Month: July 2020

As I am mentally constructing this fantasy-esque novel of mine I am puling in threads from real world conversations we should be having but are yet unwilling to have. The key one to me is the powerful relationship between privilege and status quo. To begin, status is something that is really hard to achieve for those who don’t have it and really hard to accept losing for those who have gained it and those born into it. Status change looks like nothing less than a fall or loss of something unless your status is moving upwards, which would of course mean no change at all in the larger scale.

I believe that is what is at the root of our race problem everywhere. If you are born into a particular status or class then that is your normal operating space. Everything in your life tells you to stay in that class or move upward. That status level is based entirely on who is below you and who is above you on the ladder. I realize people do not consciously think that way, but that does not change the way it is. We can only have a so-called middle class because we have constructed upper and lower classes and we, at least unconsciously, recognize this. When those of a lower status, be it through wealth, or profession, religion, or skin color, etc. are seen on the same level as “us” it subconsciously puts us on the level of those who were below us, triggering “us” to strive to be higher. This is the fundamental concept behind chasing the Joneses.

Now, imagine a movement where an entire race of people who you were conditioned to feel were beneath you are suddenly thrust up to a level where they have the same rights, privileges, and abilities as you. For the average person that had to be psychologically jarring. Suddenly the person you saw and were told was less than human is considered equal to you? How can you consciously accept that they are suddenly equal? I fear there is always a part of everyone that feels superior to that group, especially in the sense of having been a part of granting that group equality.

That is what happened with slavery in my opinion. A group of so-called lessers were granted equality because a group of people who had power decided to have the conversation and take action to give that other group power; to bring that other group up to their level.

The problem with one group deciding to have the conversation is that they can just as easily tire of having the conversation. They can always think that they control the conversation…

I am in this strange in betweenness as I shift from one collection of office spaces to a singular space I share with my partner. In the new era of Covid I will be working from home quite a bit more, which means working from a home office. This new space is the best I’ve ever had and that is in no small part to it being designed by my partner and myself. We share it together. It is still a work in progress, but this is the first time I have let someone really into my workspace, and as a man who was married for over a decade, that is a big freaking deal.

The space is a converted garage in the new house that we are presently refurbishing. Down the road we will probably get new floors, but that is the least of our concerns there. It is a space that offers room for one of those magical bookshelf doors (or two if we stick to the symmetrical approach). It excites me to take this new step. I look forward to working and creating there.

Some Thoughts:

1. Diving into the ten day novel tomorrow. Bout time to check out new things.

As Covid cases swell, especially here in AZ, Youth Football continues to steadfastly claim the games will go on. In truth the flag games have been and continue going on. I am leaning more and more towards pulling my kid. It is what my partner wants. It makes sense. Still, I feel like this is the first chance in a long time for him to be with a team; with a group of any sort; for more than a moment. He has a real chance to settle in here and missing a season will hinder that. Ultimately, it comes down to safety for me and what that margin of safety is. I have to feel like the conditions are right.

They are not right at the moment. In fact the head of the league tweeted another interesting message suggesting college football is in doubt. The Ivy League already cancelled all sports through January. The news is so new that other D1 conferences have yet to react publicly. So we don’t know. I don’t know, but the odds are stacking up against games. I hope the state does something smart and pulls the plug themselves because it is sounding like the younger leagues won’t.

Meanwhile the show is trying to go on in Basketball, moving to an 8 game close of season for contending teams. It feels like Big Brother. You lose and you get voted of Disney Island. Who knows if this grand experiment will work. More and more it feels like we shouldn’t even be trying. We should instead be waiting this one out.

Why then is it so difficult for me to want to do so?

Yesterday was a low point. I took a nap in the middle of the day, which on it’s face is not a bad thing, but combined with the lack of energy or motivation to write and the missed daily deadlines… I got burned out. These are my partner’s words, not mine. They work for the situation. I don’t like that they work, but they clearly reflect the situation I was in last night. Heck, I couldn’t even type (not doing much better today, btw…) or even think rationally about my stories.

So, today is a new day and a new start (and a new year on the Talis calendar–have you ever considered the arbitrary start and end dates for years?). I am not 100% and likely will take a few days or week of vacation soon, but the point I am trying to make is, I am going to get back on my grind today.

I think the missing link is exercise. I have not been doing too well with that side of my life as of late. My body hurts from aches and bad sleep and trying to move stuff around to create this new office space. I am out of shape, old, and facing the quickening decay of my physical faculties without really trying to slow things down with aggressive exercise. I see me, and I am still not doing a thing about it.

This is not one of those depressive blogs where I am telling you I am at the end of my rope (read: NASCAR rope), but one where I am purely self reflective about the state of my health and how (poorly) I’ve reacted to that thus far. It feels very American/European to see the problem and decide, “meh. It’ll get handled.” when I am clearly the one person who has the task of handling it. Instead I am focused on a rather senseless quest to complete a slew of Apex Legends challenges in order to… make enough game cash to buy the $10 game pass for next season… Writing it down reveals a certain stupidity of purpose.

I ought to get back to Minecraft where I am actually exerting creativity.

Well, that was 10 minutes of… something.

Last month I took a stab at building stories that talked about a world where Covid and the awakening to racial injustice were just two of the three things about to happen in this world. Each of the stories addressed the 3rd thing that could happen. I never would have imagined Trumps awful and country dividing speech. We have truly slid into a darker place than I thought possible and this is only getting worse.

Some Thoughts:

1. Some days I just do not feel it. I spend more time trying to remind my fingers how to type than typing and it drags me out of a writing headspace. Occasionally this amplifies any negativity I have been feeling swell around me. This is such an occasion.
2. I don’t know why I have days where I cannot type words properly or find the keys. I believe it has to do with headspace and being in a good one is far more beneficial than (in spelling the word ‘then’ I twice misspelled said word –and mispelled misspelled twice) where I am right now.

Spent the evening building desks and listening to fiction as I did. It was not the ideal scenario. I would’ve preferred being in the same space as my partner as she and the daughter painted cabinets and made the house prettier. Instead I was separate and that was just a further reflection of how I self isolate as a rule. I should have done a different task today and done the desk building when she wasn’t in the house with me.

The goal of this task—this house–for me is to bring us closer together and build a foundation for long term happiness. That doesn’t necessarily work if I am isolating or if I stumble into saying the absolute wrong thing or make the ladies feel as though the work they are doing is not valued.

I believe I did every one of those things in honest but short sighted comments about the work being done. There was a question about interiors of cabinets that I expressed a lack of concern for, and clearly I was supposed to offer more concern and interest rather than suggest cutting new shelves. The comment about new shelves was meant to be an argument for cost effectiveness (one piece of MDF cut multiple times by me vs. the work of repainting and then buying and laying contact paper on the existing shelving. Unfortunately, that statement openly degraded the incredible work that had been done on the cabinets up to that point.

It didn’t help that I was tired and distracted by my own building failures with the desk and growing disappointment that I wasn’t actually doing things with her.

I want this to be an us thing and I will continue trying to make it that.

I spent some time today listening to Trump’s violently divisive speech meant to energize his base and send out the word that ‘Old America’ will not go silently into the night. It made me fear how far we’ve come in the past three years and especially in the past year. I began 4 a full year ago. It felt like this was going to be a big year for me in terms of relationship and career and it has been exactly that. It also has been a departure from anything I thought my life could possibly look like.

We live in a world so different–so vastly different–from where we were 365 days ago that the two don’t even feel like they were headed to the same place. One year ago I didn’t even know what social distancing was, though I know the term has been around for much longer. I didn’t see working from home as a real possibility, let alone a lifestyle I would revel in. I didn’t think aging would hit me as hard as it did; that I would be on a freaking pill and having to develop ways to trick my body into living just a little bit longer (It’s called exercise and healthier eating, btw).

I do not have a plan for how to live in this new world. I am learning as we all are. I feel like I might be better in this space; better operating from my own home/cave and getting things on track as a writer.

I need a proper 365 review, but this was a good start.

Been slowly sinking into the internet world of paranormal activity. Most of what is out there can be clearly explained away as mundane or a hoax. I am mystified by the paranormal and equally engaged and curious about writing about these phenomena. In truth all scary stories intrigue me. I haven’t ever been good at horror. My one and only attempt was a screenplay that failed on too many levels to explain. What intrigues me about horror is the same thing that intrigues me about romance and mystery. These are formulaic genres that, like the basic structure of story itself, find meaning in form. I find that form can be important in all types of fiction. Some would argue poetry is fiction and is itself a form (containing multitudes).

Horror and mystery are built similarly, though I feel horror relies on psychological embeddedness more than mystery. In mystery we are trying to unravel. In horror we are trying to descend. We are tearing away our personal layers of safety and suspension of disbelief in an effort to let ourselves be scared. In mystery we are focused on solving the issue. There is a difference there to be sure.

Spent the morning emptying out the stuff the old owners left behind. The left us a note when they moved out. It said, ‘Sorry, we did our best.’ But they didn’t do their best. They gave up at some point. They took all the stuff they wanted and left us a ton of trash. It made me think about how comfortable people get in their lives and how the normal we create may not be normal to other people.

Often I walk into other peoples homes and see dirty bathrooms and think, “how can you live like this?’ or ‘How could you not clean knowing you have people coming over?’ Then I look at my own bathroom and recognize that I am the person I am talking about. Glass houses indeed.

This goes beyond a difference in lifestyle. This gets into cobwebs across the ceiling, live spiders living in the corners, and carpeting so stained by pet urine that the smell lingers a full week after we’ve had those carpets removed. I fear it is in the walls. Or at least the popcorn ceilings.

There is much work to be done before the home is livable, and the way the space is built doesn’t fully reflect the way we’ve lived to this point. We have less space, yet more spaces. I am excited to see how that unfolds.

Some Thoughts:

1. I wrote to the sounds of falling rain tonight. It offered me inspiration on a night where I was unusually flat. I’ve been coming out strong each day on these projects and today I felt like I had nothing. The rain offered a little something–enough to make it into the chapter.
2. Picked up J.Thorn’s Three Story Method. I’ll let you know what I think.
3. Distracted today. I think it is largely fatigue.

Youth Football Must Go On!

At least that is what they are acting like here in AZ. While restaurants shut their doors, teams prepare for the largest season on record. The 11u grouping alone is 23-44 teams deep divided into Division I and Division II. We are going to be in Division I and challenging a handful of teams that believe themselves to be unstoppable. Among those are the 4 time defending champion Chandler Bears who not only win but hardly ever get scored on until the national championship.

The Bears are our nemesis team this year alongside a new squad called the Badgers. This new team is formed off the smoking corpse of the Savages organization with help from one of our coaches, our top DE and starting running back, the backing of the Bandits organization, and cherry picked players from across the league. The Bears have already spoken out against this team, wondering why super-teams need to be formed just to go against them. The problem with super teams is that most of the time you are talking about a clash of cultures in terms of coaching and in terms of parents who really just want to see their kid get the ball more. I brought my kids to the Argonauts organization for the opposite reason. I wanted them to be surrounded by players as good or better than them so their egos would get bruised and their work ethic would get a boost. It worked. Now we are part of a culture of learning about the sport in a pipeline of players that terminate with the Arizona Cardinals who presently boast three former Argos players on their roster. It helps. It helps because the kids get to see what is possible with hard work.

So, will we have a season? That remains to be seen. AZ is locked up right now, and while the orglist for the league has swelled over the past week to 93 organizations and over 280 different teams, we really ought to be pausing to recognize that we are talking about youth sports in a time where the hospital ICUs are filled with sick people who are all contagious. I am starting to get a grip on my the band kept playing on the Titanic. After all, here I am writing about this on the wire–namely because there isn’t real football to talk about and there is a part of me that wants to see how my Argos stack up against the competition.