Month: August 2020

Rough day as a dad. My son was injured playing football. He is likely done for the season and perhaps longer depending on the MRI. The injury sucked but what made it worse was me not really knowing how to sit and talk with him about it. He’s a teenager and used to being fairly invincible. Yet, here we are. This is a tough lesson in mortality I don’t think he is actually taking the time and patience to face. Instead he sees this as a minor inconvenience. He is too much like me at that age. Unstoppable and quite unaware. I am not convinced this is a bad way to be. I am not convinced as to how this ends up for him. He may grow from this in a positive way.

Meanwhile, I am still quite overwhelmed. I made a chunk of headway today, managing to get a lot of information online. Part of my job is posting information for classes. Another part of my job is building classes. I haven’t done that. I haven’t even begun the part where I write the novella and additional stories. I’ve fallen out of rhythm in that sense.

I have a ton of work to do. I have more work to do than I’ve had in a long time, and I haven’t gotten to the point of organization yet. That is tomorrow… I hope.

Well, the youth season is still on, much to the contention of my household. I think here it comes down to an issue of importance. Youth football just is not worth the risk to anyone here but the people who are playing/coaching. Nobody else cares enough for it to be worth it. This, in my mind, creates a rough dynamic where we end up not talking about it, because we know we live on different sides of that fence.

I think I would be more inclined to be on the other side of the fence (though never entirely on) if we were actually sheltering in place. If we made a point to to be in contact with other individuals as a family then there would be much more of a conversation about staying away. As it is there are two other kids playing High School ball, and a 3rd working retail. In reality only a handful of us are actually avoiding contact. Even then we are traveling across states and eating out and behaving in a fashion that is not 100% shelter in place, which allows my reptilian (read conniving) brain some space to make this feel okay.

With all that being said, we kickoff September 12th vs. The Empire Sun Devils. It is a good situation, football wise. We get to face a team we never have and it gives our kids a chance to get ready for the regular season. Call it a preseason, because I don’t think the game actually counts towards our season record. It is also the same week as NFL kickoff, so I am ready for some football.

With that being said, the Beach Blanket Fantasy League is back on! We do not know who to pick, because we are in a situation where players could be leaving the field due to covid vs. injury and the likelihood of that is far greater than injury. Should Covid hit a team it could ravage that team quickly and down goes the squad. This is going to need to be considered when drafting. In other words, spread out the talent. Not all your eggs on one squad.

It is easy to fall out of favor with the words. It doesn’t take a whole lot for that to happen. Some calamities are greater than others and push you further from the keyboard or pen, but others… Well, any bad writer knows how to make an excuse. Good writers know how to not make them.

I am not using good as a replacement word for talent. I am using good as in level of production and ability to generate content. I have had a lot of setbacks in the past week. Today I discovered a large chunk of text and planning material for my novella that I straight up deleted. Lost forever.

I’m becoming a good writer, because I didn’t let it kill me. Not entirely. I’m still here and working and trying to get back into mode. This, in spite of the fact that I’ve lost words I needed. Growth. I am getting better at this writer thing.

One day and one story at a time.

Some Thoughts:

1. There is this small town in Colorado, up in the mountains where a train passes through. I think the town is called silver something but I am likely wrong. For years that town felt like a set piece in my memory of this life. Not too recently I watched an episode of Unsolved Mysteries where a town identical to the one I speak of was featured. I don’t think it was exactly the same town though. I don’t know why this matters or why this town is in my thoughts again but I have a handful of extremely vivid memories of the place that feel like they happened yesterday. Little moments like walking down a street, or seeing a basketball hoop; stepping off a porch and hearing the creak of the wood. What’s strange is that the moment I drove into the place I connected with it, and I fear a part of me never left.

You know that helpless feeling you get when you know you’ve forgotten something major like turning off the stove or closing the garage or making that phone call you absolutely had to make or returning that package that had to be in within 30 days? I call that feeling Monday.

My experience with Mondays is like being carried along upon the crest of an impossible wave. I can see the entire shape of reality beneath me and I know that above and behind is only darkness. I know that in that darkness lies terrible responsibility. I have not escaped from that responsibility. Time pushes me along and threatens to break, to crash, at any moment. Meanwhile I, awake and alive with the fears of responsibility and failure, hold on tightly to the board beneath my feet.

But there is no board. There is only the wave and once I see it; once I am forced to realize this truth I plunge through the foamy blue-green water whereupon my sight is stolen from me and I discover that I can no longer move forward. I cannot swim. I cannot float to the surface. Instead the crushing weight of life seeps through my pores filling me with a calm that can be only described as oblivion.

To quote Neruda:

That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.

Some Thoughts:

1. A writer I recently worked with referred to poetry as a palette cleanser. I need to take stock in that idea and move myself towards these brief moments of truth. My palette needs a good cleansing.

The mind is a very fragile construct and often easily manipulated. I, for example, have managed to convince myself that I am slowly going crazy, am being manipulated by outside forces (people, not demons), and am slowly being robbed of any real sense of self. As a result I believe I am retreating once again into easily manipulated fantasy worlds that offer me a sense of control without being entirely controlled by me (as are stories) in order to give me some ethereal sense of control and happiness in moments where I feel like I don’t need to be concerned with what makes everyone else happy, but only what makes me happy and ultimately, the choices that I make within that space will not be questioned or result in lasting discomfort.

In other words, I am running away from life.

I am not sure that I am actually doing that. I know this much: My rationalization matrix is entirely busted. There are a number of reasons this is true, but the key reason is existing in too many realities at the same time and being forced to code shift between them and feeling powerless in virtually all of them. I work multiple jobs, live in multiple homes, and on top of that I coach and write stories and books. This is not including the leisure activities which, at present, are limited to Madden, Apex Legends, and Clash Royale, of which only Madden has been bringing me joy in recent days.

In essence, I struggle with the idea that everything I do that makes me happy makes someone else unhappy, and the moments in which I find peace are the moments in which I am doing something that I enjoy without those around me feeling upset about that action. I care about that. I care about that perhaps too much. In fact, I often try to live by the principle ‘First, do no harm’ vs. ‘First, do self-care’. The two become mutually exclusive due to the adverbial clause. So, I feel like to move myself into a better mental state I need to build in a better programming system: ranked laws a la Asimov?

The struggle continues.

Began the Dragonball Hunt today–www.thedbquest.com. I enjoy this immensely. I feel as though I have a lot to offer to the quest and I feel like it brings the family together.

The quest is a 15-day rollercoaster ride of riddles and clues designed to get the two birthday boys to recognize and complete 7 challenges. The result of each challenge is a Dragonball. Once they have all 7 they get to make a wish. It is an epically cool idea my partner thought up, based on the Dragon Ball shows. I love that I get to be involved. I love that it allows me to explore my own creativity in a a way I haven’t since I GM’d games.

My younger boys get in on the act too. They want their own quest (since they are not really part of the DBhunt as participants but generally as foils). However, this is something special to the older two. Everyone has their own cool thing and making another quest would lessen that.

In short, I am experiencing moments of joy. That is a good thing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Relationships are difficult. The more I think things are going well, the more I feel like I’ve jinxed it. Suddenly I look over and it feels like I am back at the bad place again. This could all be internal–a manifestation of my fears. Or not. Perhaps the truth is in between.

Last week’s WOTD freewrite was disastrous (why can’t that word pop up?). This week I am hoping for better results. The word we are stemming from is Quiescent…

ergo sum peccatore

I last confessed twelve years ago. I don’t know, I guess I felt there wasn’t much point in the thing. I believe–I still believe, mind you. I don’t know what people would do without belief. Can you imagine a world where the only thing you had to believe in was a voice on the TV humming at you eery night to explain the news and what was causing all that news; all that violence? I had to stop, you know, after it happened.

No, now I am not saying that I did it. I wouldn’t say that, because I did not do it. Don’t go telling me you came all the way down here to stare at me through this thick plastic and hear me say I done did something I didn’t. You won’t hear it. Not from me. Not ever.

No, I stopped watching the TV.

They have it on here almost all the time. There are fights in the rec room once every few days because somebody gets riled up about a show or says something about a character somebody else likes, and just like that they are fighting and the TV goes off and the two idiots (though from time to time its more than two) get put in the hold where they are supposed to ‘cool off’. Tell me this: how do you cool off in a place that has to be at least 118-120 in the pitch dark? Way I heard it the pipes run behind those walls. Not the good kind either. Not the kind that brings cool water or the air ones people are supposed to be able to climb through and escape. No, these are the nasty pipes that come from down deep, rising out of whatever it is that powers this place.

Did you know we ain’t on the grid? Can’t be. They can’t risk power failing and all of us getting out into the world. Treat us like we are boogey men come to getcha! Still don’t explain where the power comes from and why it smells so damn awful down there and especially why it gets so hot.

What was I talking about? Oh, yes. I stopped the TV stuff straight off. I went and got me a good spot in the library and learned to take joy in reading. It’s different, you know? When you read the words they come out as slow as I want them to. That gives me time to think about what is written down there. It also kills time for a lot longer than that TV. The big part of it is it doesn’t poison my mind. Since I’ve been on books I’ve come round to a more relaxed way of thinking and talking and acting. I have become quiescent in my old age. I have learned that in spite of my innocence I have long been a sinner, so perhaps this place is what it needs to be for me for as long as that may be.

Yep. 19 years in this place. First three were easy. I still had appeals. After that it started to settle in that I was never leaving here. Few years after that still is when you started coming around. You need to understand that I cannot give you what the stories refer to as ‘closure’. I mean I suppose I could, but it wouldn’t be proper. Why? Well because I did not do it.

Saying I did wouldn’t make it true. All you’d ask me after is why and I wouldn’t have any sort of answer that made sense. It would be one more lie built on the last and maybe that is what you want right now, but I promise you the lie is hollow and you’ll be hungry for the truth before long.

I hope you find it. Once you do you’ll be like me. quiescent. Only you’ll be out there where the world keeps changing and asking you things and I’ll be in here with my books and my three walls and my three meals with nothing more to worry about than what I have to look forward to.

What’s that? Why the next story, of course.

I am conducting this blog from the beach in San Diego. It is my last day, thus the one day I would mention I am gone (so none of y’all rob me!) and by the time this gets online I will be back. I love writing on the beach more than I thought was possible. I love the idea of being able to get all of the sensory input that keeps me focused and calm yet feel the sun at my back and smell the cool clean air of the ocean. I prefer to live this way. I would prefer to have a home here, footsteps away from the water where I can visit and thrive two or three months out of the year in a space where my responsibilities are tied only to the online world and the whims of my fancy. That is, of course, fantasy. I don’t have a budget for such things. Nevertheless I am driven to remember how fortunate I am to have what I have now and to be able to spend these last few days here with the woman I love and the job I most cherish—the words.

More and more my partner and I discuss the idea of the life we want to live and the way it contrasts with the life we live. I believe there is a way to combine these things that leans more towards the wants and desires than it does the daily reality. I am working on that. I am moving towards a deeper realization of how to make that happen. Trips like these help me understand, but they also are a part of that reality I seek to hold on to.

The beach reminds me that I love people watching and love absorbing the aura of the ocean and the energy of the people there. It reminds me how to be active when I spend my days in a state that, for this stage of the year, is too hot to want to be active outdoors or even in. The beach is a reset or a recharge permitting me to go back to the doldrums and face the day to day.

The beach makes me want to change that day to day to something else entirely that feels less like tolerance and more like waking up to a life that I look forward to and activities that remind me that I am in charge of my own (brief) reality. The universe has been around for billions of years. I’m here for what, 80? As I feel the way life has weathered my body and spirit I find that more and more I am looking to heal and to guide my life towards personal fulfilment and enjoyment less I waste what little time I have left in this mortal coil.

I don’t have access to the web this evening, so I will be posting in the morning. What am I posting about? Sports rant. It is Waiver Wednesday after all. With two of the big 5 conferences in football cancelling it looks like there will be little to know college ball. There is still high school ball. There is still youth ball (more on that later). Overall, there is a lot happening in this Covid world, but the approach to dealing with it has been entirely uneven.

Here in AZ most kids probably won’t be back in school physically until October. The first game of the H.S. season for my kids’ team in on October 2^nd. Whether or not fans are allowed remains to be seen. However, they are still training every day and expecting to play. It is a strange thing to see the school only open for football players while everyone else shelters in place.

Youth football is also strange. Our league swelled o 98 organizations and over 300 teams. That is with some teams folding under the weight of Covid and others (like ours) limiting our practices in order to be safe. All coaches are wearing masks during practice, and probably will do the same during the game. It still remains to be scene where these games will be. While the H.S. is open to football players it appears to not be open to youth football.

Honestly, I wish we had one rule and one set of behaviors, but we don’t. We are all riding this wave of crazy in our own way and pace. This is dangerous, but it could be worse.

I am working on the second of two novellas to be released in the coming months. The due date for this one is, well, saturday. I won’t pretend I am in any shape to feel good about hitting the date, but a good today will be a huge step in that direction. What does it take to have a good writing day any day? Well, that is what I am taking ten minutes to figure out.

I don’t expect all the answers in 10. I do expect progress. Lets start with what I already know: Having a good writing day starts with having a positive mindset and a wealth of energy to put towards the task. This means being fully awake and limiting distractions. For a long time that meant putting on the sounds of water and closing the door. Now it means more of a pregame. The blog helps to serve as my mental calisthenics. It gets the mind blood pumping. I need that. And coffee.

I also need to have structure. That is a blog for another day… Thursday maybe.

Some Thoughts:

1. Being on the beach makes me extremely happy. While there is the obvious and undeniable enjoyment of being surrounded by beautiful people, the major joy comes from the sounds of the waves and being able to put my feet in the water and feel like I am surrounded by openness–even on a crowded beach. That is the thing about the ocean: the vastness of it is heartening.
2. Also, I watched Vast of Night last night and it was really well done. It was shot and felt very much like a radio play. It was beautiful and dark and the characters were powerful. The ending… Just watch.
3. Reading Critical Mass–the last of Craig Alanson’s Col. Bishop & Skippy series. With under 15 hrs left, I have no idea how he could even begin to end this thing in a way that does NOT leave me wanting another volume.