Month: March 2023

I’ve been a bit lost as of late and I think it has a lot to do with my age. This is not the entirety of the problem, but more of a symptom of an underlying condition, which resonates more specifically at the frequency of failure. I’m at an age now where I thought I would have a lot more figured out, and frankly a lot more. Yet here I stand the owner of nothing and able to pass nothing on to my kids beyond decent advice. This is not the way to build a legacy or generational wealth or any of it. I’m in a relationship with a partner who has created all of that for her kids. They’ll have something when we are gone. My kids won’t, and I have to recognize that this may never change. The displaced feeling is about not feeling like I have anything that can’t be taken away from me or can be passed on when I pass. It makes me feel like all I tried to create I failed at and now I’ll never get a chance to do because I’m past that age of being able to create that in any meaningful way.

I hope I don’t pass that on to my kids.

NFL.com is frontpaging an article titled, “who needs to win the draft” as if a draft alone is going to change the game. Articles like that are click bait that openly ignore the reality of the game and, moreover, the stuff these same writers have been saying over the the course of the year(s). Here is a prime example: Ezekiel Elliot was called out the moment McCarthy took the reins. The issue? Mikey runs a style of offense that features fast and shifty backs who are good with the catch. Elliot is not that guy. He hits the hole and goes hard. So, over the years, he fell off. Not that he isn’t still a good back, he’s just not built for that system–or any system outside of Cincy really.

Meanwhile, A top 4 QB remains unable to get anything beyond a franchise tag. Nobody wants to make that trade, and it makes me wonder if he will find movement on the free agent market next year. In the meantime he’s making 32 million guaranteed this year. That is not ‘end of career’ money for a guy who wants to live his lifestyle, so he is going to need more. I get the agent thing (10% is a lot) but he does need to realize the NFL is a blackballing league, no matter what they say on the surface. Ask for too much and you’ll wind up like Colin K.

On the homefront, the little guy is sitting between 10.99 and 11.09 (hand timed) for his 75 hurdles. According to this bit of research, “the measured differences between the handheld and the FAT results ranged from 0.10 seconds to 0.26 seconds. Those time differences were evenly distributed between 0.10 and 0.26 seconds, with the average being 0.18 seconds.” If this holds, he is looking at possibly clocking in at 11.17 to 11.27 (as of last meet and no competition) for the District Championship. His best hand-timed run puts him just ahead of the school record of 11.21. Let us not forget his brother ran 12.75 as a 12 year old kid. He should’ve obliterated the records, but he was stopped by Covid from competing as an 8th grader. This is shaping up to be a great track season at the middle school level. I’m going to run down the high school season next week, because that will take a lot longer to unpack.

I don’t even need to look at a specific post to know I’ve been talking about lists for years now. In the good times the lists are helpful tools to cue a manageable workload. When I stop using such lists the good times immediately fade. I can get lost very easily and when I do I tend to stay lost–quite purposefully. There’s this quote I love by Steinback. It goes like this: “When I face the desolate impossibility of writing 500 pages, a sick sense of failure falls on me, and I know I can never do it. Then gradually, I write one page and then another. One day’s works is all I can permit myself to contemplate.” However, instead of one day’s work, I contemplate every game and low hanging task I can conjure in my mind. I will do anything but face that desolate impossibility head on, and that gets me in trouble.

So, I need lists. Such things are designed to allow for that dogged daily contemplation. My partner is a master of lists. She is also a Virgo, so there’s that. My own sign points towards idealistic and susceptible disposition. It also speaks to high emotional awareness and sensitivity, which is why I’m of the collapsing into game-filled ignorance mindset. Knowing these things matter, because knowing allows you to work through and even around them.

So, lists. They matter. They are focal keys. They are touchstones for the daily life. I need to get back to that and do so in a reasonable manner, so that I can get back to doing what needs done, and quickly.

Some Thoughts:

1. Turns out the 42 open windows are vastly less than what is open on the actual computer.

If the world were to be captured in a freeze frame moment in time the way we do with the internet, and a future observer paused to have a look at my phone internet browser they would see 42 open tabs. Those tabs date back some years now. They come and go, but since I’ve owned the phone they’ve never been completely empty.

It could be the number of tabs you leave open is like the amount of random information that swirls through your mind or the number of stray strands of thought that go unfinished. My tabs are a beautiful mess of everything and anything that comes across my psyche.

There is a tab showing a database from the clash Royale game where I can track what my next prize ought to be. There is a tab, only a few removed from that one, telling the story of the great plague. Another heralds the NY Giant free agent signings. Two more tabs point to various locations in my youngest kid’s middle school’s website page. I sort through these on occasion culling the massive list down to a manageable ‘I can’t close that’ amount but never really dealing with what I leave open.

There is a tab about my heart medication. There is a travel tab or three. There is this tab—the 43rd which I am presently using to blog.

All of these are part of my daily life and connection to the world beyond the tiny hamlet I call home. All of these tabs are connections; tiny feelers into a reality I’m constantly struggling to understand and to contribute to in a meaningful way. I remind myself of the world and the work through these tabs and these tabs remind me that there is more to be seen and to learn and to love.

I don’t know what to blog about tonight. Honestly, this happens more often than not these days and the message or lesson in this is to simply keep going. I feel like I’m in the middle of a tornado and being pelted from all sides by all things and just trying to hold on for dear life while everyone around me is going through stuff and acting like their going through it alone but foisting the sometimes manic and sometimes negative energy on me. So, I shell up. I’m a little turtle like that way. Why? because locking in and not saying much is less likely to get you into a fight or argument than disagreeing or offering an opinion or trying to help others see the lesson in what is happening.

Especially when you’re trying to deal with your own shit.

All of it is fuel for the story bank. Every interaction and obstacle is an opportunity to tell a story or add to one. I’m finding that I have a lot that I can say when I write what I know and this is a good sign. It means the story situations are not all dried out and that I can sustain a tale or three.

So, I didn’t die, and now I’m taking the kids to see John Wick. Such are the ways of life in this time and age. My partner says I spend too much time thinking about and constantly taking BP readings. She didn’t want to use the word obsessed but she danced pretty close to saying that if I focus on this so much I’m going to stress out about it. She’s completely right and also too late. I am stressed. I’m writing this blog and thinking about whether I ought to take a reading after. I know I can’t change how things are, but I want to understand how what my body feels like corresponds to readings and I cannot do that yet. What I can say is that I need to inject at least two fifteen minute periods of mediation into my daily routine in order to have a chance to keep this thing under control. In fact, I ought to do three, because the middle of the day and the morning are the two biggest stress points, and if I’m waking up with 150-160 over 105 pressure then I’m not seeing it go down when I sleep.

Best case scenario, I’m seriously damaging my body while trying to adjust to the new meds. Worst case scenario, I’m dying or dead in a week. Morbid? Yes, and chronically unfair, but the truth is what it is and the truth is that I’ve really put myself in a terrible situation that I’m afraid I don’t have the tools to get out of. Regardless, I’m gonna try my ass off, because my partner deserves it and my family deserves it.

I deserve it too.

Not sure what I want to talk about tonight. Had some initial ideas, but my brain is no longer functioning at a high level. To quote the NIH, “Stress can cause an imbalance of neural circuitry subserving cognition, decision making, anxiety and mood that can increase or decrease expression of those behaviors and behavioral states. This imbalance, in turn, affects systemic physiology via neuroendocrine, autonomic, immune and metabolic mediators.” I’m under a lot of stress and don’t know precisely how to handle it.

Some Thoughts:

1. This high blood pressure journey is one of the most difficult things I’ve experienced in my life. It is a tough situation to go to bed each not uncertain that you’ll wake in the morning. That is stress I don’t need to have with High BP. Yet, having high BP and meds that are not entirely working makes it less likely I keep my stress levels low enough to continue functioning properly. I get confused more easily now and type much slower with far more errors, and that can be attributed to stress and mental decline. I don’t know what is going to work out in the end, but this current state is devastating.

Wednesday’s in the land of the talis is date night. We partake in a number of interesting and off the cuff experiences, but most often we retire to watch movies. Our movie last night was Shakespeare in Love, a John Madden film starring Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow. Let me start by saying this is among the best work I’ve seen these two leads do, and they work very well together. This is not the point of the argument, however. Instead, I wanted to write about love and about the bard and about the muse and all of the things that come together in my writer’s mind.

I first saw this film in my late college years. I was already pretending to be/working at being a writer of sorts. I was a Shakespeare guy at the time and, though my knowledge has faded, was most in love with the idea of love and romance be it unrequited or not. Here is a simple truth. The most romantic love is the tragic love. When those who want each other are kept apart it makes the longing ever so deeper. Such is the way of this film, such is the way of Shakespeare’s work, such is the way of all things that are good and far from abundant. I forget from time to time that desire is the thread that connects us all and connects us each to something ephemeral. Often motivators stress that you ought to find what you love and do that. I suggest you ought to find what you want and pursue that, for it is in the chasing that you find the most pleasure. Thi is as true of work as it is of love, for isn’t it when we are most complacent that we are most lost?

This, I think, is where I have forgotten myself. I became complacent in writing. At times I do become complacent in love. Such things never end well. Instead, I think, the wanting is the thing. The finding new things to want within what you have is too the thing. So, I mean to turn my pursuits in that direction. Love can be deeper, richer, and more meaningful. Such a quest can be endless. Writing can be more visual, more effective, and too, more meaningful. I don’t need to chase Gibson or King. I need only to chase that ephemeral 8 yr old who believed he could write for all the world.

The Jets are practically screaming, “Watch me!!!” They traded away Elijah Moore shortly after signing Mecole Hardman, the erstwhile speedster who could not quite fit in the KC scheme. He does fit the new Jets mold as a field stretcher opposite or even teamed with Lazard, and a host of very scary WR options in what is clearly shaping up as a four wide set. The reverberations of that move can be felt all the way in KC where former NYG WR ‘Joka’ Toney is looking more and more like their guy. I like it. I’m excited to see these fellas excel.

I’m more excited to see my own kids excel. I get the feeling my little one may get a chance to fill a spot on the Varsity roster. The team looks rather thin as is, and while this isn’t a good thing, it is a chance for the coaches to evaluate everyone, and figure out who can play and at what level. I went through the team meeting tonight and enjoyed Coach Molander’s level of preparedness and clearly shaped and nuanced gameplan for the offseason. He is starting from scratch and he’ building traditions and he clearly gives a damn. That is enough and maybe it will be enough to get my kids inspired and team-facing for the first time in a while. It is what they need in order to achieve the success of college offers they so clearly hope to gain.

Meanwhile, I’m just living the good life in my Madden season. I took over the Giants and, after a couple of SB losses, have them rocking an undefeated season with eyes on the big prize at the end. I’m building the dynasty I alway wanted and I’m doing it from the draft–not free agency–so I have cash to resign players. Perhaps not all of them. Some big name trades will be inevitable. Saquon is probably getting traded for picks next season, so the new RBs can get some growth in the system. All of this is fun and games. Sports are fun and games, but we put so much on the process and the outcome.

I wanted to write about a lot of different things today, and I am sure that some of them will exist tomorrow and even Thursday when I get around to talking about them. I feel it is important to look in the rearview mirror before you go too far forward, less you forget where you’ve been and get lost in the going. I’m back to over a year ago now, a post that read as 7.682, though it wasn’t. I’d flipped the first two numbers in haste one day and lost the thread of it for at least ten more days. This is how disconnected and deep into my wanderings I was then. I wasn’t looking in the rear view at all.

The post itself tells the tale of self reflection and assessment. I was doing a series of prompts that were intended to go in my CRW summer workshop. They didn’t. I kept the same old stuff and taught the same old shell, because I wasn’t truly focused on change then. I wasn’t trying to improve experiences. I was still lost and just trying to find a thread to follow back to somewhere or someone I recognized. I get lost like that sometimes. I forget what my goal is for pursuit of some new strategy or fly by night hope to get me going or get me to a point of success faster. The truth I’ve learned in my life is that fast isn’t fast. Fast is steady and without deviation from the pursuit. You write four pages a day for a month and you get 120 pages. You write ten pages a day a few days and take a few days off to reset, maybe get five or six a few days more and take another few days, and you’ll get through the month wondering how you topped out under sixty and maybe even feeling good that you got that far along. Still, it was half of what you had in you had you done it the right way. That’s mercurial. That isn’t fast or steady or, by the very nature of the term, sustainable.

When I took that pause back at 7.682, I was pausing in order to catch my breath and hget away from what I was doing because I was getting run down. I wasn’t having fun as much as I thought I would, and sure enough, I broke that habit soon after. Steady. That’s the message I needed to learn from it. Better late than never.