Month: January 2022

I’ve spoken about negativity a great deal lately as I’ve been dealing with a lot of it in my life lately. I feel like I am drowning in it. While others in the family opt to ignore or feed in I simply sit there and seethe, growing more despondent about the situation and my inability to change it. More over I find myself wondering why these people are so negative. What is it about our lives that leads to expressing negativity so often. Why are we living in the era of Eeore? I think it has to do with expectation and a lack of a real sense of purpose and future and love. All of that plays a role and different parts play different roles in different levels. However, the fact remains that these negative mindsets are not mine and not my cross to bear. While I love everyone around me, my main responsibility–especially in terms of mentality–is my partner. That is my focus. She and I have to be good regardless of the external surroundings. That means reinforcing our bonds and making sure there is positive energy and positive language at the front of all of our interactions. I’ve done horribly at that thus far. So, I aim to improve.

Some Thoughts:

1. Part of that improvement has to be getting my shop in order. I have to get back to a solid writing schedule, keep looking at my health, get ahead of the school situation, and be on top of the finances.
2. In terms of health, I need to sweat. I haven’t–not once since I hit the gym. Not even in the Sauna.

That Clockwork Dynasty book utterly fell apart. It fell into the sad and familiar patterns of a male writer trying to breathe life into a female narrative. Nope. Sorry. He’s not that guy. It instead felt like what men think of as the female fantasy moment and it showed. Hard. In the end, a wonderful male narrator was wasted as the backstory voice of a bad bad bad narrative which felt trite and small in the end–a far cry from the beautiful and terrifically engaging beginning. In short, he sold the bag.

Some Thoughts:

1. Always interesting to watch the power dynamics between brothers. In one such situation in our home it is the younger brother who holds sway. His big brother orbits around him like a protective moon, working fervently to show him things he’ll like and learn about everything he does like as a source of conversation. It is the reverse of the expected dynamic. Meanwhile, with our other set of three the Eldest/Youngest dynamic is exactly what you’d expect from the situation.
2. Speaking on kids, my youngest advanced to the final four in his Madden 22 tournament today. The NFL-sponsored tourney covers kids 8-12 and he is at the top end of the age spectrum and has been winning big throughout. I am hopeful that he wins the entire thing. He only needs 1 win to get to the Super Bowl and earn a prize. Good luck, moneyman.
3. Don’t have much more to say. Its been a deeply meh week for creativity. Hopefully I get something going here soon.

So, I am trying to have this multi-user franchise with the boys and it has been fun so far. I’m in a strange situation where I am looking at my roster and thinking… I only have one guy at this position. I only have one guy at that position. I have 7 guys at this position! Yet in the overstaffed spaces I’m loathe to let anyone go. I just traded away one of my six running backs and I feel bad about losing that talent. Heck, when I scour the practice squad wire I see guys I got stolen from me a year or two ago and feel odd about not having those WRs on my roster! It is a strange mindset to feel as though you cannot lose anything from one or two specific positions and as a result other positions are woefully understaffed. If I lose an end then I need to grab a guy off the wire. That right there is poor team management mixed with absolute greed. I took all the smoke I could hold and won’t share. Why? Because I am waiting for one of these guys to emerge and the guy. So, the trade of Vinson felt good in that maybe he becomes the real deal on another squad, but also maybe I screwed up by letting him walk.

Some Thoughts:

1. A lot of energy devoted to video game football. Have I been away from coaching that long?
2. My mid-kid (and youngest soon enough) school got a new coach. He was our State FB coach of the year this year and I hope he brings that dynamism to the table for us. There is real hope in my mind that he keeps some of the guys on and, overall, puts together a staff of professionals that can make these kids better by playing into their strengths while building them up and ironing out their weaknesses. For example, my kid is a really great cover corner but is terrible in press coverage. Let’s see him play more press in practices to develop skill but let him lean on what he is good at in more game situations than he previously has done. Mix it up effectively.
3. Yeah, still talking football tonight. That’s all that I’ve got on my mind for this particular blog situation…

Reading Daniel Wilson’s Clockwork Dynasty I find myself wondering if he wanted to write a fantasy novel and decided the way to do such was to focus on the idea of Clockwork. I also wonder if there is a hint of the deeper ideas of magic in all of this. The book is well written but falls below the level of Robopacolypse by far. It is not as memorable and creates more questions in each chapter than can possibly be resolved at story’s end. It is also a rather effective learning tool I am discovering what to do and what not to do as a writer by exploring what people have (and have not) been successful doing in their narratives. Success is such a funny thing to me. You find your niche audience and, depending on how wide the niche, you will be successful. Still others will see that same writing as crap and avoid it completely. I fear this is the basic construct of literature–with a few responsible for the choosing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Biden says he will pick a Black Woman for SCOTUS. Why say that up front? Transparency? All you’ve done here is given the opposition party more ammo to gun at whomever you ultimately pick. In fact, they’ll work doubly hard to ensure it isn’t a black woman simply to show you are a failure. Come on, man. This is rookie level. Just do it and don’t talk about it up front.

In the world of fantasy it is taking a long time to make the Giants great again. In real life it may take longer. The front-end work is happening. There is a possibility the Giants new GM may go all in on clearing cap space in order to build something up new again, and I hope he does. This is the way. It might be the only way, as the existing talent pool is worn through in spots. We need to rebuild the WR corps and let go of the overpriced people jamming up the cap. We need LINE on the Offensive side of the ball. I think some of the line concerns can be handled in the later rounds of the draft. I’m all in on a QB pickup via that route as well. I think we have to push Jones but I think he is worth keeping this year and letting him play for a contract–no resign for 21 million. That is not a smart move.

We need a coach too. Who is that going to be?

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m dwelling on things and speaking out on them like a frustrated dad. It isn’t helping my relationship, so I am shutting up about them. Forever.
2. Not Writing ENOUGH.

First, I butchered the spelling of the great Thich Nhat Hanh a few days ago when lamenting his death. If that wasn’t bad enough I should have been celebrating his life. I got that one wrong. I get a lot of them wrong. It is a fundamental part of my unwokeness. Ordinarily I would be lamenting my unwokeness but I’m not prepared to have that conversation. I think that the idea of being ‘woke’ is difficult to navigate, primarily because it is about being accepting and accommodating of people who are different, but only if that different is a like-minded sense of acceptance. We don’t ever firmly choose to accept the non-accepting, because that would be enabling hate.

I am rambling. I do that more and more lately. I think it is a gut reaction to not creating narratives and the characters that populate my imagination are bleeding into my reality, but the negative ones are the strongest, because negativity apparently has more upfront and in your face noticability than happiness. Oh also, the happy characters always seem to be less interesting.

Some Thoughts:

1. I miss Razzi-ann. She was the only cat who really wanted to snuggle up with me all the time. It sounds strange but she even groomed my hair and that was perhaps the most loving thing an animal has done for me. All other cats are <
2. I have to get out of my own head in terms of negativity. It doesn’t help that I am surrounded by it on a daily basis. Negativity, laziness, and lack of personal motivation to do more than sit on your ass and watch shows and play video games. Talislegger, This is your Universe!
3. Gotta go to work now.

I think every dad goes through a period of being frustrated with his kids. I’m firmly in that period. They’ve been hard to be around for a little while now and that is largely about negative attitudes, unwillingness to lift a finger to help around the house, me-first attitude, and general disrespect when it comes to what other people have going on. The latest disrespect is one that I don’t even understand. One of them deleted my copy of Madden from the ps5. It wasn’t for storage space or anything I can really figure out. I get that you found a game you want to play, but there is really no purpose in deleting my game. None whatsoever. Yet it happened.

Other things happen too. For example, I really like this desert called brookies. Today as I was putting away the groceries a couple of the boys got up and, instead of helping me put away groceries like they saw I was doing, first went through the bag specifically looking for what they wanted and grabbed that. Then they grabbed the brookies the moment I pulled them out of the bag and ate 3 of the 4 brookies. For Breakfast. Sure, call me a fat ass for wanting my desert treat. I can deal with that. I immediately stashed the second box, knowing that if I hadn’t those would be quickly devoured as well. That is the attitude I’m faced with. Take what you want do nothing to help. I hate boys.

At the time of this post the Bucs are getting smacked. 20-3 with under 2 left and the Rams driving within field goal range for another. The game is, unofficially, over. Barring an Atlanta-esque collapse, Brady is done for the season without that coveted ring. So, what is next? All interested eyes are turned towards his possible retirement. While many would like to see his story end with a win, many others simply want it to end. Why? Because we live through the stories we see and hear and read and we make heroes and villains out of the players in these tales. We live through the stories of others as we live in our own hard-fought tales. The stories of others are more glamorous and we can talk about the choices that other people make because there is no real consequence for us in what they do save for that which we allow ourselves to invest in their choices.

As for our own stories? Often we feel like we are not in control. Often we feel as though the choices we make are not choices at all and instead we are locked into a limited set of options and a daily routine that is terrifying to escape from. We do find moments of escape–be it through games or vacations. Our youngest adults escape through meaningless sex and strings of relationships that approximate a life. Meanwhile our youth exist in virtual landscapes in which the concept of their personal lives is merely as a reflection of what they see and or background noise to the cacophony.

Sometimes to escape, we simply dream. But what dreams do come in lives lined with darkness and despair?

Some Thoughts:

1. Rest in Peace Thich Nacht Hanh.

Ahh, the all important question: How much time should you devote to the work each day?

Honestly, it varies from person to person. Just as with exercise there is a minimum, a point of diminishing returns, and a sweet spot. I believe the threshold is two hours. If you are not putting two hours into the craft each day then you’re wasting your talent. I, personally, am wasting my talent. When I hit that minimum I find that I can produce a lot more–be it bad or good. I am working on developing a schedule and routine that allows me to meet the 2 hrs each day. It is harder when everyone is home, because your attention is requested elsewhere constantly. Still, the work has to be important enough to you that you carve out that niche of time.

No, it doesn’t have to be all at once for everyone.

I prefer the big block in one shot, because I wind up subdividing it with activities that pull my mind off the writing long enough to be fresh. Honestly, I could break it up into 30 minute allotments and have the exact same feel to the experience.

Some Thoughts:

1. Life can be a roller coaster and, from time to time, it can feel like you’re just along for the ride for all the ups and downs. It can feel like, at times, blue isn’t blue anymore though nothing in your perception has changed all that much. Such is life.

I couldn’t sleep last night, bitter and distracted by the situation with my kid. I don’t know how to handle it and the rancor of the thing kept me up all night. What kept kicking around in my head is the thing my partner said. She asked me what my kid’s big brother is doing about it (more or less) and as it turns out he doesn’t know, because his little brother doesn’t trust him enough to tell him. He has not been the best big brother. Ever. He cheats at games and finds ways to make it not fun for everyone else or straight quits when he is losing. This is troubling because it is reflective of his personality and really argues that he is a selfish person that cannot be relied on. Which means I raised a selfish kid who cannot be relied on to look past himself, his pleasure, and his personal gain. While he is one of the hardest working people I know, that work is directed solely at self-improvement. I’ve done nothing as a parent to teach him balance and it honestly feels like it is too late. Have I created a monster? I want to believe in my heart that he is a good person. He is a good person, but he is not a self-sacrificing person. He is also loathe to go out of his comfort zone.

I struggle with the reality of kids growing up and becoming people you don’t always get along with or want to be around. I have one kid who is often entirely contradictory to my personality and who I want to be as a person and that chafes. I have another kid–the subject of this rant–who has been handed everything in the world and coldly expects more. I recognize that eventually these kids leave the nest and go off to be their own people and that they have to be able to be who they naturally are, but I want to love them. I want to want to spend time with them and more and more I find that I don’t enjoy the moments as much as I used to. It feels like maybe all of that is a part of all of us growing up.