Month: June 2024

Over the past few weeks I have had the opportunity to come to terms with the things I like and dislike–doing so far from home and in a way that allows for detached analysis. Here is what I learned.

Heat: I am okay with that. I’ve been in 90+ degree weather while surrounded by a beautiful city with tons of stuff to do and that makes the heat less of an issue. It is not the same in AZ, and I put the focus on the heat there when I relly should not be doing that. It isn’t the heat’s fault. Which brings me to my next dislike.

Arizona: Sucks. That is all there is to that. Sure, I enjoy the allure of Friday night football if only because I get to watch my kids play. It was the same with Saturday Morning sports. It was always about watching the kids play. There isn’t much else to the place unless you want to drive miles and miles and miles to see some interesting terrain. Everything is too spread out to walk to, and the neighborhoods are not inviting in the least. I was born a city boy. Raised that way. A place like AZ is just a crappy suburb writ large.

Tennessee: If you’re going to be in a place where you cannot walk anywhere worth a damn, then be in a place where you feel like the space around you is worth walking through and you can get your mind fixed on the fact that you’re in the woods. TN does that for me. I like that. I like that I can step through the gates of our l’il farm and be there and feel good and not want to leave for days.

I’m leaving NYC out of this. I’m leaving other things out of this that I haven’t had appropriate consideration about. I know that place and lifestyle have been huge lately in my small world. I know that walking around is super important to me in terms of people watching (which I am finally getting to do and it is teaching me a lot about style, and people, and trends, and habits, etc.). I know that I want it to be a part of my daily existence. I also want beach access, for what it’s worth, because the sound of the ocean is needed, and the attitude of the beach I’ve come to love. These are the things, for now. More to come in the future.

The boy didn’t make the top 100 2027 players to watch. That’s good. That keeps him lean and hungry. He’ll get his flowers if he turns up the intensity and decides he wants to do the work off the field as well as on. It is a stepping stone to get on a list like that, and the real hurdle will be to compete in a camp next summer and look like a guy who deserves an offer. These are the steps I am concerned with. I want to see him get better and get fully engaged in the game. He’ll be getting plenty of chances now that he’s playing at two levels. He will get to play some JV as well as playing rotationally at the Varsity level. He needs it. He only played 5 games last year, and though he put up great numbers on both sides of the rock, he needs more snaps. He needs to see more offenses (and defenses) to truly get to a place where he is going to be that dog he wants to be.

Beyond that I am watching number 7 closely. He’s back home working out every day in preparation for camp this July. He isn’t going to be a day 1 starter. He blew that chance by not going to spring practice and instead doing the smart thing and enjoying a senior year. Now he has to work to show he deserves to be on the travel roster, and from there to be in the db rotation, and from there to start. It is, again, a lot of steps. But we take those steps. We love the journey.

The destination is where you find yourself when you decide to stop.

Odd how this turns into a travel blog every time I am abroad. It feels like a suitable outlet for the experiences I have while abroad, which means that maybe it isn’t quite so odd. Yesterday the Lady Talis and I spent the day in Napoli. I discovered during this jaunt that Naples is actually called Napoli in the language of Italy, which means it is actually Napoli. Rome is also Roma and Florence is Firenze. Dang near fifty years and at least ten of those in social studies or history classes and only now is my American butt aware of these things.

We walked nearly 15 miles in humid 80+ degree weather over the course of a day. We spent most of our time in allies and side streets picking our way through the city in search of Pizza and other cool stuff. We wandered into castles and down to the shore where we encountered huge cruise ships. We saw the mall, which is domed and covered in glass ten stories high. We learned of the ease of transport to the many islands nearby, which is why we will be back very very soon.

Napoli hits different than Roma. For one, the walk along the spaccanapoli, a road that appears to bisect the city, also transcends the depths of wealth and poverty. In the span of fifteen minutes on foot I stepped over a half dozen dead rats backing in the midday sun, on to a university area brimming with colorfully dressed and more colorfully spoken students, out into piazzas loaded with high end stores. To be fair, this small cross section of the city we explored barely scrapes the surface of all it has to offer. From the castle on the hill we were able to see the glass skyscrapers of a downtown business section we’d otherwise completely avoided. There are many parts of this beautiful city like that. Yet what we saw was enough to realize how old and beautiful and often diverse Italy can be.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’ve been giving real thought to the things I want to do each and every day. I want to spend time constructively with the Lady Talis–planning things and talking out important stuff. I want to do this less than I want to spend time just lounging lovingly with the Lady. Still, a day holds time for both. I want to play some manner of video game. Soon that will be College Football. I seem to be loosing interest in other games in preparation for the time required for this one. I want to write. I always want to write. These are the things. I suppose contact of some variety with my grown children, but I love that they have their own lives, so this is less of a daily thing at this point.
2. Next step: working that all into a daily life that also makes room for the things I must but do not wish to do, like exercise and work.

Naples.

You hear the word or see it and think a dozen different things, and I cannot argue that any one of them is wrong. I think STRESS. There are stories of pickpockets galore and there are tales to be told of getting lost and stuck and so many terrifying things. I am thinking only of the stress of getting there and getting around at this point, because this trip has been a great deal of stress. I suppose it is my fault for not being prepared and not having a real understanding of where I was going or how I expected to navigate a foreign city without a plan. I figured I had a cellphone and the rest would work itself out—only I do not get reliable service and I am reliant on Wi-Fi thus far. That being said, I am settling in to this new reality.

My partner, the good lady Talis, says the first part of a journey is detox. You are shedding the day to day of your normal life (when she said that I immediately thought of re-tox as we head back home eventually). I think she is right, and I really do feel my body, mind, and soul attempting a detoxification where I shed the skin of yesterday and reconnect with the core of who I am in search of who I intend to be.

This is happening on a cellular level. I am actually sweating out the bad and uploading the possible. I expect to get back to floor exercises later in the week, as I attempt to reconstruct myself bit by bit.

But this was supposed to be about a day trip. What I can say is that this day trip is a new beginning. I am attempting to shed the stress while I embrace the possible.

Rome has its ups and downs. One significant down is that I have yet to get to the writing. I have a side project and the main novel that needs to get knocked out before the edits for the other novel come back and demand my attention. I haven’t been doing so good with the keeping up. I attribute some of it to travel and the rest to culture. There is not a space here where I can set up and write for an hour or more. Heck, I haven’t even found a reliable place for coffee or gelato. Still the hunt continues. There is so much beauty just walking down the block that we have yet to discover or explore. It is a good thing we have so much time, because we can do such things at our own pace, and that pace appears to be late afternoon and beyond, given the heat and humidity.

Some Thoughts:

1. The new Starfield update introduced player-made items and missions, which seems like a wonderful plan. They set the groundwork by introducing a short adventure they made themselves, and several items. Then they offered a second adventure, but locked it behind a paywall. Same with most of the items. There are even ‘cheats’ which are allowed but are pay to play. Quickly it became minecraft with the access being based on how many tokens you were willing to pay.
2. Feels good to get away from the election-rich bipolar chaos of an American news cycle. Makes me feel grounded, which is exactly what the new back home seeks to prevent.

I haven’t been writing for the past few days–getting adjusted to life in Rome is a major undertaking. Of course it is only for a month, but settling in is settling in. I’m learning where all the expensive food is and all the good food is and that these are not necessarily the same place. My partner and I were just discussing the fact that we haven’t had a wow moment yet with the food here. It has been good but I still have my socks on. Yeah, I go old and corny on the jokes. It is, apparently, an affliction common amongst fathers.

We haven’t adjusted to the times yet, but a 7 AM alarm is in place to see if we can get jump started on that before our early morning/all day jaunt to the extremely walkable Naples in a few days. I need that jumpstart. I also need to figure out spots to rest because I don’t have 12 hours on my feet in me at present. After a while the humidity (I think) crawls into my veins and makes it impossible for me to function at peak. I ran out of steam this afternoon just walking the city streets. By the time we made it back to the walkup I was covered in sweat and ready for a shower and bed. I’m still up but it won’t be that way for long. 7 AM isn’t too far on the horizon.

Some Thoughts:

1. I don’t think I’ve been a terrible father. I feel like my boys are set up for independence and success. The three blood ones perhaps as much so as the other two, but I’m still feeling that some are better off than others. Two in particular come to mind with a 3rd and a 4th close behind. The baby I’m unsure about his future–he has to get himself right. The girl… the same.
2. Why did that come up? Thinking about kids going overseas and how wonderful that is…

Took my first cooking class in Rome and learned a lot. I learned, for example, that people in Rome often view themselves as Romans. It is no different than manhattan folk claiming New Yorker as a title or folks from Paris being Parisians. I feel that deeply. I enjoyed the experience. I enjoyed meeting new people and especially being out with the lady Talis and watching her have a good time. Rome is imperfect; the humidity is tough to handle, but the city offers so much color and nightlife. We intend to leave our walk up (and what a walk UP it is) and explore some of the nightlife offerings this eve.

It is nice to be able to go out and enjoy culture and activities–two things sorely missing from the AZ and often even the Seattle scene (a lot closes very early there). I am hopeful that we can find joy here and carry it through the days we get to be here. I feel like we should be able to do that. Of course, happiness is not a given. Sometimes sadness runs deep and true and supercedes everything good around you. It can be possible to emerge for moments before falling back into it, perhaps deeper than before.

I am worn down, so I am going to stop typing and seek some rejuvenation for the second leg of this late Roman eve.

It took days to get here but we arrived. Intact even. Once we were able to get to the airbnb, we crashed hard. We didn’t wake up until the following afternoon. I cannot tell you the last time before that I slept for 10 hours. It isn’t even a thing in my mind that happens. I needed it. My hands were swelling from salt intake and lack of medication. I ate nothing but airplane crap for a day. It might have nearly killed me. At one point I took a bp reading (post shower) before bed and it hit 158/98. Danger territory to be sure. I checked a moment later and it was 138. I haven’t checked since. I am hoping it was a blip and nothing that caused real damage. On the other hand, I have noticed my nerve issues have been a lot worse today after that hell day.

So, British Airways tried to murder me and did not care. We’ve established that. But what about Roma? It is fantastic. It is all that I expected it could be and everything I needed for a summer city. I love the space we have. I love the fact that the places we want to hang out are so close and transit is so close. Rome is bringing unparalleled happiness to this couple, and I aim to see it continue for a long time.

I’m still in London. It was meant to be a stopover on the trip to Rome—a quick hour and a half to get out of one plane and into another. Except the first plane didn’t let us out for an hour after landing, so we never made it to the second one. What has followed is a dystopic hellscape of a day. We’ve been on standby for every single flight to Rome, yet according to them, we’ve been taken off of standby by the time we reach the gate. There’s one more flight tonight and we supposedly have regular tickets. That will get us to Rome just before midnight. We landed in London at 9:20 AM. In short, we’ve been in transit for days now and with me lacking sleep, I’m about to crack and start yelling at people to fix this crap.

Only nobody cares. Not a single British Airways worker. We’re just caught in a machine that nobody maintains. While these people do their jobs they are forced to deal with us up till the point where they decide not to and legitimately tell us to go away. There is not anywhere to go that doesn’t cost us money. We are stuck in this hellscape, tired and pitted against the world. Romantic, isn’t it? I am sure we will reflect in that fashion at another time, but for now the anger is righteous and it is bright.

I don’t know what time it is where ever in the world you find yourself reading this, but consider this: An airline is only successful if it keeps customers. Maybe one day I will have the platform to convince people to speak their truths and their horrors dealing with BA specifically, and Heathrow in general. I’m looking forward to it.

Ten hours is a long time to spend on a plane. Not my longest, mind, you, but a serious chunk of time to move oneself across the planet to a destination that feels better. At least better at the time. We are enroute to Italy for a month of relaxation and exploration. I am personally excited by the opportunity to get away from the desert for that long, but we are in fact going into the Italian summer complete with all of the humidity you can ask for. Out of the frying pan and into the fire as they say.

One thing I am fairly pleased to get away from is football. Odd that. However, it is an important break if only because I’ve realized that the one thread keeping my mind somehow attached to the idea of coaching is the idea of proving myself to the ones who do not already support what I have done in the past. This happens at occasionally. I find a group of coaches, try to fit in, and don’t. This was the case for two such stops, so I suppose it happens less than half the time with football. I suppose I also intended to push myself to the next level at some point, but realize now that the time involved is not worth it.

Still—I want to call plays. I think the NCAA game (and a little research into developing a scheme that transcends the field to the console) will go a long way towards getting me right.

Rome will go a long ways towards getting me right on many levels, and I look forward to exploring each one.