Month: October 2023

I had a plan for today. Well, actually I had a plan to develop a plan for today and do some shopping for the upcoming wedding as a part of that plan, but the point is that it is after 1pm and I haven’t done anything. I cannot stress enough how much of my mood is tied to my home life. If things are off, then I am off and often ruinously so. This creates a huge burden for my partner who doesn’t want to throw me off balance, but is also a living, breathing, feeling human being who has legitimate wants and needs and concerns. I need to be better in responding to such things and keeping my responsibilities on track at the same time.

In the meanwhile, I am still fighting to get back on track and get the words down and handle to avalanche of work. I’m still the guy wishing I had more to do and not being done with what I got going…

Some Thoughts:

1. If UCLA loses to Stanford then we have to consider that maybe Stanford just woke up. Regardless, the Pac 12 is having a hell of a final season.

It occurs to me that Nanowrimo is beginning in less than two weeks, which means that next week is the last friday for a while that WONT be about fiction. I’m going to get into what that story is next week, because I am way too full of other concepts I must deal with in the now. I can tell you this: It won’t be Shadowrun and probably won’t be science fiction. I need to do/try a different concept for a while and really stretch my writing chops. Part of the 10 minute rule for me is to unload concepts and experience different types of writing. I could go with starting from an activity or roll up a story like last time. Who knows? Well, you will and so will I next Friday.

No, this week is about bringing certain projects to a close, clearing out my mindspace, and focusing on future goals. I’ve been so-so over the past weeks in terms of creating a manageable daily schedule with things to do and an expectation to do them. I get the basics locked in (classwork, one or more writing projects, blog) but the deeper list making and long term planning has thus far eluded me. After a while that future I look forward to is already here and I’m not prepared to face it the way I want or need to. I had that conversation about the future with my youngest in the car this morning. I told him that realistically, he’s 8 years away from being in a position of his dream of being an NFL player coming true. In short, he has but 8 years to make it happen and there are huge milestones along the way he’s yet to achieve or attempt to meet the challenge for. He is young (14) but he has a brother who is a senior and only two years older, so he needs to realize how hard he needs to work over the next two years to get where that kid is, which is realistically the bare minimum he needs to be in order to achieve step 1: A D1 scholarship. Will he make it? Hope so. I’m back in the mindset of ‘it’s not on me to force, but to support’.

I treat my students in much the same way. I’m building the scaffold for them. They construct the house from that model.

One week out from the wedding and I am starting to realize how little is really handled in terms of the fine tuning. Heck, the groom’s ring isn’t handled. My suit no longer fits due to explosive fatness. The partner is sick, which means I too am sick. All of these things are piling up and making me question how things are going to turn out. Of course they will turn out just fine, because this is how it goes, which I suppose is the real subject of this blog and reflection. See, things work out for the people around me. I rarely see my family absolutely fail at things. It is as though there is an invisible safety net strung tightly beneath us that won’t let us drop too far. I love it for most of us, but I dislike it for the young ones. They’ve come to accept that things will work out no matter how little they do to make things happen on their own. This mixture of laziness and unawareness of the true desperation of life leads me to fear that they won’t survive should the net one day disappear. It manifests itself all the time. Take for example the son who won’t come to the wedding because securing a ride is a bit too difficult. Will that blow back on him? Probably not. I suppose that is my fault that it won’t. Take even the simpler and comical example of the magic sink. The kids drop unwashed (and un-rinsed) dishes in there all day and don’t ever think about it. By morning the dishes are magically cleaned and put away without them having to lift a finger… It probably won’t translate the same when they finally leave home, will it?

Some Thoughts:

1. They won that game. The boy scored on offense and defense (pick 6) despite the pulled glute. He needs to get healthy, because he’s a week out from being a varsity player. He is about to play alongside his brother, and that is everything I want to see happen for them… and perhaps me.

Winnable games. When I think about the crazy loss Colorado suffered last week the first thing that springs to mind is winnable games. See, some players are just about the showboating and acting like they are better than they are without putting in the level of work needed to be great. You can see it in practice habits and you can see it in performance/will. I’m watching it unfold at the high school level. My freshman son had a winnable game a few weeks ago. They faced a Valley Vista team that is terrible. Yet they went into the game feeling like they didn’t need to work to win. It got worse when they took the lead–the first of the season for them. My son’s team lost that game. It wasn’t in the dramatic fashion that Colorado got got, but it was disappointing to behold. Tonight they face an Ironwood team that is flat out awful. However, that team does have talent and an ability to make big plays. I worry about the response to adversity for my boy’s team. I worry that they won’t be able to take the next step and respond to the punch. I hope they learned from the last loss not to take anyone for granted, because doing so is at their own peril.

Some Thoughts:

1. Struggling right now in fantasy. Hoping to move to 2-4 in the family league, but even that doesn’t promise a shot at the playoffs. I need to go on a serious run.
2. In the money league I just went down hard to the #1 team. This was my playoff opponent last year and our first matchup of the season went to him. The loss sent me way down the chart to middle of the pack vs. second place. I need to get back up in order to make a solid playoff run. That may mean making some trades to develop a roster that will perform well into the late season.

This is supposed to be a turnback post, where I look at the past and consider how I’ve grown. Instead I wanted to talk about Pacing and how to use it in order to avoid burnout. This is a growth for me. I used to write until I was burned out. As a result I was the king of fits and starts. Now (by which I mean since the past summer) I have been slow and steady and able to work almost daily and do a fairly good job of being productive –even when I forget about certain deadlines and need to pull myself off one project to scramble to finish another. The long and short of it is this: Writing consistently means taking care of your mental health. When you exhaust yourself constantly it doesn’t make you able to work longer (in spite of what everyone says about the brain being a muscle). Rest and reload is part of the process. If you aren’t allowing your tank to refill then you are running on empty… and whatever other cliche’s you can think of.

I’m operating out of order today, which means this should’ve been done sooner but wasn’t. Mondays are hard transitions for me. I try to fall back into the day to day of everything I am required to accomplish alongside the doldrums of what is officially a work day. The term workday has little real meaning to me as I do the same work every day of my life, which means writing stuff down. I am fumbling through another draft of the new novel and simultaneously drafting 3600 words worth of Shadowrun adventures that I thought were due next week. So, it’s been a bit of a hiccup trying to fall into the flow of things.

The upside of the day is that I am happily falling into the flow of the novel writing. I am excited to be back into this book and feel strongly about the direction it is taking me. I’m not in real control here and that is a good feeling. A novel is a living work. It goes where the characters take it. You as the writer can guide some of that in-story by dropping obstacles in their path, but good characters do what is natural to them and good writers both know what that is and allow it to unfold in the pages. I’m trying to be a good writer.

I am also trying to get ready for my kid’s wedding next week, so to call myself slightly overwhelmed is a minimization at best. It will be a huge pressure relief when this wedding is behind me. I love the girl and I want the best for her. Unfortunately, there are so many different people involved and so many different agendas and personalities conflicting that this feels like trying to hold a fully grown panther between my hands. It ain’t gonna work how I want it to work. Hell, I don’t even know how I want it to work. So, I’m just going to need to step back and do my part.

Football. That’s really all Sundays boil down to right now. I watch a ton of games. I watched the entire Jets game and was rewarded with a shot of dopamine following the late win. Now I intend to watch the Giants erase that lovely dopamine hit entirely. To say I have lost faith is obvious. To suggest I will never have faith again is going too far. Still, in a season marred by football losses, it is nice to see someone I enjoy to something right. It hasn’t happened much for the kids or the professionals, so when it does… magic.

And now, this…

Some Thoughts:

1. Among the most pleasant things I’ve purchased in the last few years, my Simplehuman side by side garbage can is near the top. It is, in a word, elegant.
2. You ever see an accident on the side of the road and continue looking at it in horror as you try to dissect what happened? Imagine watching that accident happen in slow motion and being utterly powerless to stop it and knowing you’re going to be facing the repercussions of it for a long time to come. Yeah, my life feels like that sometimes.
3. The Starfield video game is designed to take you through multiple playthrus (not a word), helping you get stronger and stronger each time. The side effect is that you have such an understanding of the world that you may direct your choices to create a place of happiness or horror… and then do it differently the next time. I’m enjoying my second pass. This time I am being quite thorough, so I get to experience the bulk of it now and how the skills to select the type of enjoyment next time.
4. Tough weekend in the word mines. Falling behind on the words. Gotta get a catchup day going tomorrow…

I am about to start watching film. I do so for my youngest from time to time–especially when I think I can offer some knowledge or suggestion to help him gain an edge in the game. He needs every edge he can get, because his team is flat out terrible. The problem is getting worse. The star freshman player making plays at the varsity level has seen enough. He’s headed to another school in the spring in order to make sure he is eligible to play for them in the fall. This means that for yet another year in a row we watch talent leave the school and become a big name somewhere else. I don’t know what to do at this point to help his team be successful, so I focus on helping him be successful and being the best player in the state at his specific position. What position is that? He wants to be a cornerback, but presently his DB coach wants him to play safety. He can do it. He has the physical form for the job, but at the corner position he could blossom into an NFL talent. I don’t know that the same can be said at safety. Perhaps he can, after all, his brother who is also a natural corner is playing safety this season and making plays –big ones–in every single game. It is hard to change direction when you have your heart set on one thing.

It is hard to find personal success in an organization with little fan support and a growing history of losing. So for now I am focused on one game at a time. Perhaps this is the big time lockdown CB game and WR breakout game he needs to establish himself as someone coach can put in at the next level this season. While that remains to be seen, he only has two games to show it. Both appear winnable. This one more than the other. I’m looking forward to helping him sort it all out.

I am truly drained.

I don’t have any real reason for feeling this way. I haven’t done much more than walk a few miles this morning. In fact, I am watching my partner exercise outside the window of our shared office as I sit here in a chair and type. What the hell do I have to be drained about. I don’t know the answer to that. All I can say is that some days I feel entirely wiped without reason. Today is one of those slow moving days where I don’t want to write or do anything more than sit in bed and move a controller around.

At least I’ll share…

Some Thoughts:

1. Yesterday I wrote a little about the events unfolding in Pakistan/Israel without having a complete picture of the growing situation. I have more pieces now including the reports of 1200 dead and nearly 6000 injured on the Pakistani side and the declaration from the Israeli forces that all 1.1 million need to exit the region immediately. That’s wild. Where are they supposed to go? I say this as I am living in a country who doesn’t really do well with importing certain types of foreigners.
2. Big game day for the mid kid tonight. He plays the AZ televised game of the week. I hope he is relaxed and does his thing. It is a great opportunity to move closer to that D1 scholarship offer.
3. BP of 126/93 is better than it was, but isn’t good. I am running out of chances to get right.

I was reading a Jack Ryan Jr. novel this morning and it said, off-handedly, that a middle eastern nation attacking Isreal would bring about armageddon. This is no small remark–in spite of the method of delivery. But how much of it is truth? Here is what I know from the media: Isreal was attacked by Hamas. While being treated as a terrorist organization, Hamas does hold 72 seats in the officially recognized Palestinian government. The attack carried out by the organization was not state sponsored and was carried out by militants of that organization.

The attack, a raid on a music festival in Israel, was two years in the planning. According to multiple sources (see reuters) Israel mistook the preparations for posturing, and wound up ignoring the signs (circa 9/11). The parallels to our own history don’t end there. Initial reports played up the devastation. At one point President Biden spoke of seeing babies beheaded. The White House is already walking back claims of beheaded babies, a sure sign that what we are being fed by Israeli officials is an interpretation of the truth. What is also a matter of interpretation is the severity of these incidents. Make no mistake. People died. Early reports suggested 800 died in the attack and that number has since risen to 1200 including 22 Americans. The response has been equally severe and appears to be endless. Israel called up 300,000 reserves in an effort to cleanse the area block by block.

What we are talking about when we talk about cleansing is Sunni Genocide. Make no mistake about it. The intention is to wipe those of the Sunni faith off the map and end any question of future provocation. This is the point where I grow extremely concerned.

I don’t know if this qualifies as armageddon, but I do know that this is going to be a serious problem moving forward in this already volatile world political climate. We are at a turning point. We will all see which way we spin.