Month: March 2024

The weather is turning in Arizona. It climbs higher and higher each day, and we aren’t even out of March yet. Honestly, I don’t know how many more years I have left for it. I don’t want to be here when it is hot, and it is mostly hot. That being said, it is wonderful outdoors right now, and I am enjoying spending afternoons and early evenings in the sun. I am cradled by joy as of late. While not everything in life is perfect, there is so much more right than wrong that I find myself unable to even consider unhappiness as a choice. Every day of hard work is a blessing. Every day I get to be a writer is a blessing.

If I need to do one thing better right now it is to schedule my time better and to in that scheduling, make sure that I am sticking to the schedule. I waste a lot of time during the day. I pretend that it is all about unwinding, but it is chasing that low hanging fruit and endorphin rush that I know I can gain by simply sticking to an easy task for long enough. I need to move away from that and towards real lasting positive goals.

Turns out the Knicks may actually be good. Of course, my hopes are not high. They tricked me back in the 90’s… twice. You know how it goes: fool me once shame on you… fool me twice shame on me. There is no 3rd act. Instead I am going to sit back and remove all expectation. This is exactly how I treat my Cyclones in the big dance, no matter the seed. It’s a 2 btw, and they open against SD State. I haven’t done a bracket. I cannot say for sure that I will do a bracket, given how out of touch I am with March Madness.

What I am focused on and curious about lately are these wild free agency moves. The Jets are making moves and taking swings to get a ‘ship. The Giants are not. Full rebuild mode. They are building the Buffalo way and I am not here for it. The Buffalo way hasn’t won anything. Nor will the Giants for some time. Eagles have a shot. Ravens, Texans, Jets… all of these teams are playoff bound.

In Track there are no ‘Playoffs’ but there is a City and State Championships. I’m looking forward to seeing how the kid does. He has a real shot, unlike his little brother who is done for the season but still is trying to convince me to let him play football through an injury he refuses to run track through. I still feel like he is young and has a chance, but his time to be young is fading. He needs to figure his stuff out fast and get his priorities lined up. Colleges are watching.

Some Thoughts:

1. For the first time in my life, I realized Easter isn’t really a fixed date. This is of course because of what Easter actually is, which is NOT a religious holiday. See, it falls on the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox, making it a Pagan holiday which has been fully appropriated. No, it follows Good Friday you say? Well, curiously, Good Friday is based on the Easter date…. which is based on the lunar cycle… which is Pagan and reflective of a celebration of Ostara… Yeah it gets really interesting after that.

I’m taking is back a mere 200 days. 7.179. I was waxing philosophical about the observable distance, which makes me wonder how I really thought I was the guy who could just do that. 48 year old Talis was a different dude. Or was he just the same dude but a little more self aware of his “Hi I’m Ted, and have I told you about how I met your mother?” nature.

I also am beginning to stretch that term into a form of self-understanding. In this regard the observable distance between who I see myself as and who I physically, socially, mentally, and virtually represent as grows by the day. I am, for one, older in reality than I hold in my own squishy brain. I am less talented in many regards than I hold in my own brain.

Yep. I wrote that bit. So now I sit here considering the observable distance between him and I over the last 200 days. I am even older in reality than I thought I was and far less inclined to do the work to reverse course on many things. I’m in the “is there a pill for that?” stage of life, and I have to admit it is quite terrible. I feel like there is real truth to the statement and to the departure of self and actualization of self. In truth, It all boils down to chaos. I wrote that bit at a time where I had moments of self reflection in a controlled manner. Now I feel like I’m speeding towards the future on a runaway train and all I can do is to hold on. I think 200 days from now I’ll look back at this particular post and say, “man, who was I then?”

I’m ready to pause. I’m ready to get to the place where I can collect myself and think about how I spend each day and really truly refine that process and turn it into a life that is sustainable, enjoyable, and good.

There’s this theory–maybe I would even call it a method. The idea is that you write a grid with a hundred blocks on it and each of those blocks represents ten minutes of your time in a day. When I first saw this I thought, everything would be so much easier in base ten. Instead of 60 minutes an hour would represent 100. That isn’t how it is, so this method means what you’re really doing is taking two hours and allowing yourself twenty minutes to relax.

In that time you’re supposed to write down all of the things you need to do. Ten minutes to sort and start the laundry. Ten minutes to pay your bills, and so on. When tasks are longer than 10 they get a second box and so on. It is a handy method to sort out your day and ultimately your life–if you can stick to it. I’ve tried to stick to a lot of methods. Most recently I tried to assess my own times and tasks by creating a checklist of things I have to do each day and checking them off as completed. This lasted two weeks and then sporadically for another two weeks until we wound up here, with me blogging about what went wrong.

So what did go wrong? I simply did not follow through. I have a hard time with organization right up until the point that my back is against the wall. This is how I wound up needing to write as much as I have to as fast as I have to over these next two months in order to make a deadline that should never have been a problem in the first place. What’s mad is that every time I get to the point where I am working and grinding out the words at this rate, I feel amazing about it and about life in general. Then the work ends and I go back into what is effectively hibernation. I keep telling myself if the work doesn’t stop then I will keep going and keep getting better.

The truth is that I need to force myself to stay in mode and, like with that grid, only take a small portion of the time off and get right back to it. If I stop for too long it is tough to get going again. It gets tougher and takes longer each time. Maybe this is in fact what getting old looks like.

It is weird to get old.

I am, finally, resolved to the fact that I will one day cease to exist. What that means is truly beyond my understanding. In my mind it means that I have these moments and memories that I collect and one day I’ll complete my collection. So, for me the goal is to have as many wonderful moments as I can throughout. I don’t live for the afterlife. I live for what is in my grasp. I live for the love I feel for the people around me and the hope of what growth they can obtain. I guess that is why some of my kids so deeply frustrate me. I never expected to see them top out so early and at a level that I don’t personally approve of. However, though their lives entwine with mine deeply, theirs is not mine. Instead I am blessed with opportunity and possibility–even just shy of 50 years in.

I am happy. I am growing and trying very hard to be someone who is a creator and who is reliable and yet remains a kid at heart. I am also someone who is deciding on a place to finally nest. By nest I mean to hatch this new future of a 50+ year old. Oddly, I’ve been drawn to Texas. I think there are spaces there that exist that are inexpensive and create the opportunity to go elsewhere very cheaply. This is a reality that must be further explored.

I just read a story about a group of women fighting off a cougar. I’ve been reading posts from a good friend fighting off Cancer. Day by day I see these incredible stories of true courage and it makes me feel like there is real fight in people when the chips are down and their backs are up against it. I also see true courage in people around the world–people who are going through real shit. People in Palestine, people in Israel, people in the toughest parts and economic conditions in America, people on the border, people everywhere I look. Yet I also see politics diminishing the truth of so many of these struggles and I see people who should be seen but really are not seen for the hate and vitriol from which so many draw power and influence.

I keep thinking about Monsters INC and the deeper message that the power that fear can generate is so much less than what love creates. I don’t know that we as a people really get to see the truth of that. SO much of our media focuses on the strength of fear–be it the films we watch or the news they create to keep us enthralled. It is easier to reach for fear than love, that much is certain. Easy seems to be the key in this modern world. Easy and maximum profit.

I am terrified that Trump will win. I am terrified that he wont. Already too many have forgotten how bad it was over his reign. Here is a video reminder of how badly he screwed up the Covid response. Or this Atlantic article on the subject of his failures. Trump actively pooped the bed as a President. He set us back decades on the world stage. He forfeited trust in our country as a global power in exchange for the fear that we would be crazy enough to do something stupid and arrogant. That makes a great number of Americans very happy, but the truth is those same Americans don’t have any real sense of world politics, the balance of power, or anything beyond the states in which they live. “Truth” is spoonfed to them through apps and newsfeeds designed to tell them exactly what they want and need to hear to remain in the thrall.

If he wins, he’s pledged to be a dictator. That is bad.

If he loses he’s going to act like it was fixed and foment another attack on democracy. Just the other day he argued it would be a bloodbath if he looses, and he didn’t even attempt to clarify what that could possibly mean. The USA is walking into a lose-lose scenario. Shame on the people who got us here in the first place.

The latest character is ready for his close up.

Gene Peterson

Yevgeny Petrov left the Ukraine under extreme duress. As outspoken as a political supporter as he was to the opposition, the real issue was that he was a desperate gambler on the side. When you have a voice–especially a popular one, people take the time and energy to support you. When you are on the wrong side of a political affair, those same people–the people who know where you are weak–seek to exploit or even ruin you. So, Yevgeny turned to the Americans and the Americans turned him into Gene Peterson, a protected asset for thirty years until his usefulness was at an end. Now in his late 60’s Gene is a man with grandkids and a pension and a life in a small town where he is respected by his neighbors as someone ‘who came from Russia because America was better’

He is a staunch Republican, but not one for towing the party line. There’s a lot of the old Gene still in there and he sees a lot of what is wrong with the America of today and isn’t afraid to say it.

It has not been the most productive Thursday. I wanted more out of the work than I got and to produce more words than I did, but that is why I am on a two day when it comes to chapters. Of course, that two day plan becomes infinitely more difficult once school is back in session, so I tried to put some focus on building the classes for the second half of the semester. That didn’t go terribly well either. Today has felt like a fail throughout. I don’t know what it is but I don’t feel proud of myself today. I don’t feel proud of the writing, the gaming, any of it. I don’t feel like I’ve done particularly well as a member of the human race today, and I don’t really have a useful excuse for myself.

Though momma didn’t say it to me personally, the song sharing said fact that there would be days like this is cogent.

Some Thoughts:

1. Sometimes when I write I hear my voice in a British accent. I think it is a character thing, but who knows? I tried hearing it in a country accent just now, and that didn’t feel the least bit comfortable. Hell, I even made more mistakes putting out these words.
2. Yeah, I see how the voice changed right there. Odd that.
3. Who are we that we think we can tell a SuperPower it has to sell tiktok? Seriously. 752 million people in China use the app. That is more users than there are Americans. I’m not just talking USA. That’s out of pocket.

Let’s start with the biggest news out there (for me) Saquon Barkley is an Eagle. I hate it. I’m still not really done processing it. Yes, I will need to watch some Eagles games because I like SB that much and want to see him succeed. Meanwhile, my Giants are in a strange rebuild that starts with becoming the 2018 Bills. I don’t understand the philosophy other than to collect a bunch of former Bills players and other castoffs they are familiar with as they create a new young core of talent. This is how they ended up with Drew Lock as the new backup. This is how they ended up with Devin Singletary as the new (old) lead back. This is how Gunner O. wound up being the new (old) return man. This is how Isaiah McKenzie became the new (old) WR3. This is how Hunter Renfrow will likely end up being WR1 after being cut by the Raiders.

Not all the Giants moves were bad. The locked in a solid OG in the aging Runyan and a solid young DE in Brian Burns, though the latter costs 150 million. Still the majority of moves made in the past year involve resigning old Bills players. I am hoping this is simply stopgap and not a reflection of how this Coach/GM team sees the world. I really hope they can find a way to move out of the shadow of their own past to create a brighter future for a team I love and have next to no hope for over the next four years.

Speaking of hope over a 4-year span, my youngest who now measures in at 6’2 160, is out for the year with a tendon inflammation. He misses his first track season after competing in exactly zero matches. This happened because he was both lazy in his work habits and lured by the glitz, tik tok and instagram hype of 7on7. He didn’t allow himself to properly heal and now his real athletic opportunities are in disarray. The hope is he will make it back in time for Spring Ball, because he is in another new situation. His freshman coach is now the HC as the school turns to the 5th HC in 5 years. This is a horrible development of a 6A team in a highly competitive division. Suddenly we are the guys everyone expects to whip. Hopefully the kid gets right and gets a chance to contribute. I’m sure a lot of players will be leaving. He was already a varsity player and now he may get a chance to compete for a starting spot. That’s the one upside in all of this. You get better in practice, but you get noticed by college scouts on the field.

Some Thoughts:

1. On a sad note, spring break is half over. I’m not quite ready to return to the trenches…

I’m not going back to a post today. I’m going back to a feeling.

I remember last time I was full swing into a novel. It was 2020 at the height of the Covid drama. I was experiencing a world unlike I’ve ever seen before and all of my activities were focused on work from home. I had to schedule appropriately in order to get anything done. I managed to get on top of it by listening to the Lady Talis and putting my butt in this very chair for hours on end. I love that she got me moving and that with that push I was able to stay solid throughout the process. I am in danger of falling behind tomorrow. I need to figure out a way for that not to happen. In other words, I need to finely craft a 2000 word chapter tomorrow. Usually I have more time, but I was lax on the last one, which put me in this terrible spot.

Ideally, a writer should have 6 months for a novel. The first month is thinking, planning, outlining, and research. Once those 30 days are over you’re left with 150, but that doesn’t include the process of revision. If I don’t include that in the scheme then you’re looking at 670 or so words a day for a 100K novel. That means I am doing three days work tomorrow. This doesn’t include the other 10K words I need to hammer out for the other thing by Friday. So tomorrow is a big day. Luckily, I like the pressure. I like the way I’ve been writing lately, and it feels like something that could turn into a way of life moving forward. The issue is finding a way to make as much money from the keyboard as I do from the classroom, so that I can live the desired lifestyle.

Some Thoughts:

1. Sports talk tomorrow. Things to be said…