Month: February 2026

Alright, I’m coming around to doing the hard thing.

I think I need to stop playing Slay the Spire for a few weeks. I think I need to avoid games outside of Minecraft for a few weeks. No starting the new. Finish what I need to do and lock in on what really matters in terms of moving forward. Crafting is a pleasant enough respite. Maybe a little bit of Mario with the fam, but mostly I want to keep my focus on what is ahead of me. What’s ahead of me right now is…

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Trump shares a racist video that depicts the Obamas as primates” Yeah, of course he did. I’m certain his supporters will say the man was just making a silly joke and we all take things too seriously, but that’s just what people say when they want the racist thing to be okay. They want the racist thing to be okay. Remember the ‘good old days’ of America where you could say stuff like that and it wasn’t a problem? America was GREAT then. We need to Make America Great Again… Dang, the whole thing is so obvious that it is hardly worth breaking down. The worst part is, I think everyone knows it and simply chooses to avoid discussion because, why discuss?
2. I’m learning that in order to have friendships, you need to work at it on your end as well. I legitimately don’t have any real work friends. I’ve been fading at the social end of the job spectrum for a decade, but now I am not even a ghost. Not sure I’m totally okay with that, but I feel mostly okay with that. My focus on the students hasn’t faded at all, which is the most important part to me. That being said, one of the things I’ve long brought to the table was establishing a sense of community amongst my peers. That is probably what I’ve been best at over the course of my life. Yet, whenever I do establish a community–a really good community–that beasts tends to grow without me and away from me. This is the cycle of things in my 50+ years of existence. I’m a fringe guy. Not a core guy. Yet I help build that core.
3. It is cool how reading a passage or hearing a term can totally refresh the dedication to a concept or at least give it some new life. I have this ten book series in my mind, and it is based on these principles (commandments). I just learned a new one today and it felt like blood moving through old veins. One day in the next five years I’ll go write that stuff. Once I clear off my old plate of food…

The internet died, which means I cannot access any of the writing I am doing on the google docs app. The problem with the cloud is that it’s not on the ground next to you. I mean, there are several problems with the cloud, but that’s the one that has me by the throat right now.

I’m trying to finish some drafts that needed to be in long before today. I got behind for a number of reasons, but here I am and lacking a great deal of the inspiration I thought I would have by this point. The lack of inspiration in general is becoming a problem for me as a writer. I want to write. I do not want to write what I am writing at present. I don’t have ideas for what I am doing and I don’t really know what it is I want to write otherwise. I used to spend 30 minutes a day building this fantasy realm, but I stopped doing that. I stopped focusing chunks of time on specific projects entirely. All of that stemmed from getting jammed up on my last novel and not being able to split focus with anything else. However, when the novel ended, so did all of my productivity. There were remnants. I squeezed out a couple more projects. I started to run down like a dying battery and eventually wound up where I am now.

This is part of why the 10 minute rule exists. Let the writing engine stay idling as opposed to shutting down entirely. Yet, it is not nearly enough. I’m mentally cooked right now and need a reset.

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers headline of the day: “Covering the world in carpet contaminated a region and came with a price no one wants to pay”

I’m already in bed and this is not the way. I should’ve done this earlier but sometimes the day gets away from me. What I want is to have days that feel good; feel productive in all aspects of the life. What I have is not that. My days are loaded with work and envy and often disappointment. I’m not just talking about my daily failure to slay the spire (just let me do this so I can move on!!!) . I’m talking about life and how I’m watching myself live it and how I’m watching the people I love live it and squander it. We are so wasteful of this gift we’ve been given—this opportunity to experience so much and to create so much either in our own experience and or for others. I am more mindful of this each day as I continue to move back towards making time in my life for genuine reading and time for writing what matters to my heart.

I’ve been long removed from good writing. I’d argue I’ve failed to be truly productive in 2026. That’s a month of waste I can never reclaim. I mean for it to NOT be two. I have to get back to writing and reading and creating interesting things. I was good at that once. I lost something along the way, but I want to believe I can find it anew—not become what I was but become something great.

Always forward.

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers headline of the day: Epstein files rife with uncensored nudes and victims’ names, despite redaction efforts

I don;’t expect every day to be a good day, but damn, can I get one? If that sounds like a sound byte level statement usually relegated to the end of the post and probably tagged in a numbered list, it is. In fact, it is all I really have the mental and physical energy to say. In fact, all I plan to do today is fill in…

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers headline of the day: “States scramble to gerrymander US House districts after Trump sought edge in midterm elections” I’ve been reading The Ballad of Black Tom, which is already a head trip, but to see it in the context of what is happening now feels a little too terrifying.
2. Here’s another piece of madness I read: The original Vietnamese document titled “The 2nd U.S. Invasion Plan” was completed by the Ministry of Defense in August 2024. It suggests that in seeking “its objective of strengthening deterrence against China, the U.S. and its allies are ready to apply unconventional forms of warfare and military intervention and even conduct large-scale invasions against countries and territories that ‘deviate from its orbit.’”
3. We are in quite the odd times, you and I. More and more I stumble into feeling that I am not writing about the right things and the moment that is happening is passing me by without me truly speaking out or saying enough about it. But what is there to actually say? We all know it is wrong. We all know what it remind us of. We all feel powerless to stop it or at least don’t care enough to try. So many people don’t see it as making any serious difference–like a stain on a coat or a blip. Yet I don’t feel like this is a blip anymore. “They” planned too long to make this happen and managed to align with the ‘right’ leader to push it over the edge.

I don’t live in the same reality as my kids. I’m not sure I live in the same reality as anyone outside of my wife and perhaps my brother. These other people I encounter live in an entirely different world from me. They have different worries, concerns, perceptions, etc. What matters to them is very different. What they see value in and how they treat the concept of value is different. This is more than a discrepancy. I feel like a ghost from another time or place, a variant walking free on this version of earth.

It is leading to a great deal of additional tension and being fed up quite easily. I don’t have any real understanding of how to relax anymore. I need to rediscover how to do so within a very limited time, because I am struggling greatly and I fear it is going to infect the most important bond in my life. The struggle is real. I’m showing increasing signs of eczema as my body lashes out against the stress.

I need to chill.

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers Headline of the day: “Kennedy Center will close for 2 years for renovations, Trump says, after performers’ backlash” Note they didn’t call it Trump/Kennedy. This is a legit tragedy here. The legacy space is being destroyed (read: renovated in Gold). It isn’t the first or last thing he’s gonna wreck it a la Ralph.

Strange to say, but I am not really keen on my kids reading my books. I don’t think they will like them and that would be the worst feeling for your own kid to see your work as trash. Of course, they would see it as trash because they aren’t into that sort of thing. I haven’t written the epic fantasy or the deeply rooted stand alone sci-fi drama or anything that would attract their particular attentions. I do not write for them, though I some point I think I will. I think I probably should. What parent doesn’t want to leave a legacy for their kids. What parent doesn’t want their kids to be proud of them. I don’t believe mine are proud of me–not a one. They don’t think about me in terms of pride. They think of me as the guy who supports them if they think of me at all. The only person who is actually proud of me in this life is my wife. And I am proud of her. That kind of makes us even closer as companions. We are partners in pride.

Some Thoughts:

1. Bonkers Headline of the day: “Actor Rose Byrne named Harvard’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year” Because that’s an actual thing. FYI Micheal Keaton was named Pudding Man of the year and will receive his Pudding Pot award in the ceremony later this year. They’ve been doing this since 1770. Like for real.
2. Stumbled across a post written by someone claiming to have put 3000 hours into Starfield. 3000 hours. That’s 125 days of their life. A 3rd of a year–no sleep. That is crazy cool for a creator, btw. I love the concept that a person would put that much devotion into something I created. I didn’t create it, but man I want to be part of a thing like that.
3. Speaking of which, Starfield 2 is apparently about to roll out in months or even weeks!