Month: December 2023

Life can be an adventure sometimes, and when it is you need to be ready. I walked several miles today—7 I think. That massive walking life is part of why I love being out here in the northwest. Walking is a daily factor of life and often the very reason to get up and out in the morning. The more I walk, the healthier I become, which is why I gained close to 10 lbs since this summer simply by sitting on my ass in the desert. It’s funny, may pundits act like Arizona is a wonderful place to retire, but Arizona is actively trying to kill me before I reach the age of retirement. I find such conundrums suspect.

Walking, writing, gaming. That’s really it for me. The first is me spending time with my partner and the other two are how I dedicate my alone time. I’ve always been comfortable with that. I occasionally question the way I sort out my days away from the work life, but it always comes back to those three things. Walking is largely about movement and spending time outdoors. Gaming is about getting lost in competition. Writing is about getting lost in other worlds. So, it turns out a great deal of my life comes down to getting lost or finding myself.

Some Thoughts:

1. A quick glance at fantasy reveals that I am going to get screwed over by a player who, for whatever reason, decided to ignore the fact that he is starting someone on bye week instead of Barkley. The dude is a huge Giants fan, and that just makes me mad.
2. The same kind of thing is happening in the home league, but it is to a purpose. One of my kids is throwing the game to the bot, because that puts the bot in the playoffs and knocks out a brother who has been getting stronger by the week. Well played, young man.

Experiencing technical difficulties connecting to the internet tonight. I didn’t even bother last night. I think what will happen is a Tuesday dump where it all comes out at once. Heck, maybe that will even be Wednesday. There is a kind of freedom writing directly to the computer and not thinking about the fact that everything I write is forever linked to a universe that will see it and not understand it from the perspective of the writer. Then, at the same time, I have this distant fantasy of the writings being captured and used to reverse engineer some rebirth of digital me—It feels like future AI will need to get their personality from somewhere.

Been enjoying this brief trip to Seattle. Been enjoying the fact that we don’t have actual plans with dates and times attached. I love that we have the freedom to decide how to spend each day, and as a result each day feels like living in freedom. I’ll need to talk about some things that went down in Bellevue, but I am not there yet. Still too raw in the memory. Presently I am watching Family Man on my anniversary, reveling in the irony of a show that talks about a man getting a glimpse of a better life, while I am that man living in his glimpse of a better life.  I have been extremely lucky my entire life and that continues on through these moments with my partner. I’m fortunate to have her and to have the life we have together. This is the sort of thing people dream of and often never get. Yet, here I am having it.

Life be like that sometimes.

I’m on a plane again. I’m writing this as we make our way to Seattle for a brief escape from the desert environs we call home. I’ve started calling Seattle a second home of sorts. For as much as I’ve been there over the past few years it is definitely starting to feel as such. That being said, I haven’t seen the city since February. I am looking forward to what has changed/grown since I left. I used to have that sort of feeling about New York. Back then I went home enough to notice the gradual change. Now each time I return it feels like I’m visiting a nearly unfamiliar space. Sure, some of the places I knew the most are the same—the apartment complex where I grew up, the bookstores down near 14^th, museum row. However, when I go anywhere I was only tangentially connected to, it feels like I’ve never seen the place before. I haven’t been to NYC in what feels like a decade, so I don’t know how it will feel next time. All I know is that going to Seattle feels comfortable in the way New York used to.

Some Thoughts:

1. Plane writing is focused writing, which is why I’ve been at it for five minutes and have this many words.
2. Despite the ‘focus’ I am still struggling with the project that Is due in a few days. I believe that is due to a lack of creativity. I definitely know the material pretty well now, but I feel like I am not exploring the possibilities of the format.
3. I also wonder if I am doing a good job of recognizing what I want the roleplay aspect to be. I’ve done a middling job of creating what I would view as engaging roleplay scenes. Sure, the big picture of some of these scenarios is cool, but there is almost no attention to scene work—the moments where the players say, ‘My character says…’
4. Some of that may have to do with the way I approached it. That means a legitimate rethinking of context over these next few days. I want it to be right. I want it to be good…
5. Signing off from high in the clouds.

Since the start of my relationship, I have not spent a single night home alone without the kids. It has happened in other spaces, but here in our home, never. Now we have the sweet taste of freedom for a little while and man does it feel good. I’m just settling into the idea of being able to feel free and relaxed at home and not have to be concerned about anyone but the lady (and the pets, I suppose). It allows us to create a new rhythm in the house, get stuff done, and just feel like we can do what we want in the space without worrying over kids. I love the thought of this and in practice it is pretty chill even in the first few hours.

Some Thoughts:

1. Planned to write from 8-12 today. Didn’t. I think It will be more of an 12-3 deal for me. I’m not quite prepared to sink into it and I want some more time feeling out the space with the lady and doing a little more me time. I need to put in the word time today. I’ve graded a considerable amount since the early dawn, but the words… the words need their comeuppance.

I was the best of times, it was the worst of times… Well, it was mostly the worst of all time. I failed at fantasy at such a horrific level that I cannot imagine doing this badly again. I just didn’t know what to do. If I had a choice between two players I chose the wrong one every single time. There were 8 weeks where my bench outscored my starters. All of this led to me looking forward to the toilet seat award and a first pick in next year’s draft. What will I do with that pick? I don’t actually know yet. It is going to require some legitimate research, which is a thing I used to do but stopped. Like my wins stopped. Such is life and fantasy football.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yeah, not a lot to say about the sport tonight. I don’t really considered fantasy a sport. It is a semi-complex gambling scenario. This is all.
2. Not a lot to say about a whole lot. I’m drained and not much for the words. It has been a long semester loaded with complaints and students aching to get over. I’m tired of it. Glad to be done with classes (save for finals)…

Taking L’s this week.

Got in a fender bender with a 16 yr old in a BMW. Happened in a private parking lot and, as blame cannot be proven, we both walked away needing to cover our own repairs. Except I cannot cover repairs. I’m not in that income bracket at the moment. Heck, I’m trying desperately to get to the point where I can afford (and have the time to) change my oil. Add to that a deadline that is ringing loudly in my ears as I stare at an incomplete draft. I don’t know, but this week seems kinda odd.

I’m turning back, not to a particular blog, but a time frame where I was a little closer to having my stuff together. I was living in the big house in Maricopa, a suburb of Phoenix. half the week I had my kids and it was a rattling mess of a situation where I was struggling with being a single dad. Yet one day a week I had peace. I would read my Thich Nhat Hanh and fall into a rhythm of understanding–both of where I am in life and where I was trying to go. I have lost sight of that feeling because of the bustle, because of the mood of this new space and the emptiness of forward motion mixed in with an undeniable hurriedness at times.

“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves” Thich Nhat Hanh writes. Yet where are my pauses? I am forever rushing and forever holding on to things–like the fender bender last night. Such things plague my dreams, leading to situations that haunt me. Last night I dreamt of my birth father and we argued about my station and action in life and all of my failures and he tried to give me advice, but I cannot remember what he said–just the anger and opposition of the moment. Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.” I need to find that freedom and release, and I’ve struggled with this time and again. This is why I cast back to that time and those moments where I found a sense of peace and freedom. I long for that. I long for the patience I once revered.

I’m sitting in the office, which has an outside door–double doors actually–one of which is open to the cold morning air. My hoodie is on and up over my head as I type and reflect on this new day. My hands, cold and arthritic, feel like dry reeds smacking at the keys. I’m not that old, but I’m past the midway point of life and constantly surrounded by people 30 years younger than me, so I feel old. I feel it so much that when I am with other writers my age I am like, what are these people? where do they come from? what is this world I find myself in??? I believe that contrast is why I never feel quite settled outside the singular shell of my relationship. I’ve been thinking about that unsettledness for sometime now. I consider it when I hear talk of friendskivings and white elephant parties. I consider it when people discuss taking cruises and traveling to far destinations with a click of friends. I don’t live in that world. I live in an isolated space of my own making in which I do those things (travel, explore, see new things, go out) but do it in such an insular fashion that my inputs–my understanding of the world from others–comes almost mainly from the students I teach, the shows I watch, and the conversations I overhear in public.

In short, I need to get out more.

Not a lot more, mind you. I’m extremely happy in my shell. However, in terms of experiencing new ideas, I fall terribly short. I fear this is part of the problems I am experiencing in so far as creativity. Garbage in, Garbage out is a functional flaw, but Garbage is better than nothing at all. I have long said that I need better inputs, yet as with the exercise and diet, I’ve done practically nothing to fix it. I have done as I have done with most of my life, which is lay back and let it happen. In order to improve in life you (read: I) need to be active in creating the change you seek. I’ve not done this much, and nearing 50 yrs of life, I’m terribly out of practice. Fortunately life has provided me a slew of opportunities for betterment. I am, if nothing else, one lucky SOB. I just need to honor that luck with action.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am still a terrible typist. I could go dark and start training to be better. I suppose the fumbling around I do is just that, but it does suck to make som many errors when I don’t directly stare at the keys (and sometimes even when I do).
2. Close to ten here, but I did lose track of time. I was in a bit of a zone, just writing away. That is a good sign. I crave those anymore…

Occasionally, the best day of writing is the one where you hardly write anything down. Instead you gather your thoughts and clear the cobwebs from your creativity, remembering what sort of writer you are and intend to be. I was able to spend the day chilling out and just thinking about the work I am doing. It was needed and healthy and now I feel like I have a few really good ideas and a direction I can head in now as I work through this last week of drafting. I’m excited to move forward with the project and take this next big step. Feels good to be on one again.

Some Thoughts:

1. Well, fantasy didn’t work out. I am all but eliminated from both league playoffs. Such is life… and fantasy.

Every morning I start my day by playing having coffee with the lady and then wandering off to play a video game. I like it. It makes me feel like I start by spending time with her and then getting some me time in. I don’t know that it is going to last. The thing about being in a relationship is you have to find compromise. This may be in the order of operations or the operations themselves. As I move through life and encounter more people and learn who it is I do and don’t want to spend time with, I also learn how I do and don’t want to spend my time. For me that time usage comes down to a small list of issues and factors.

To begin, I don’t want to spend my time drowning in hate, insecurity, or any of the myriad issues or feelings associated with that. This means that I need to be happy for the most part and I need the people around me to be happy for the most part. What I am learning is that for most of the most important people in my life, being happy means the day needs to start with action. Me sitting around and gaming is not action. Me going to the office to write is not action. What is action is taking care of the chores and following up on household projects–physical jobs that show results. When that becomes the daily focus, then the day goes well. The other stuff–the gaming and writing and any other solitary habits–are better left to later in the day when nobody is around or left to directly after the physical is tended.

There are a couple of ways to look at this. I used to look at it as, ‘anything that matters to me and reflects my way needs to be sidelined for everyone else’. That isn’t reality. Instead the reality is compromise. As I stated at the top, you have to find compromise. There is space for me to be me and to sit and game and do stuff that people outside of me really don’t care about. There is just less of it. In terms of gaming, I need to set aside time outside of the hours where there are expectations upon me. In terms of writing, I do need to adjust to not writing whenever I choose to, but having a specific schedule that is respectful of compromise and how others in my life are operating.

I often discuss how powerful it can be to be surrounded by makers. I recently realized that it has been 20 years since I graduated from college with my MA and was surrounded by a solid group of makers. In reality, it feels like my own creativity has slowly petered out over the last 20 years as if all the fueling up I did back then has finally run dry. However, I still find inspiration every day. I wish I could be like Jelle, creating beautiful and thrilling stories about marbles in what has become for me the purest form of sport possible.

I need to develop a plan to restore that sense of creative energy. It starts with giving myself space to relax and recharge, but it is also about what I ingest. Garbage in, Garbage out is a long time philosophy of this blog and by default, my life. As I watch the final race of Jelle’s Marble Runs Marbula 1 season 4 I recognize that creativity and story can be found anywhere and in anything. I need to get out of this rut of a daily life and move back towards a life and space where creativity and wonder live at the core.

Is it about leaving where I am? Maybe. Unfortunately, that is not an immediate solution. An immediate solution would be to be more engaged in how I shape my day and what I allow to enter my mindspace. Over the last week I’ve been drowning in what can only be described as assholery. I let those people rent space in my head and that set me back. I need to cut that out of my life. I need to go back to daily readings of positive material, exposing myself to something new and creative each day, trying new things, and refocusing on the physical side, because the mind often goes as the body goes. Garbage in, Garbage out is not always just about the material you mentally consume.