Month: November 2023

Back on the farm and life is instantly more chill here.

There is so much in Arizona that feels like stagnation that any sense of being away from it is freeing. Here I am in touch with nature. Here I feel like everyone is pulling weight and in the same direction. Here I feel free to write, so long as I’ve done enough on the chore front. All of this is reflective of living in an environment where people are creating and building and above all else have a sense of purpose and community. I don’t feel that at home. I have two boys whose community is largely each other. I have another boy who is a community unto himself and yet another whose community exists on his phone and outside the home. None of them help out unless they are forced. None of them are working in the same direction. I could go on about the negatives of the environment, but it is enough to say that life is better here. I don’t feel like I need to hide or feel pulled in a dozen directions or feel like someone is thanklessly demanding my support (which is what a lot of parenting is any way). I get satisfaction from the chores here when I don’t at home. I feel calm and at peace and can find healthy silence when at home I cannot.

Soon my partner and I plan to spend some time at the house without the kids. It will be the first extended (read longer than a few hours) period of time we’ve had the house to ourselves ever. I’m excited to see what the space becomes when it is truly ours for a while. It won’t be like it is out here, because out here is a different world (A wonderful one depending on the season), but it will be something. I’m looking forward to exploring what that something will be.

Some Thoughts:

1. USC looked at my kid for football. They’re saying no right now because of a bad 100m dash time, which is not actually real. His posted score is about a second off what he actually ran. In other words, they gave him someone else’s score. tough break, because that is considered official and it is the only time he’s ever run that event. Some minor investigation would show that his 100 time is markedly slower than his 110 hurdle, meaning it isn’t his time. Sadly, it doesn’t matter in the end. If they want to offer the kid he needs to show a better 100m and soon enough to get the offer.

Sports have gotten so bad for me lately that my only respite is the purity of the Marble League. It feels like any team I like instantly crumbles. Man I can pick a loser. Of course, most of them are NY teams, so that may be a contributing factor, regardless of sport. In terms of fantasy, things have gotten progressively worse. I do not have a consistent player on either of my squads outside of McCaffrey, and with him on a bye last week my money league team combined for 47 points. That is an all time weekly low for me. In other words, I hit rock bottom. At least I hope I did, because I cannot afford to fall lower or further, especially in the family league where I have a Giants-esque lock on last place. So, where do we go from here? I don’t have the answers and honestly I am losing hope. Fast.

Fantasy can be feast or famine. I am trying to trust the process here and hope that the strategy of developing a team with high late season potential will work to my advantage, but I need to make the playoffs for any of this to actually pay off. So far that only seems to be a possibility in half the leagues.

Yeah. I didn’t hit the publish button yesterday. That, friends and fellow writers, is the definition of failure mode. At some point it becomes clear that on some level of the fail you are in fact self sabotaging–either as a result of fear of failure or fear of success. They are very different fears but both arise from the root cause/question of ‘am I actually built for this?’

What does it mean to be ‘built for this?’ I’m not entirely sure about that. I know that when I was forty years younger writing was a gift. I would sit and write for hours, pleased to do so–even though I had video games and other possible distractions. I chose writing over other things. I decided that it was the most important thing despite the fact that I was told by my mother that I possessed zero talent and needed to A) continue acting and B) prepare myself for life as a trash man where I could reap the benefits of government work. Built for this means that you are going to sit in a spot for a few hours (longer than this ten minute rule) and write no matter what. You are going to dedicate yourself to the cause daily and when the words don’t come you’re going to sit it out anyway. It means that you are going to put yourself out there. You are going to show people what you have to say, regardless of how that work–that message–is received. It means you have a message to share/somethign to say, even if you don’t know what that is. Perhaps the not knowing is where the cracks first start to show.

What if I don’t have anything to say? What if I am not good enough? What if I can’t find the time? What if…?

These are valid and true concerns for writers. All of us experience doubt. Not all of us handle it the same way or even well. I am a patchwork of successes and failures. I am often a sham of confidence. All of that builds up to me stalling and stalling until I am hours away from a deadline and then, hopefully, pumping out what passes asa. draft. That does, on the most basic level, define me as a bad (form) writer. Yet it also defines me as a writer. In other words, it doesn’t matter if I am built for it or not. I’m here. I’m doing it. Now I need to keep doing it and believe in my ability. This is how I talk myself out of failure mode–by trusting the process. Heck, maybe it is time I invented a better process to help minimize failure mode entirely.

Struggling mightily today. I tend to call this state of mind failure mode. It is the mode I get into when everything around me feels like it is about to or in the act of crumbling and I myself am therefore about to break apart into wisps like Thanos snapped me or the Time Variance Authority broke the universe…. again. Marvel references aside, I’m in bad shape when this kind of stuff pops up. It is about the home condition, about watching the teams I love lose, and about a lack of personal effort and motivation. All of this adds up to me feeling like poop and me feeling like I have zero way of pulling myself out of it or even getting on track (or ever finishing) the work I am trying to complete.

It is 4:30 PM and I am doing the job work and trying to motivate myself for the writing work that must eventually come. It won’t come today, because my time is up. It is a habit of life here that on Mondays my partner works most of the day and I devote myself to her once she returns. I’m already a bit behind on that front, as I am writing this blog.

Some Thoughts:

1. I haven’t tuned in to ghost stories at all this holiday season. I just listened to the incredibly creepy story of the ghost that Stephanie and Misty Tasker purportedly saw. This was featured on paranormal witness and has been shared in other forms. It is deeply terrifying. The dread that overcomes me whenever I hear this is simply wild.

I want to open with a note about Marble League. It is wonderful, as previously noted, but the point of what I am trying to admit here is that a life goal has become to buy season tickets to Marble League. Yes, I want to be on the video. It is a sport I greatly enjoy and feel like it is a pure sport. No thought in my mind that the system is rigged. Why would it be? That isn’t the main point of this blog. In fact, this is me getting out more of those thoughts that were bubbling up and out of control yesterday. The biggest one has to be about privilege.

Yesterday I wrote at length about a work dispute that is rooted in the concept of privilege. Another moment of this came following the death of the student at my kids’ school. Several parents decided to organize a memorial event for the fallen student. They forgot to include the family as part of the event. In fact, the girl’s parents wanted to and DID go a different direction, hosting a memorial in Puerto Rico where she was born and raised surrounded by family and lifelong friends. However, these local parents decided they and their kids needed closure and had a different event. That is real nerve.

I don’t think people here realize how much of their lives are dominated by how they feel about XYZ. They believe the world moves around them and their needs. This is the American way now, but the problem is that everyone cannot have the world move around them.

Some Thoughts:

This is one of the rare times I’ve needed to compose myself before putting together a ten minute rule. It isn’t that the subject matter is so weighty, but the weight of the individual pieces is incredibly unwieldy. In essence, this will be a series of some thoughts, because none feel linked.

Some Thoughts:

1. For the first time in as long as I’ve been at my college I am at odds with people. It isn’t so much that I’ve done anything wrong, but that people want to take what I have worked so hard to develop. I cannot stand for that. I busted my butt developing classes and building a strong student following. It doesn’t go away because someone decides they deserve it more than I do. That is ridiculous. If you want to develop a class or a prefix, go ahead and put in the work. Don’t just take mine and act like I ought to be okay with you doing that. What kind of privilege do you think you have?
2. Speaking of privilege, I have spoken at length about the football QB at my boys’ school who doesn’t have the ability to play at the level he needs to in order to win games. His dream came to an end last night as the game was placed in his hands for us to win our biggest rivalry and secure a spot in the playoffs. The defense got him the ball back down by 5 with 2 minutes left. We had to throw. He couldn’t deliver. Season over. High School career over for my mid kid. He goes out with a loss that he had no way to prevent. Tough emotions there. Moreover, his mom didn’t even show up on time for senior night and blamed him for that. I don’t know about people anymore.
3. In fact, I don’t know about people at all. The more time I spend in AZ the less I like people in general. It occurs to me that the kind of people you see on youtube, living simulations of life, are the kind of people these folks aspire and pretend to be–without knowing it is all make believe. I don’t much appreciate being around it. They don’t fulfill my need for intellectual conversation or even a healthy good time.
4. That is it for now. More roils around in my head, but time has ended for today…

Promises were made that have to be kept. So without further adieu, I present the first freewrite of the month: Aftermarket Parts

Echo had every right to feel good. The new ware worked as advertised. Everything inch of his body felt like it was turned up to eleven. The doc InfraRed told him about had been a longshot. After all the old ware was buried so deep in his endocannabinoid system that most cutters wouldn’t even attempt ripping it out. “Lasting damage.” They said, “You could experience permanent ghost pains or even lose cognitive function.”

What he was losing was his edge. Seven years in the biz and he’d gone from cutting edge cyber-soldier to that guy with the tech package that wasn’t even receiving updates anymore. He ran the fingers of one hand through his thinning black hair as he pushed through the door of Metal & Mead. A Sliderule cover of CCR’s Travelin’ Band blared over crackling Sendai speakers. The crowd didn’t seem to care. It was Payday Friday and the mugs were all full. Quickly he made his way across the dance floor to the one remaining free spot at the edge of the bar.

Well, 12000 words still seems so very far away. I’m getting in a few thousand a day spread between two projects, but the goal of 12 K in the first week feels distant–especially in light of me only truly accounting for the novel as my nan0wrimo project and not the other writing I am doing and completing along the way. For those not in the know, NanoWrimo is National Novel Writers Month, a made up writing holiday of sorts incorporated by organizations such as this. People bought into it, which is why it has international following. I suppose in that sense it is hardly different from any other heritage month or holiday less the history behind it. Though young, nano is much celebrated. I enjoy it because it means people are writing and it gives me that needed push of competition to get my 50,000 words done in the month. That goal of 50K is the one set by the Nano-lluminati (not their actual name) to serve as the finish line for those who put in the work. There are virtual awards one can win. However, it is all on your own recognizance, so there isn’t much to prove you’re that person. You’re really just trying to prove it to yourself.

I’m trying to remind myself that I am ‘that guy’. Moreover, I am trying to get this novel done in a timely fashion to fall nicely into the publishing window already set for this book. Once that is handled, it is on to the next one and the one after that. More and more, as I age, I need less space between jobs to ramp up. In other words, I am turning into a pretty serious writer–the kind who back burners all projects that are not writing. It helps that I’m getting paid for them. The supplemental income fuels my travels, which fuels my writing, which… you get the whole vicious circle philosophy by now.

As for this Nano, I’m going to find a way to make it. The first step is locking into these writing hours and keeping my butt in the chair. I’m getting better at it each day.

Well, the Raiders finally figured it out… kind of. They fired their coach and GM. I blame the coach for being, well, Josh McDaniels. I blame the GM for hiring him and not trading away the players who will not return next year. The team is a mess, which is music to my ears as they are set to take on the Giants. My favorite NFL team didn’t fire anyone. However, they waived the white flag by moving on from Leonard Williams in a move that assures them an extra second rounder next year, but costs them a team captain. Give and take in all things? Let’s hope they don’t take the L to former Giants LB Antonio Pierce who is currently the interim HC for the Raiders.

In the fantasy lands I am screwed. I stand at 2-6 in my family’s ‘Beach Born’ league where the 8th player is actually an automated Bot account run entirely by NFL algorithms. The Bot is 3-5… and ahead of me. There is next to no chance of making the playoffs and thus making a run. Heck, I don’t even have a QB playing this week and lost my shot at a good one on waivers. This is practically end game for me there. Fortunately, the other league has me on life support. I have now lost to the #1 and #2 players in blowouts, which doesn’t bode well for the post season, but I am still a top 4 guy with a shot. We will see how it all turns out…