Month: September 2021

Let’s just call this the Legendary Loser edition. I’m writing it in honor of my Giants. It’s funny, actually. I always looked at teams like the Browns as throwaway franchises; doorstops you kicked over to get a better record. Yet here we are with another 0-3 season and I still want to believe the Giants are good. They aren’t. They are historically bad. They are right up there with the worst franchises over the past two decades and all I can do is hope they find a way not to suck; not to lose. And every week they find a way to get worse. Blake Martinez is now done. ACL. Really? Are we in a race for the bottom with the Jets and the Jags? How is it I honestly feel both of those teams would beat us by 20?!

Ah, well. I’m not holding my breath for a playoff run, but I’m looking forward to seeing a few good wins at some point. That some point probably isn’t against the Saints. Winston will throw a pick or two, but the end result is a beating. I’m picking the Saints here.

Here are some other picks on the week:

Bengals over Jags

Titans over Jets
Even without both top recievers, they won’t have a problem steamrolling the Jets. That play-action game works because Henry makes it work. I wish my youth team had a run game that unstoppable.

Chiefs over Eagles
Been a rough few weeks for the Chiefs, but I think they bounce back here.

Cowboys over Panthers
You hate to see it….

Browns over Vikings
This Browns team is really good on both sides of the ball. They don’t get the respect they deserve defensively. My kids keep reminding me they suck, but I’m like ‘Myles Garrett???’

Just time for the early games this post. I’ll pick up the rest tomorrow.

This is coming from my phone again, as I find myself blogging in bed. Some days are like today — where the world asks a lot of you and it’s hard to keep up. I’m drained but happy and looking forward to a tomorrow that is dedicated to writing and hanging with my partner. From there we start to tip toward a weekend filled with football and more words.

all this to say I’m cruising through the semester faster that I imagined possible. Things aren’t bad though. There is happiness here on the home front. I can’t ask for much more than that

As it turns out, I keep doing these posts in the evening when all my sense of creativity and deep thoughts have fled and I’m left talking about something ‘back of the mind’ like football be it youth or otherwise. I don’t want to think too deeply about that though. I’ve made significant progress compartmentalizing that aspect of my life to the point where I won’t even acknowledge Monday Night Football unless the Giants are playing.

So, what am I acknowledging instead?

I believe that is the key to sustaining happiness over the next 50 years that constitute the swell of my life. I need to discover what my partner and I want to do with our time. What is it going to be that defines us as us. What are we both about? While it is one thing to each have our own thing, it is another to only have our own thing. I’ve been thinking about the idea of what makes relationships last to the end and I truly believe this formula of yours, mine, ours is it.

Some Thoughts:

1. I remain afraid of dying. To be clear, I remain afraid of not existing.

I haven’t really talked about anything here in months. Tonight likely continues that trend as I stray into the category of Video Games and specifically NBA 2K22. I’ve been playing the game for weeks now and I don’t feel like I am improving all that much. I did the whole pay to play climb and got my character to the 80s and I’ve been grinding the season ever since. I am a Center for the Warriors (by draft not choice) and I’ve decided to ride it out for the year, eschewing the game-given methods of breaking away from your team or becoming a starter faster. Instead I’m playing and learning and trying to get better every time I hit the court. Part of the issue is that I’ve never played the position. I’ve never done it in real life or in a game. I like it. I like the opportunity to get those ShaqDunks and swat shots. Still, I don’t even really know how to shoot close or the controls for drop steps or any of that good stuff. I’m learning but it is taking time. Likewise I am learning how to be a good paint defender and rebounder. In those areas I know I am getting better. I’ve even considered switching the difficulty of the game to a higher level in order to grind for more badges. In NBA 2K badges make the player.

Badges are what got me blogging about this tonight. This year more than ever it feels like badges are combo bonuses. You have to have the right collection of them in order to do what you want to do in-game. The backdown badge on max level combined with drop step ought to allow you to activate the Rise Up badge to get a dunk on your defender. Oh, don’t forger posterizer! There is a lot that goes into the game and I’m still slowly learning it all.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve been wrong about basically everything in regards to football this year. Some of it is a good wrong, like how well my 14u team would do in a very crowded field of teams (we are 2-0). Some of it bad wrong like the success of the Giants D and O. Worst of all, I’ve been wrong about fantasy. Dead last kind of wrong.

I’ve been meaning to talk about the pro football game and I haven’t really had the chance to do so yet. So, let’s get into it tonight.

Giants over Falcons
This is about love. This is about watching an offense try to come together given the lack of depth along the offensive line. I don’t know how far the G-men can go this season without more cash spent along those O and D lines, but they are grinding and trying hard to win games. I think this is the week it happened.

Titans over Colts
QB questions in Indianapolis because their guy sprained both ankles. Yikes. King Henry is getting on track. That spells doom for a team that is gonna need to come from behind early.

Chiefs over Chargers
Chiefs just don’t lose two games in a row. They aren’t that team.

Bengals over Steelers
This is a big one for the Bengals. They have a lot to prove here, and I don’t know that the Steelers are the Steel Curtain without Watt playing this week.

Browns over Bears
Sure, Fields might be the great hope of Chicago, but he is still a rookie against a sick Browns defense and a Browns run game that is still underrated.

Cardinals over Jags

Ravens over Lions

Saints over Patriots
Too much of the deep ball. There will be picks but there will also be TDs.

Bills over Washington

Broncos over Jets

Raiders over Dolphins
Another QB goes on IR. Yikes. The Dolphins won’t be good for a long time. Still, my RB gotta eat.

Some Thoughts:

1. Surprisingly good turn for the youth game. We are 2-0 and we are a tough, physical team with the chance to break some big plays through the air and on the ground. We haven’t had the scoring we are expecting to see, but we will get there.

The thing about writing in public spaces is that you have to be able to shut down the world around you. This is easier to do in public spaces because, for me at least, I don’t have a stake in what is going on around me. There are all kinds of distractions to a writing life. Often the ones that are most egregious are the ones that are the most personal. At home I can lose an hour tidying up while I am supposed to be writing. That tidying needs to get done. That text needs to be responded to. That game film needs to be watched. Those games need to get played. That sweet partner of mine needs to be kissed. Yet out in the bright confines of a breakfast spot all of the distractions are of the ‘don’t really care’ variety. None of the people have any real meaning in my life, so the stakes for paying attention are extremely low.

This is by no means a long-term strategy. I can’t afford to eat out in a crowd every day. Likewise I have yet to establish an office vibe that simulates white noise effectively while allowing myself to forget the dust in the corners or the cricket I absolutely need to murder. I continue to work hard at developing the writing in that space, but from time to time I need to get out, get a hard reset, and write some stuff.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve written quite a bit about sadness and quitting the blog, etc. This is likely the result of a type of emotional co-dependence I’m happy to endure. I’m happiest when the people around me are happy; my partner most of all. I recognize that I need to maintain an emotional health/upside even when the two of us are out of balance.
2. My Fry’s card didn’t work this morning and it messed me up more than a little. I’ve been reading and watching a lot of corp dystopia stuff that always has that scene where a character’s data gets flagged as unusable. That is some scary stuff…

For as much as I pay for the internet, you’d think I would be able to type a ten minute post without having to wait for every single word to load letter by letter. You’d be wrong and I be pissed about it. The first few minutes of this blog were chewed up by such nonsense until I eventually scrapped that entire position and resorted to a word doc.

Word scares me. It never did, but I got used to the cloud and apple stopped making computers with ports that would readily accept a flash drive—I have adapters but that crap is cumbersome to lug about. I’m editing my novel on this laptop and if something goes wrong, the novel goes away. Such is the past of computers and ought not to be the present but here we are. I’m still using word as the world spins on towards the future without me.

But I was talking about the internet.

My sister in-law is back in town briefly and trying to convince us to move to Honduras where we can live as expats. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of a black expat. While they may exist it is more culturally honest to recognize that black folk aren’t trying to leave the USA to go anywhere in South America. Africa? Maybe. Europe? Also maybe. Canada? Nah, son. That being said, I’m more interested in going up than down (relatively speaking given the Ameri-centric maps I rock).

I’m also out of time to write about it.

This football season has not gone at all according to plan. I’ve managed all of two wins total in 3 leagues in two weeks. My Giants look like Gnats and it is a real question whether or not they’ll break the losing streak this week.

On the youth front the youngest faces his toughest test yet this weekend. He faces a legit Force Football Academy team loaded with speed and talent. We haven’t been able to generate a run game and he hasn’t done a good job holding on to the ball, so he needs to step up or he’ll wind up 3rd string and not playing.

On the High School front my eldest may have suffered a shoulder tear and another ACL injury. So he’s probably done with his HS football days. He won’t dress this week and sees the doc in 2 weeks. Gotta love prompt medicine. The 2nd son is now a starter on varsity. Quite the little 14 yr old sophomore. He’s only going to get better. Of course, he plays in the same league as two of the top 20 (one in the top 2!) teams in the nation, so he’s up against serious talent.

No time for predictions… I’ll handle that tomorrow.

I’ve been writing reflections for days now. I noticed it when I pulled up the blog and saw the titles of the last few. It is apparently reflection week. Tonight I want to reflect on the concept of time spent. I’ve been thinking about this a great deal as of late. Most of my time is spent with other people. I spend it with my partner or my kids or my students. My time alone is spent either writing or gaming or occasionally watching a show on my own. I think I spend a lot of time alone on some days and not much at all on others. I don’t know that I need more time alone. I don’t really argue the quality of that time either. I think where I need to improve is in the quality of time spent with other people and who those people are I am spending that time with.

I am starting to think that I will be leaving a lot sooner than I thought. I’ve gotten around to accepting that need. I’m ready to go. I’ll be able to finish this semester, which is hugely important to me, and then it is likely time to go somewhere else and start over and build a new life that doesn’t have many of the aspects of this one here and doesn’t have hardly any of the people. I’ll need to figure out a way to still be a good dad, but I am sure I can find a way to do that and still see the kids occasionally. That change is huge for me. It is something I never thought would happen, but the neccesity is there, so it is going to happen. Such is how life goes.

How is it that a missing person’s case grips the entire nation? Is it because of who the victim is? A little–in the type/trope model of the situation. However, it can also be said that our collective national conscience loves a whodunnit. SPOILER ALERT: The boyfriend did it. My guess is that he got fed up and struck out in anger. I am not justifying his actions or even approaching anything resembling understanding, but I am laying out what it seems the facts do indicate. Now he’s on the run and that too is newsworthy, because maybe the channels can catch a glimpse of him being brought to justice and further appease the American conscience. However, if he kills himself it becomes a conspiracy and is less rewarding, though it does get to live on. This is the stuff we think about here in our nation. We can alleviate our larger fears of the direction our nation is headed in by thinking about one man and one woman and what must have happened for them to fall apart so dramatically that a life was lost.