Month: August 2025

Watching our kids talk about us around a dinner table tonight is a strong reminder of what family means to them as well as what role we’ve played in that. Watching our in law, my brother and her sister do the same raises the level of reflective energy to the next level. Watching my mom say good things brings it all home.

tomorrow I get to marry the woman of my dreams. Tonight we celebrated what it means to us all to be a family and I was brought to tears by the love and the energy and the raw emotion on display. A wedding is a procedural celebration. It is a dance between two people and around them dance several others all balancing their emotions on a knife’s edge as the couple carves promises into the foundational stone of their future. This marriage comes later in life for us and it is the second for each both us. We intend for it to be the last, because this is different. It isn’t built from lust or expectation or some fundamental belief that the other can be molded or will change into a selfish ideal formed in one partners mind. This is built from a spiritual connection that transcends the physical while still being encapsulated within it. This is us living a life in which we strive to see each other’s dreams come true as much as our own. This is a partnership and one that is true to form and constantly evolving and growing.

I am excited to continue spending my life with this woman. The pomp and circumstance of the event is only a moment to further unite our family—a touchstone we can all look back on and see that we have done something wonderful together and for each other.

I’ve been thinking about bringing Dj Malik back. I’m not ? on this situation by any means, and nor would this mean coming back as a professional DJ. I just love making mixed media. I love designing mixtapes and such, which are very directed. I want to build such a thing around the CoyoteCon event we do every year at my college. I want to be able to drop a DJM 75 for the crowd to absorb over the course of a period as a backdrop to an event–a medley of songs and images drawn from the various comics, anime, and such that reflect the culture we are attempting to promote and in some cases refine.

That is the whole game there–I want to put my stamp back on what I think the culture should look like. When I think about what the event has been lacking over the years, it is that sense of “we are for the culture” and any effort to show what I think the culture looks like. I teach a course on games and game culture and I don’t even think I’ve done a terribly good job of reflecting that cultural aspect there–it’s been mostly a rote academic course masquerading as a game. I have forgotten the face of my Sociologist.

As the teaching season approaches I find myself needing to think more and more about these things, because I don’t do it often enough. It is high time I locked in and created a mood again. That is what I’ve always been good at as a DJ and as a professor… even as a writer. I need to get back to being that Talislegger and all of which that entails.

This was not a work day.

In truth, this is the first touch to keyboard all day. I did not write, I did not read. I listened to the Gunslinger quite a bit online and I listened to music on the beach, which was magic. I didn’t have that feel to write and that left me wondering where I am at. Between projects and afraid to really dive in, it seems. I am not in the headspace of doing that as I am three days away from my wedding and totally not in the routine of being able to go do the writing the way I want to. I will get back there–after the wedding.

In the meanwhile, I am loving these last days in Victoria. I am in a strange moment in life where I think I am coming to terms with the idea of dying. I am not dying soon (I don’t think) but I am savoring these moments and this life with the idea of an end state and not really recognizing that end state beyond that state. In other words, I don’t find any truth in the idea of heaven and hell. I don’t see those places as real in the sense of how they are drawn up in popular fiction.

I don’t know that an after exists where I know who I was. I suppose I am realizing that who I am is a collection of moments and memories and I will do myself a disservice by focusing on the end state as opposed to enjoying the moments of life and energy that I have now. This moment that is approaching is a milestone. I need to spend more time locked in on those. This is the way.

I am learning the way more and more each day. So, I need to lock in on that and focus on developing truly good fiction. I need it. I need to put it out there.

I am beginning to wander into the realization that I am old. It isn’t just the gray hair. It’s the way people look at me anymore. I’m used to being seen with a sense of strangeness as a black man in primarily white or asian spaces. That brings a certain expectation of stares along with it. Lately these stares reflect a different kind of otherness as I find myself spending more and more time in spaces inhabited by younger people who, unsurprisingly, view me as practically ancient. I am a 50 year old man who feels like a 35 year old man most of the time, and that sense of being part of that grouping rarely plays well with that grouping or the much younger souls (be it students or basically apparently everyone else on the streets or the beach) that I am around. To the world, I am an old head. To the actual old heads, I’m… I don’t know what I am to them, to be honest.

This wasn’t supposed to be the subject of the post, but 5 minutes in, here we are. I’ve spent quite a turn thinking through the strangeness of age, and I do not have more to say on the matter. So, I’ll fall into…

Some Thoughts:

1. The high schooler received his first Game Day invitation. These are not formal offers and may or may not constitute an official visit. An official visit usually features a phone call and the flights and room are covered. If this winds up being what it is, then this is an incredible achievement for the kid. He’s been super geeked to get an offer, and junior year is when these things start to really become solid, as opposed to freshman and sophomore ‘offers’ which basically amount to a team being interested in seeing how your HS career actually unfolds. So, we’re gonna see what they are really offering here in terms of what we can afford to do…

A quit coaching a few years back. I suppose there is a small part of me that wanted every version of the organizations I was a part of to cease and desist when I left. That’s the ego part arguing that it cannot happen without you there. It can, and should–that’s the mature coach part understanding that you’re a part of something larger. I was met with a fork in the road of my life the same way I was when I quit the Dj life. This fork was between coaching and love, because devoting the days to one was not going to jibe with devoting the days to the other. Being a coach full time meant putting it first. I wasn’t going to do that. I put in my last year when my youngest was 12. That was 4 years ago. That was four high school head coaches ago. Now the program is back up and running with a friend and former co-coach at the helm. I’m excited to see him and the program back on its feet. I am excited, because the goal is always to leave something in a better condition than you found it, and in this case that something is the culture and diaper to diploma program of Desert Vista High. I want to see my boy be a part of that legacy and help to lead these future Thunder down a road that will, one day, be successful.

Heck, they may even find some playoff success this year.

Some Thoughts:

1. Glad to have chosen the way I did. There’s a wedding in a few days to prove it.
2. In the meanwhile we are going to grab our daughter and her hubby from the airport in a few hours, which is a shocking development in our lives. We are leading our kids through international travel. Yes, we’ve done it before, but never with the entire tribe. That is just wild.

Not a cohesive blog tonight. No beach write. Just ten minutes of…

Some Thoughts:

1. Weddings are frighteningly expensive.
2. I have suddenly encountered Tariffs and they suck. What makes them suck? Well, its really strange but suddenly I am paying Tariffs on all kinds of products being shipped to me in Canada and not from the USA. Yet there is this sudden uptick in tariff charges… Because of the US? No idea…
3. I did go to the beach today and I did write. I’m on draft 3 of the first of 4000 words for a project and the only 1000 that is entirely me. I’m working hard on this thing and I feel like it should’ve been done two days ago. Weak sauce.
4. Honestly, it is tough to transition from story to game material. Almost as hard as it is to shift from microfiction to fiction. I’m actually looking out for 3K projects right now as I have this advanced elements of fiction class coming along and I need a piece of writing (probably) to focus on during the course. Would be nice to up and publish whatever I create. Nice indeed…
5. Just got the start time for the game my kid is playing against Colo state. 5pm game. Playing under the lights… should be incredible.
6. Not sure if I am going to dive into a waiver wire tomorrow. It is about that time to be thinking about such things, but I have a wedding on Monday and I’m locked in…
7. Wish I had more gas in the tank tonight… I do not.

The beach helps me to clear the chaos in my mind.

It is a dark and wonderful place inside here. As I move through life I collect more thought and ideas and distractions that often remain within that dark theater, playing over and again like short reels on a mix. This makes it hard for me to think, let alone write. The chaos is commanding, leading me down the slippery slope of one rabbit hole or another, never staying on the task at hand. Any new distraction becomes primary, the writing—the work—at hand being of immediate secondary or even tertiary concern. I cannot function that way. 

The beach offer briefer interruption. I have no internet and all of its wondrous distractions. All I have are my thoughts, my programs, and the handful of people roaming across the expanse of gray-brown strand. Those few interruptions are welcome, even entertaining or at least thought provoking. An avid people watcher, I often imagine the lives of the people streaming past me—even more so the ones who choose to interact. What courage it must take to approach a stranger and comment on their actions or even dare ask them what they are up to. I get a lot of that here. I get a lot of unusual here, from the occasional eagle to the Mannequins on the balconies, to the deer and on.

I will miss the beach most of all when we move on. I will miss my solitude and my focus. I will miss the opportunity to listen to the waves lapping against the shore, the unusual people, and on. I am here today, reflecting on this being one of the last days to be here. Weather will mar the missile of the week, and then it is time to celebrate marriage and family. Then it is time to spend a few more days together as a solitary couple before we return home to the kids and to that life centered around work and football. I like this life better. I love the peace, and the time and space. 

I love this place.

The beach is wonderful, even when it is as cold as it is today and only one other soul dares to sit and stare off shore. There are plenty of walkers and plenty of dogs racing across the sands. The waves lazily slap the shore as I warm my hands between words. It would be a wonderful place to share a morning coffee with a loved one. 

I am not doing that. I haven’t done that. The beach has become a separator—a place of work for me as I transition through projects. Presently I am writing 1,000 words on a Shadowrun corporation of my own design, pushing its plot forward into the future. I am trying not to be rote here. I need to be daring and do something that is both interesting and engaging in terms of developing a future ideal for this corp that sets it apart from others and ultimately will get it noticed in an extremely negative way that will trigger a decision to either let it into the ten corp collective that rules the world, or destroy it and its proponents outright. So, the question is: what rises to that level of tomfoolery? More importantly, what is going to be fun and interesting for players.

Writing for RPGs is not quite the same as writing stories—especially in a shared world where other writers will take some control of the thing you created. This has often resulted in characters I am working to develop being murdered (merc’d as I say). This happens all too often. None of these characters are in the process of dying and at least a few aren’t even my characters. Somehow this all feels like training for an eventual run at Marvel (or perhaps DC).

In the meanwhile, I need to do more with plot and creativity. I have yet to push the boundaries of what this genre can be, so these 1000 words is my opportunity to do that. Hold on, fans, it is about to get buck wild.

The sun is beating down pretty hard on me right now. I’m close enough to the shore that the waves are threatening me, but won’t have a chance t reach my toes for another few hours. I came to the beach late. It’s a full house here, with people spread all around. Sunbathers, hang outers, paddle boarders and the like are all having a grand time attempting to create a moment in their lives of relaxation and joy. I’m doing my version of that. I just wrote my vows and now I am writing this blog as a way to move into a different headspace. Won’t be long before the wedding—even less time before the kids show up and this private honeymoon becomes a family reunion. I’m a bit nervous about that part, because we have a lot of big personalities amongst the boys and a few who do not necessarily play nice with others when they are stressed or going through things. It could wear on the lady, and this is the time where no wear is going to be allowed by me or the other people who are dedicated to making this one of the greatest moments of her life.

She met me, of course, which probably wasn’t seen as the greatest moment at the time, but retrospect is a wonderful thing—seriously. Ask her in ten years…

Beyond that I find myself stressed about the upcoming year in general. I have money questions, vacation questions, bigger life questions about health and future goals/opportunities. I am hoping I reach a point in my writing life where I am doing some of this Shadowrun writing not as the primary vein of what I rite, but as more of side work s I am producing the kind of novels I’ve dreamed of creating. Heck, I wrote the plot to the sequel or companion book to the Justice Engine in my mind on the walk home from the grocer the other day. Of course, I haven’t written the primary text, so there’s that.

I need to get back to being a creative first. I don’t know when it was that the creative side of me took a back seat, but I don’t want that to be all there is—I want to get back to creating and consuming mostly really good and interesting stuff. The lack of doing so is wearing on my mind and my soul. I’m too old to let that wear and tear continue. 

I haven’t written on the beach in a few days. Late stage revision required internet research and the beach is no place for such things. I decided to come back this early evening in order to fulfill my ten minute promise. There are many promises running through my brain lately. I need to write my vows, which are in essence, a series of promises. One vow I intend to make is to never make promises I cannot keep. Another is to give the time and respect to my wife and our relationship that it deserves. I think that now, fifty years into this short and wonderful momentary existence I am beginning to truly understand what that means and what it entails. I’ve always been a person who takes on too much, assuming that because I am who I am, I can do all of it. Sure, I can do most of it, but nothing is ever done with the level of focus, dedication, and above all else, commitment to detail that would be done if I wasn’t trying so hard to be everything to everyone. Being with the Lady Talis has taught me that I do not need to be everything to everyone. I just need to be the best version of of myself possible. There’s another vow: I can vow to always strive to be the best version of myself and to recognize my tendencies, both good and otherwise.

Tomorrow I intend to come back here and finish my vows. Then I’ll jump into one of the two projects I’m contracted to finish and then it’s on to the next two novels. The main one—the grad school one—needs the most immediate attention so it will get it. Then I will, on a reasonable schedule, develop a chunk of time to work on developing the new Shadowrun novel, which is not yet contracted. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Nothing better than sitting out here on the beach listening to the waves crash at my feet as I write. This is entirely what I was born to do. 

2. The kid is talking about a leg issue right now. That is proof of how hard camp has been on him thus far. Nobody likes pre-season camp, but this team hasn’t won games in a long time. They need this camp. They need to be 1% better each day and carry that momentum into the season. It is hard to do so when you’re not feeling at the top of your physical game. He’s going to need to focus on getting better now while he doesn’t have classes to concern himself with. Trainer, practice, eat, trainer, repeat. This is the life he’s asking for right now and all the good of the future is directly ahead of him. He needs to be smart, patient, and make sure he gets his body right first.

3.