Month: March 2022

Tomorrow I might be writing in the public space. I haven’t really done that much over the past year. There is real value in it and writing in public is different than writing in the privacy of my office shelter. The outside world gets in. From time to time you ought to let it in. I gather characters from my own experience and the world experience around me, but since Covid that experience has primarily been my students and whatever excursions I’ve been fortunate to attend with my partner. So, maybe there is some good in doing this. Maybe I should get out there and listen to the beat of the world for an hour, taking it all in and creating from that sound, character.

Of course, writing at all would be a healthy step. Writing at home might be easier thanks to the comfort and quiet of the space. The familiarity of the office–the char and the desk and the lighting–all bring me into a calm writing space as well. A comfortable writer can be and should be a productive writer. There’s good in that for sure.

I think perhaps a balance ought be struck in this endeavor. Perhaps I choose to write in pubic once a month. I pick a day and a place. I go to a cafe or a library or somewhere that I may observe the world and I ingest that as a healthy part of my diet. I think this to be a useful thing.

I cannot speak enough on how my life has continually and repeatedly fallen apart. My life is that old pair of sneakers you keep in the closet and pull out occasionally because you’re nostalgic and just don’t want to let go. It is that blanket you had as a kid–the one you got from your dad that has since lost all the padding but, despite being cleaned a million times to the point of being threadbare, still smells like him. It is the toy you taped up because you just knew you’d never be able to get another one like it. My life is all of these things, and my life crumbles on a monthly basis. The more it falls apart the more I come to recognize the individual pieces and threads that hold it together. I can see, for example, how I start my days and how that impacts each day that I start differently. Seeing alone isn’t understanding, but breaking it down gets me one step closer to figure out what to do and what not to on the road to making what is left of my life as joyous and productive and momentous as possible. So, here is some of what I learned.

1. Start with a Song. Energy isn’t necessarily triggered by music but it is certainly harnessed by it. A piece of music that means something to you and carries the tonal qualities of what you woke up feeling or want to feel might be just the thing to kick the day off right. It isn’t just the music. You have to let it in. You have to move and dance and sway and really allow the sound to seep into you, collecting those vital energies you need to make the day matter.
2. Move. Remember, you just woke up. A body at rest tends to stay at rest, so get into motion. I’ve been riding a bike lately, but a morning walk or stretching or anything of the sort ought to get your physical form activated and able to process the needs of the day.
3. Laugh. Positive emotion is empowering–especially in a world that appears to want to scare you to death all the time. Before you turn on the news, or look into how much work you have to do, or worry about your relationship, etc. Find a way to laugh. Keep a book of jokes nearby. I’ve taken to watching 30 minute comedy specials while I ride my bike. Infusing joy into my life gives me the strength I need to persist–especially when I don’t want to persist.
4. Plan. I’m very bad at this one, but it matters. My partner keeps a daily sheet expressing what needs to get done each day. I used to rock a planner and lay out my day in this fashion. I’m about to get back to it, because without knowing what needs to get done and writing it down, I tend to wander off into the land of ‘don’t care’.
5. More to come here, but ten minutes is ten minutes.. and at the very least a good start.

I know, but with all the action today I had to write stuff down. Russell Wilson is going to DENVER. That is crazy. He was traded for a slew of draft picks, a D-lineman and Drew Lock (QB). The 2 1st and 2 second rounders are the chief hall here, as Seattle is likely to use one to get a new QB and let Lock fight for a spot this season. Seattle is now in rebuild. Perhaps even quick rebuild as they could be considering one AZ QB who seems very unhapy at home. Such is the curious life of the QBs.

Speaking of QBs, Rodgers got 200 million. Yet that somehow lowered his cap hit for 2022 and on. Lowered by 20 million. He is going to make a ton of cash closing things out with the Pack, but it does lead to a serious question: Is Jordan Love expendable? I would say YES. I would also argue that he might be trade bait going into a draft that is high on QB needy squads and low on solid QB Buzz.

I still think the Giants role with Jones. The cap quandary in NYC is not a joke. They need to get money off the books in the worst way, and that means shedding talent and also shedding bad contracts. Golladay showed up to met life with a mask and a gun. He needs to get cut for the way he robbed the franchise. He’s not nearly as talented as he’s getting paid to be and I don’t see improvement happening any time soon. So, can you cut him? No. Not till next year. However, there are others who can rework contracts or get traded (Bradberry). All signs point to Saqoun being released in a season, so there is a legitimate need to shed as much dead weight (and dead salary) as possible to start that rebuild process from ground game up.

And Now This…

Madden… https://www.reddit.com/r/Madden/comments/t9h2il/seriously_ea/

Oh, Madden… https://www.reddit.com/r/Madden/comments/t98c8i/now_what_am_i_supposed_to_do_here/

I am consistently inconsistent (yeah, I thought that was clever).

There is little in my life that remains on track or on schedule all of the time. One notable exception is this here blog. I come back to the page everyday for 10 minutes and pour out words. Sometimes it is a gush and sometimes a dribble. Regardless, I’m here and I am writing. I feel accomplished when I finish. I feel like I’ve spent another day on this planet and in this life doing something that I feel right about. It is often the only time of day I feel that way. The blog matters to me. It has mattered since the day my sister told me to do it. Now my partner helps me keep it alive even when I am at my worst, which is more often than not lately.

I need to get back to good.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve come around to having favorite places. I think I’ve always been there but never quite realized it. There are places that I see in my mind from time to time and think: I love it here. There are a few new places on that list and they, shockingly, are not in NYC. Two are in Seattle and one in Pine, AZ. odd that. I guess I’m growing into being a person who likes that climate and type of space.

I think it is possible to actively swap out anger for sadness. I spent days being very angry and when that passed all that was left was a great deal of sadness and regret, leading me to the understanding that the two emotions are linked. The things that trigger anger can also trigger sadness in a more compassionate person. I was once far more emotionally compassionate and aware than I am now, leading me to believe in the voracity of this approach.

As a result, I am rather sad today. I’m sad because I am reflecting on the impact of my words and actions on the people around me and that brings me sadness. I am reflecting on the internal conflict between whether to spend my birthday with my partner and family or just partner, and given how that indecision brings her to a negative emotional state, I’ve fallen back into a deeper level of sadness. Honestly, I’d rather not celebrate my birthday at all. Any celebration inevitably costs money and given how tight my budget is, I’d rather not see money go out for my enjoyment. I’d rather see it go to the enjoyment of others. That in of itself would bring me joy. Regardless, I am in a position where choices need to be made and, inevitably, someone is going to feel left out. It is equally possible that I am overthinking this and my kids, at least, won’t actually care because they have their own stuff going on.

Tough week. One of the hardest of my life emotionally. I’ve had cause to face several difficult truths about myself and my relationships and how very frightfully small the circle of people who really care for me and have my back is. 4. That number is 4. Mind you, I have 6 kids and a partner. I even have at least one living parent and a brother who is more blood than blood.

4. that’s a rough reality to face and made rougher by the fact that I’ve created the situation myself by not being the best to people and not being the best possible version of myself.

I actively tried to bring that number to 3 recently with some very destructive behaviors. This isn’t the first time. I broke up with a girl I was definitely and completely in love with in high school because I got scared that she didn’t love me as much as I did her. Fear makes me very stupid and I’ve spent a life living with the consequences of a seemingly endless string of fear-derived actions.

what am I so afraid of? If it’s being alone then I’m getting there quite easily anyhow.

Yesterday I wrote about how my partner set her boys up for life by letting them live at home through college (or at least thus far through college). Everyone panned her for the gesture. The entire family thought she was letting them take advantage of her and not teaching them how to be men. I also thought it was a very bad idea, though my reasoning was that it isolated the boys and doesn’t teach them how to interact with people or take care of themselves because they don’t have to do that when they live at home.

I still feel that way, but I also feel that the way she set them up financially is wonderful. I’m proud of what she’s done. I’m not having it for the remaining three boys. It is a cultural thing as much as it is my own experience being out there at 18 and in college dorms and learning about being self sufficient. It is also a financial thing in a sense, because I don’t want to have to be here raising these men past the next 5 years. I have our last one turning 18 five years from now. That puts him gone to college the following fall. That puts us gone by at least then.

It is a different mindset. Whereas she is about being here to help them grow, I selfishly want to help them get to an earlier exit stage of growth and then leave too.

Nearly 50 yrs into (and sooner than later out of) this life I am starting to gain some awareness of generational wealth and how some cultures have a leg up on others. I’m using the term culture here and not race very specifically. Culture may transcend race. It is true as such that poor southern white culture is closer to black culture than upper middle class culture is to that same standardized black culture. They are not mirrors. There are some things that race conveys that culture does not. The recent incidents with Serena Williams and Jhene Aiko are just the latest reminders that blackness (be it light or dark-skinned is not afforded the individuality that whiteness is within mainstream culture no matter how popular you are, no matter how much money you make, no matter how big the moment. If that were not the case these mistakes wouldn’t happen and if they did happen they’d achieve the level of infamy they rightfully deserve as opposed to a brief aside as they get.

That being said, there are instances in which culture transcends race. My partner is a first generation college student from a small town in the middle of nowhere. Generationally, she is one step removed from the outhouse culture circa The Glass Castle. In spite of that she is a college professor and she did that on her own, accruing the same student debt I did coming into it from being raised by a college educated mother. The cultural difference here is about family. My mom put me out on the street for the last time when I was 18. She gave me a bus ticket and sent me off to college with a ‘Good luck’ and a ‘I’m not filling out that FAFSA’

This is not how it went for my partner or, in the case of generational wealth, for her two boys. Both live at home. Both have anywhere from 10 to 30k stashed away from working. Neither pay more than a few hundred bucks each year for college either through scholarship or due to discounts because she is a professor. So, for them working is pure profit. The overhead they experience is that of vehicle upkeep. We buy the food, pay the bills, supply the games, etc. When they eventually leave the nest they will have a head start. My three boys won’t have that head start because I am not doing that for them. That is cultural. That is also a conversation for tomorrow, because my time is up.

At some point maybe ten years ago I realized that a fundamental pillar of myself had collapsed. I watched it fall and I did nothing. It wasn’t just in the details, it was the details. I stopped focusing on the little things in order to try to see some bigger picture view. As a result those little things added up the way one weed eventually becomes a weed-filled yard and that yard leads to a broken visage and that visage, once beautiful, becomes a dump. In that way I’ve watched my self and soul degrade into a dump. I’ve watched myself become a person who routinely allows assholes to not only walk over me but to get in my head. I’ve become a person who, instead of doing what I want to be doing with my life, is doing an unstable and watered down version of it because I am no longer operating from a stable foundation.

I think about how to repair the foundation all the time. All the while I continue to get older. I continue to grow into recognize death as an increasingly close eventuality. I continue to see my existence as a setting sun vs. dawning or midday or anything that promises long lived days or a positive future. I talk about being surrounded by negativity, but you don’t have to dig very deep into my past to recognize that the last time I wasn’t constantly surrounded by negativity I was 11 years old. I suffered from arrested development about a year later.

I long looked at lists as a way of organizing what was happening in my life and scratching off what needed to get done on a day to day basis. That stop-gap approach got me nowhere. The problem wasn’t the lists but what was on them and how much time I devoted to me and being a better version of me. Not much, to be honest. So, moving forward I am going to put aside a period of time–I don’t know how much–to rebuild myself and to worry about nobody and nothing else but that task.

I’ll start today.

This is Rene’ Jones.

This is Mike McDaniel

Both have been highly touted in recent years as being signifiers of success. Black success. Jones is one of 4 black CEOs in the fortune 500. There have only been 19 black CEOs in the history of the f500 and Jones gets more press than any of them. McDaniel has been hyped for years as the next great head coach. Now he’s being called an exemplar minority coach. Until recently nobody really talked about him being black. It wasn’t until the Dolphins needed to hire someone black in order to fulfill what looks to be a PR mishap based on the Flores firing that McDaniel’s race even became an issue.

What I find interesting about these men is that while being black, they don’t appear at all representative of black culture. That is the larger argument for me. The black people who are being put in front of us are, Black-ish. I use that term pointedly given the fact that the show itself ended because it was getting too black. Often our overarching American culture likes to pigeon hole black culture in a way that highlights the creativity and energy of the people as something sub-general to our reality. In other words, black culture is cool to look at and talk about but it isn’t to be integrated into the mainstream beyond fringe. Consider this: Billboard compiled a timeline of hip-hop performances at the Super Bowl. The timeline begins in 1998 and includes 8 different performances that include hip hip as a side piece to the main performance. In fact the only representations of Black American performance would be the 1998 Motown tribute, the Black-Eyed Peas performance, and the Weeknd performance. Except the Black Eyed Peas aren not black outside of Will.I,AM and the Weeknd is Canadian.

All of this is to say that Black remains a negative in American culture and a part of the reason is because it is and always has been shadowed by another version of blackness–a black-ish version characterized by Carlton and Urkel and everyone else capable of passing as a non-aggressive version of what we call black in America. All of this exists to preserve the idea of the aggressive black male because, in some way, we need that to be a part of our cultural identity as it always has been.