Month: September 2023

I found a post from 11 years ago where I talked about the hurdles of being a parent. Back then my biggest fear was my kid having an unhealthy fear of death… like his dad. Since then he’s experienced people close to him dying and survived that. He’s living and loving his senior year–doing it the right way. Meanwhile his little brother is struggling mightily as a freshman and pulling away day by day. So all that about me being a good parent? Yeah, I’m good only in baseball terms. I’m claiming success on two out of three and I fear I’m losing that 3rd quickly. I don’t know how to reverse course there. I don’t want to be coach dad too much but being dad dad isn’t working for him. He is isolating in his tech and really checking out on the world at large. I don’t feel like a good parent when it comes to him. I also don’t know what to do to turn it around. I don’t know how to talk to the kid in a way that he listens or communicates beyond one word responses. I’m losing and fast.

So, am I a good pop? Heck, when you throw in the adopted kids, my dad’ing’ average is about .350. I’m counting 1 of the six as a partial win. Baseball numbers indeed. But parenting isn’t baseball. I cannot rest on individual success but have to rest on what I did and what I created and what I gave to the relationships. I don’t ever think I gave enough–especially with the ones I’ve lost or don’t actually even care about me that much. That’s my reflection and growth on parenting. It is thankless work that never ends and never turns out the way you hoped.

Extremely tired on this monday and for reasons I have yet to discern. I didn’t sleep well two nights ago, but I feel like I got solid sleep last night. I may be in need of more or in need of just solid non-screen driven relaxation. I’ve been playing Starfield religiously for the past few days. Even after I noticed how much I was playing, I kept playing. The game is quite addictive. It gives me the option to build anything I want, so long as I have enough money. I can build an outpost. I can build a starship. Both are happening. While I haven’t gotten the hang of the cargo hold situation, I have definitely rekindled a passion for space gaming. Next it is time to write some space faring madness of my own. Yeah, I get inspired like that. I don’t know that I am a writer that has a ‘thing’ they do. I have many stories that take place in many different eras and worlds. These are not shared worlds a la King, but entirely different versions of reality bound only by the fact that they are realities.

Well, they aren’t realities until I write them, and I’ve been trying to do that for 45 years.

Some Thoughts:

1. Fantasy is going very badly. I don’t feel like I have much of a shot winning in either league and the champions tourney hasn’t gone very well in either of the two weeks.
2. Football is a huge part of my life. I’m in that mindset right now and deep into it as I am trying to help the boys get football scholarships. I wonder what it will be like when this is all over?

Playing through Starfield today I was reminded of two facts. First, I am a very uninspired ship designed. Second, I love space games. I love the ability to explore the galaxy, build cool stuff, and wreck fools. All of this is possible in the game, which makes it an excellent distraction. Unfortunately, it is so much of a distraction that I failed to do anything else for the entire weekend, leaving me with a very busy Monday that is going to begin earlier than it ought to.

At least Sunday was a smash hit. I went to the Giants game with my lady. It was her first game in years. She’s a seasoned veteran of the High School circuit, of course, but the pro show hits different. What was most surprising (besides the come from behind win) was how many Giants fans flooded the space. The red sea was actually quite blue; quite energized as well once the team got going in the second half. Up until that point the Giants had gone 6 quarters with only one red zone possession and had given up 60 points to none scored. Heck, they hadn’t been past the 50 very often. The offense produced 81 yards in the first half! So, they woke up finally and man did it feel good to be a part of the moment. Live sports are different.

I love energy. I love feeling it from the people around me, and that is why it was so great to be out among people who wanted to feel something. I feel fortunate to have been a part of that. It was a stark reminder of NY and the inherent energy thrumming through the streets. I don’t live in a place that brings that anymore. I suffer for it.

As I write, Travis Hunter has been taken to the hospital as the Buffs trail by 7. The game is not what the Buffs expected. This has been a tough one and you can see it in Coach Prime’s face. They don’t want to loose, because once they do the haters start calling even louder. Football is a tough game. This has been a tough weekend for the teams I like. Both my kids were blown out. 63-14, 70-7. This is one of those moment where they have to decide if they want it or they don’t. Seems like they both want it and both learned and grew from the losses. I am hoping the Giants learned from their loss last week, because I am going to the game this week, and I don’t want it to go the same way against the Cardinals.

Outside of sports, I just finished Stephen King’s Holly, a story that likely brings to a conclusion the story of Holly Gibney of the Mr. Mercedes trilogy and beyond. It was a wonderful story that felt like it was telling the tale of people aging. It made me reflect on aging and realize how old I am and how far from my youth I am. I’m not a kid. I’m nearly 50, and I struggle to fathom that. I struggle with the concept of it entirely.

Aging means being less physically capable. It means losing the identity I’ve had for so long. It means growing into someone else.

Writing used to be the funnest thing in my life. I wrote out of love and desire. I wrote with joy and passion. I wrote without fear. Then I became successful. Not great. Not huge. I got into a creative writing program and I realized that I was going to need to write to other people’s standards. I started becoming concerned about what those writers thought about what I put on the page. I started thinking maybe if I cannot be like them then I cannot be good. I don’t blame my program. The first thing one of my mentors, Joe Geha, said to me was, “Yeah, you’re good. So now what?” That struck me. It told me that knowing I was good–hell being good–isn’t enough to be successful. It took another decade for the fear to really creep in.

I used to be connected to some greater force of storytelling. I could lay in bed at night and tell stories about characters I’d just discovered. I would relay entire lives in that moment. I thought in character. I lived through character–not plot. I think the fear came from loosing sight of characters and trying to compensate with plot. I’ve never been a standout plotter. I can write one and make it decent, but I am no all star plot legend. What I did best was character. I haven’t been connected to that greater force in some time, and I’ve been compensating through plot. I have been doing this out of fear to reach for character and find that I am no longer able to find real voices. To find I am forever cut off.

I intend to do myself a favor and reach again. Around 4 am I woke up with a story in mind. I don’t have the plot of it exactly, but what I have is an image of the shadows of the people involved. It feels like I am close to taking a step back towards having access to that thing. I’m not there yet, but to quote Coach Prime, I’m commin.

I have a chart on my whteboard in front of my desk that lists 7 tasks. These are my daily tasks I mean to roll through each day. Often I don’t follow that board–a lack of discipline I am in the process of correcting. The board itself is the key to being successful. Anything you wish to be good at you must treat with a religious fervor. I feel like young people lock in on this rather quickly. I have kids (who are no longer young and in some cases quite old) who game. They devote hours to the task. Some devote more time than others, adding to the natural skills will research time spent on youtube gaining insights and tricks from the pros (or the semi-pros). They do this out of a passion that resembles the religious fervor I wrote of above. It means they are dedicated–perhaps without even realizing how dedicated they truly are.

When I first started writing–I wasn’t more than six or seven max–I wrote with that fervor. I didn’t realize it was work because I enjoyed it. The work was simply how I had fun. This morning I watched my partner construct a list of tasks to complete on this our day off. I gave her a quizzical little smile and she said, “You know this is how I leisure.” Indeed I do, and the smile was more of a realization of that process and how that passion of hers ignites her actions. This is key. You have to find a way to have that passion–especially for the stuff you do not want to do, because once you do that, you start running from it and start becoming successful.

Today I watched my son score a TD on a top ranked freshman team. It’s a positive step in his quest to be Travis Hunter. He needs to run harder on the field to get there but he has great instincts and is very athletic. He’s a winner. My fantasy teams are not.

the first week of any fantasy season is about figuring out where the existing talent is in their development and who is the new hotness. As such there can be gems in that first week waiver wire. Nacua from the Rams is quite a gem. I secured him in two leagues. The champions league is a week to week situation which only offers certain players each week. He wasn’t on the list.

so I’m 0-2 and dead last in points in each. I played terribly because I drafted poorly. Now comes the wheeling and dealing and looking for hidden gems. What I truly need to lock down is a reliable tight end. They’ve become scoring gems but I cannot find one who will show up. In the champions league I actually lost money because I started a guy who wound up not playing. Even one player down I was top 9k out of 100k. I cooked. Dalvin didn’t, so I am glad i skipped taking him. I missed out on Breece tho. Rbs might not be worth as much in the NFL right now but they are fantasy gems.

more on this another time

I cannot even properly turnback this Tuesday, because I am burned out. It started with a project that was supposed to be 6k that turned into 18000 because a teammate dropped out. That carried a lot of stress with it, because I have this novel that needs to get finished and these classes that need to be built and taught. I was so far behind on everything that I straight shut down. It went quickly to dribbles and drops of work from a guy who was getting ramped towards prime production. These are the hiccups in life that form you and occasionally break you. I started (and still) feeling old and run down, like I don’t have it in me to be a productive human anymore. That hurt. Badly.

All the while I was watching my half my kids fail at what they live for, and watching the other half accept an utter lack of ambition. Here I am thinking, “dang. I blew it entirely. My life and legacy is to leave behind nothing.” Clearly things were blown out of proportion, but it is that type of thinking–that stinkin thinkin–that leaves you thinking that it is okay to stop trying to succeed if at first you fail or face obstacles. Then I realized two things. 1. I’m not that guy. 2. I am setting an example every dang day. If I lay down in failure then that is what the kids and the people around me see. I am already sailing in an ocean of negativity, feeling like the one happy boat out there. I cannot just quit. I have to be that light-even if it is killing me to try to carry so much weight.

I’m going to give myself today to relax and reload. Then I’m going back to work.

In addition to being the hardest possible word for me to spell, the actual act of falling into any sort of rhythm eludes me. I simply have not been able to conquer it. There are, of course, reasons. Rhythm is an idea that can be very large. For me I am trying to establish at least a weekly routine. This is made more difficult by very little being static in my life. I’m away quite a bit, the boys are playing sports constantly, home life leaves little space for working at the level I need to work in order to stay on top of things. Above it all, I am a game junkie. Like bad, you see. Lately I play when I should be working, and that just means the work piles up.

Rhythm requires lists in my opinion. I cannot seem to get that one down, so the other is obviously a problem. It is a process. I need to begin that process again by recognizing the variables and recognizing what is not changing. From that point I can start to build a schedule and find that rhythm and focus on staying in that groove, so I don’t spend so much of my life trying to get back into a natural one after I’ve fallen off it.

Some Thoughts:

1. 9/11. On this day 22 years ago I thought I’d lost my mom in a terrorist attack. Turns out I didn’t. 3000+ other people lost someone who they cared about. It is still a national turning point. I just continue to believe we turned the wrong way.

concert was cancelled. So we went to vegas in pursuit of a show that didn’t happen. The more I research the more I learn it was a combination of heat, fans being there too early, and the crew arriving late. Basically the crew couldn’t get it done safely. Several people including crew suffered heat exhaustion trying to get this done. So it is being rescheduled to October. Okay… what about the people who flew in? Paid for hotels? How do we come back and do it all again? The cost can be quite prohibitive. I’m willing to bet hotels are going to raise rates and squeeze. They do it because they can. I’m not sure I can handle the squeeze. Fatigue has me barely handling the words