly even there anymore; a function of depressed keys, graded papers, empty kisses, and stories that move through me but don’t take any bit of me with them when they leave.

No, this is not the ‘God, take the wheel’ moment. I would not be so bold. I believe in listening to the universe and leaning into fate as well as other energies that fluctuate through our universe, however that is part of what got me to this point.

I don’t know what to do. Giving up is not an option. Surrendering control to anyone doesn’t work for anyone involved. I am stuck in a change or die circumstance where I don’t actually understand how to change fast enough and, well, even enough to save what I expected to be the rest of my life.

This is not a mid-life crisis or empty nester stuff. I had a plan for what things would look like until my kids left the house. Then I got divorced, and the plan kept evolving; changing to fit the circumstances but always preserving the core idea of what I wanted to give my sons in terms of a life. It has worked to a point at the cost of everything else that comprises my life. This dogged defiance to change –fundamental change– has destroyed everything that I felt was the after.

So, what was that after? Travel. Exploration. Possibility. I didn’t have a plan short of whatever my partner wanted. All I wanted was to be a part of it and have a laptop at the ready. I still want that. I don’t know if it, or anything is possible anymore.

I’m at zero again and I am so much more tired than the last time I was here.

and I am shook.

The idea (in my head) was to expand the space so that we had room for all of the kids under one… complex? Indeed the entirety of the thing has become quite complex, because it exposed some deep rot in the familial relationship. In short, I am a very bad partner. I have driven all of the choices and lifestyle of my relationship basically since the beginning. My partner, loyal as she is, has been a passenger forced to change so much about her life and goals as I blindly pursue the tenets of my own happiness. This purchase feels like yet another thing I have done for the furtherment of my goals without and lasting consideration of her personage in all of it.

I was trying to blend a family, but I never stopped to ask anyone if they wanted to be blended. In fact, I still haven’t. That talk will come tomorrow and will start from the top with she and I. As a result of my bullheadedness, I have exposed the deeper truths of who I am and the relationship I torpedoed.

Here’s the thing: I don’t litigate these things on the web. I don’t offer up the deep personal stuff about anyone but myself because I don’t feel I have permission to speak to their stuff. So, this winds up feeling like it is once again about me. It is, to an extent. It is about what I’ve failed at. I already failed at a relationship with one of my partner’s kids. We have not spoken six words to each other for weeks and based on the way I am treated as though I do not exist, it feels like we will never speak again. So, that’s another one in the column of world’s worst Dad. It sucks more because I feel like it drives more space between my partner and I at a time where I’m already exposed as being truly trash.

I am less worried about it ending with her than I am about it staying this terrible way forever. We are both too much in love to let go and I am grateful for that, because it gives me space to improve. That is part of what commitment is about. The other part is improving for your partner and really being there to listen and to, well, be a partner. It all sounds like platitudes until I actually do it.

This is trash. Don’t watch it.

Or do.

Be aware that Bautista is a stiff actor who works hard at comedy in this film and it often comes up short. I enjoyed moments of this film and felt the little girl carried it. While I won’t watch it ever again, I don’t feel like I wasted those hours. I watched it with the kids and that was the redeeming quality inherent in the entire thing. If you watch it alone that quality vanishes.. as does the time.

Some Thoughts:

1. A lot of discussions about tik tok and youtube and social media influencers and creators lately. In the absence of traditional tv shows and sports these influencers are seeing mainstream boosts to their success and crossing platforms faster than they otherwise would. I do not see it sticking, but I am perfectly aware that I didn’t see it getting this far in the first place.
2. Okay, if I separate what I feel from the reality around me then I have to say that these youtubers are always going to drive the social media conversation. I also believe they will phase out like other shows and new ones will replace them. People get bored.

In a better mindset today. I feel like the words have been coming fairly easily and as a result I am getting stuff down and getting stuff done. This is important, because I have a slew of due dates stacking up and I am absolutely on top of it. That is one unfamiliar and satisfying feeling.

My partner says I need to keep the momentum. I feel I need to set a real schedule for myself that is a little flexible but demands the time for the words and survives the oft ugly transition between houses. Fortunately, I don’t need to worry about that much longer. That transition will be smoothed out a bit and I will feel far more stable in my environment.

Nevertheless, I do need a schedule. Coming to the page (and doing other important roles) at a specific time conditions me to do these things on a regular basis and when my mind is fresh vs. faded. Tonight I am writing late and fortunately I am still fresh. I should’ve started earlier.

Some Thoughts:

1. The day my kids get back they have a really tough time giving me personal space. That is flattering and difficult.
2. As I write this I am listening to Mr. Nightmare offering up three baby monitor horror stories. What makes this ironic and funny is that there was a commercial on the front end of it for baby monitors. Google Algorithms gone wrong…

Governor Ducey of Arizona has decided that it is okay to for youth sports to happen. This is a big step forward that probably shouldn’t even be happening. As a coach I am curious about how to maintain social distance in youth football where the entire point of the sport is contact. As a dad I have to be able to trust a lot of stuff to go right in order to feel my kid is safe in this circumstance. Some teams are already practicing. Our skill kids have been at it for a few weeks without my kid, because we have some serious questions about whether or not this is a good idea. Numbers are rising in AZ, and based on what I’ve seen from the High School team my other two boys are on, there is not a terrible amount of safety protocol that can be put in place and keep the practices useful at the same time.

High School practice looks like 80’s Jazzercise. The boys tell me they are all spaced out across the field and doing calisthenics. They just call it working out. There are no footballs involved because throwing and catch are a form of transmission. At least they are putting more thought into it than the 7on7 leagues are. I caught a few clips of the weekend tournament and all of those parents and children were stacked on top of each other huddling under canopies to shield themselves from the brutal AZ heat. In other words, nobody is thinking about this virus as the problem it is.

I believe it is a problem. I don’t see this as a hoax. That leaves me very torn in regards to what to do about my kid. I let the high school kids go to practice, so why not the middle schooler?

When you think about it (and I have) this blog has been home to a lot of darkness. I have spent a number of hours here in despair, doubting my choices, talents, and more. I have poured my heart into this digital space looking for little more than a chance to be heard. I think that is what all of us writers want at the basic level. We want to be heard. We’d all love it if we could be paid enough for our words that this is all we need to do, but that is not the reality for most of us. Instead reality interferes with our ability to get the words out. There are great stories lost in the every day chaos of our lives.

This is going somewhere, folks.

I believe the ten minute rule saved my life. If I didn’t write for 10 every single day I would’ve lost connection to the words long ago. I lapse into periods of disconnection from the words and the 10 remain my lifeline. However, I believe I have been very short sighted in my understanding of this most basic formula. What if I apply the rule to reading? To exercise? Most importantly, what if I applied the rule to reflection on the things that matter most to me. I can honestly say that I don’t spend ten consecutive minutes each day just sitting and thinking about my partner. I think if I did I would have a better relationship than I do now.

The more I add the more scheduled and disciplined my life becomes, and I don’t want that. However, there are things in my life that truly matter and they deserve at least the ten minutes I know from thousands of days of experience that I can devote each and every single day.

It shouldn’t have to be a challenge. It should just be how it is. But it isn’t, and that disturbs me. That demands change. So, change I must. 10 minutes at a time.

Some Thoughts:

1. I thought I might close by sharing a rather stark impression of Trump by noted Republican campaign manager Steve Schmidt:

“Donald Trump has been the worst president this country has ever had. And I don’t say that hyperbolically. He is. But he is a consequential president. And he has brought this country in three short years to a place of weakness that is simply unimaginable if you were pondering where we are today from the day where Barack Obama left office. And there were a lot of us on that day who were deeply skeptical and very worried about what a Trump presidency would be. But this is a moment of unparalleled national humiliation, of weakness.“When you listen to the President, these are the musings of an imbecile. An idiot. And I don’t use those words to name call. I use them because they are the precise words of the English language to describe his behavior. His comportment. His actions. We’ve never seen a level of incompetence, a level of ineptitude so staggering on a daily basis by anybody in the history of the country whose ever been charged with substantial responsibilities.“It’s just astonishing that this man is president of the United States. The man, the con man, from New York City. Many bankruptcies, failed businesses, a reality show, that branded him as something that he never was. A successful businessman. Well, he’s the President of the United States now, and the man who said he would make the country great again. And he’s brought death, suffering, and economic collapse on truly an epic scale. And let’s be clear. This isn’t happening in every country around the world. This place. Our place. Our home. Our country. The United States. We are the epicenter. We are the place where you’re the most likely to die from this disease. We’re the ones with the most shattered economy. And we are because of the fool that sits in the Oval Office behind the Resolute Desk.”

Amani finally understood what people meant when they said walking on eggshells. The first time he heard it was in kindergarten. His teacher said it at a parent teacher’s thing. He didn’t remember the rest of the conversation, only that he immediately thought about Jones beach. He thought about chickens running on the beach and cutting his feet on a mixture of broken sea shells and the eggs with the blue stamps his mother said were the best.

It didn’t make sense then. It didn’t make sense later when this virus stuff spun up and Marsha was pissed about her job, because she couldn’t say what she wanted to say about what was going on. Marsha worked dispatch for an ambulance company in midtown. She came home to him every night those first two weeks complaining about the kind of calls she was getting and how all of it was just a hoax because people needed to be distracted from what the government was actually trying to do to them. She said the eggshells line and this time he thought about weight displacement and saw in his mind dozens of half shells spread out across the floor so tightly packed that you could run across the surface of them and not one would break. They’d just bought a new king-sized bed and the advertisements showed people throwing eggs onto the bed and they’d bounce a few times and be okay. He wanted to try it the day they got the bed but she wasn’t having it. So he waited until she went to work one day and he did it himself. It wasn’t nearly as interesting to do it alone. And the third egg broke anyway.

It was another few months before Amani had his moment of clarity. She’d been on the warpath again. It was hard not to be when they’d been cooped up together for so long. He thought all the good things about their relationship had been trampled flat like the fibers of an old rug, because they hadn’t had any actual time apart and, despite how much they loved each other, they were getting on each others nerves. He said as much, and she said, “if that’s how you feel,”

That was it. She hadn’t said another word to him for what was going on three days now. When he thought about how it felt he thought of that eggshell phrase. He got it now. He got that he didn’t know what to say to her or how to act because they were still in this space together, and his last few words had lead to the lasting silence. What would happen when he opened his mouth again?

So he didn’t. Maybe he’d get used to silence.

A friend from the Rez made a post on the Facebook and I just couldn’t hold my tongue. He said All Lives Matter. So I dedicated ten minutes…

All lives can’t matter unless black lives also matter, and its pretty clear from the way we shape our media narratives, to the way we turn the majority of tv criminals into black folk, to the long-standing history of slavery that morphed into systemic racism and policies designed to keep black people down, to the way the we had to wait longer than every other social or racial group in America to get a national museum, to the continued disavowment of the very statement ‘Black lives matter’ that black lives don’t in fact matter as much as everyone else.

Black and brown women are murdered at a horrific rate in our country but do we see those stories on tv? Turn on dateline any Friday and you’ll see a sad tale about a pretty white girl who was murdered. She’s usually blonde and that image usually attracts a lot of viewers.

People don’t care nearly as much about the loss of black folk. Black folk like me don’t matter hardly at all to the average person unless we can tackle, dance, sing, shoot baskets, or make people laugh. Black beauty is even secondary to white beauty.

There is truth in the line that all lives matter. All live SHOULD matter but all lives clearly don’t matter equally, and that is the argument that BLM is putting out there. Black Lives Need To Be Treated As Having Value.

We have to stop with the blaming. We have to stop seeing dead black men and saying, well he must have done something to deserve it. That right there is the default. That right there is what we’ve been conditioned to believe the same way we are conditioned to believe that every Hispanic person you see in Arizona is an illegal Mexican immigrant or every Native American is a drunk. Those statements—those stereotypes condition us to think of those groups as less than and devalue those people the way blacks have been devalued and commoditized since We showed up here in chains.

This movement; this energy; this crisis is not a joke. Every time I get pulled over I know my life could end, and I’ve never been arrested or committed a crime. Yet I’ve had cops pull guns on me for as little as not using a turn signal. This has happened multiple times. In multiple states. Am I that much of a threat?

Or do I just look like someone they need to worry about? Do I look like someone who doesn’t matter as much as another color or creed? Or do I just look like someone who has been criminalized; Somebody who shouldn’t have nothing in life and should be questioned if he does, because he probably stole it?

Do all lives actually matter? Do we care about all people? Or do we ignore some and treat others as less than? Do we see the poor and homeless at the strip mall entrances and highway exits and turn out heads so we don’t have to face that interaction? Do those lives matter as much as our neighbors? Would we want those people in our neighborhood? And when we see them in our neighborhoods how many of us have the thought to get rid of them, to call the police, to feel nervous that they are around our families?

I was born into that. I was born less than. I didn’t tell myself that. I don’t feel that way about myself. Teachers told me that. Co workers told me I got hired because I was black, as if to say my skills weren’t enough to be there and I needed the government to fight my battles and force them to hire me/treat me as an equal.

How can all that be true and black lives not have less value—especially in America?

Look, I want all lives to matter. I wish this movement could be seen as us as a collective humanity recognizing some real messed up tendencies. It isn’t that. It’s folks trying to belittle a life and death struggle that some of us are having because it doesn’t impact you negatively and in some cases makes you uncomfortable. We should all be uncomfortable. We should all be flat out pissed off that we need laws to remind us not to crap on people just because of the color of their skin, the name of their God, or who they choose to love and marry. Yet, here we are.

Wake up folks. All lives don’t matter. The statement is a meaningless whitewash. That’s just an easy way of saying we don’t want to be forced to look at our own behaviors and we want to act like everything is all good.

It isn’t. It never has been.