Month: July 2026

Lately I find myself channeling young me—the carefree and fearless writer who assumed he could write anything and anyone. He felt that Stephen King was a goal to be achieved; a level in a video game in which he was Player 1. I miss him and need him dearly. Writing is best when it is a challenge set forth against oneself and the reward is not wealth, but a sense of personal satisfaction at having achieved what you set out to do. When I coached track I coach my runners based around a singular philosophy: Your one goal is to do better than you did last time. The only person you need worry about beating is yourself. I believe in that sensibility. If I shift the wording ever so slightly it should apply to writing like so: Your one goal is to write a more complete story than you did last time. The only writer you need to be superior to is yourself. I believe that superiority complex is a flaw of mine and perhaps a fatal one. It has hamstrung me for many long years and left me feeling like I am not (and cannot become) the kind of writer I want to be.

I despise feeling trapped like that. I don’t want to feel stuck and topped out as a writer. Last night the Lady Talis and I watched The Invite and the line that stuck with me the most belonged to Seth Rogan who (without giving anything away) described himself as a failure. It struck home with violent force. I’m a failure as well. Two novels, neither of which cracked the top 100 in my genre. Close to 80 other publications across three role playing games (with a 4^th on the way). This is success in the eyes of some, but I still feel like an imposter—a failure. I have not done a single thing that will last on in my mind.

The little kid I was never felt like that. He was a damn giant and a hero if only to himself. I need to find him within me again.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “A professional cornhole player and quadruple amputee is arrested for murder” No idea where to begin here…
2.  Did not hit publish yesterday. Slippin.

Just another manic… Thursday?

Today had strange energy throughout. I personally did little with it. I drank coffee. I walked around a bit. Had a burger. Now I am blogging. That’s basically the day since I got out of bed. I have not done anything. Not in the ‘don’t feel like it’ way, but in the actually let the day get away from me way. In truth, I didn’t even travel that much today–under 6 miles by my latest count. I’m going to need to manifest another walk to feel like the day wasn’t a total bust after bed.

Perhaps days like that are needed in life, but they tend to leave me or my partner feeling unsettled. I think when you realize your days are finite, blowing one carries more weight. When you realize you’re back on campus in 39 or so days, each missed one carries that much more weight. There is a gravitas to vacation we can get lost in but also churned up by. There can be the sense of missing out on a chance or a moment when you’re sitting there letting nothing become your way.

I thought I’d go see this grove of trees I like. We didn’t. So, maybe it isn’t like we had huge plans or anything.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Failed asylum seeker families to be offered up to £40k to leave UK” Sorry you can’t stay, but we will pay you to go…
2. Plenty of Yankee caps today. The morning was awash with them.
3. Summer FB camp for the youngest started today. He’s shifting back into HSFB mode after all the college hoopla. A verbal offer is nice, but a bad season can wipe that away. He needs to show growth this season–especially if he intends to work both sides of the ball.

I’ve developed an odd obsession. Every day I am outside of the USA I look to find someone wearing a Yankee hat. I’ve written on this before. Now it feels more like an obsession. It’s my version of those (old?) social media streaks my kids were so proud of. I see one every day. Like all the time. What is even more interesting is the development that LA and Boston hats are appearing more and more in the landscape. The Boston one feels like a direct counter culture flex. LA is, well, Ichiro.

The obsessive part is how odd I feel when it gets late into the day and I haven’t seen one. I start actively looking, as though not seeing a hat means some massive shift in the world or at least my world view. Yes, it is just a hat. It is a fashion thing as well. However, could it also be more–a reflection on association with all things USA? Could the separation from the NY mean that people have had too much of the Orange Dictator and now there’s no coming back post him?

Yes, this is anxious exaggeration to be sure. But I like my streak. I’d like it to continue.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Arizona toddler declared dead rises in morgue” Well, that happened. He drowned… then he didn’t?
2. Getting closer to the Fantasy Football season. I will be hosting a league and playing another yet again.
3. No news to report re football. July 14 is the media day, so…

If you have brown skin, avoid Florida at all cost. I realize some may take this as race baiting or even challenge it on the grounds of demographic make up, but trust, Florida is not it. I’m not even talking about ‘Florida Man’ that law which provides the news with so much ‘general’ information about the ongoing insanity of Florida residents. I am talking about the way these folks are actually trying to rewrite history and ‘put colored folk in their proper place’. For this argument you need look no further than the Terrion Arnold debacle. This man lost his entire livelyhood in a Castle Doctrine state, because his people took the law into their own hands and decided to lure and beat down a dude who they thought robbed Arnold’s Airbnb. To make matters worse, Arnold is the only one facing life in prison over the matter. The brother got a raw deal.

He should have known. He’s from Florida. He lived in Tallahassee. Nobody hates an upwardly mobile black male more than a Floridian. Honestly, the only ones they really got behind are O’Neal and Wade. I think we can safely say that if Arnold played (or agrees to play) for the Miami Dolphins, things would change quickly. I suspect this might be the outcome of all the drama. They’ll put this case to bed if he gets picked up as a low cost free agent. That’s the bonkers kind of place Florida is, and the bonkers kind of world we live in. Speaking of which…

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Inspectors enter Manhattan high-rise after building stops moving: FDNY” You read right. STOPS moving. That think was shaking like a reed in the wind, and not in the ‘I can support the weight’ kind of way. The building was shedding bricks. Right there on 42nd street. Wild times.

Started the week by finishing a story and opening a wound. I’ve been working on a new short for a grad class that I hope to one day publish. It isn’t there yet. It reminds me of how out of touch I am with particular age demographics. I need to get a lot better about understanding various age groups if I want to continue to be successful as a writer. I cannot simply write about withering 40-60 year olds and age up my characters as I myself continue aging up. I gotta be able to cross spectrum to tell good story.

I don’t identify with young people. I don’t understand them nearly as much as I thought I did. I don’t understand my own kid. I’m speaking of the youngest, who asked me for money today. He wants cash for a football camp. Of course, Dad instinct wants to get him right, but I also feel really sad and hurt that the only time I manifest in his mind is when he needs money. Everything else is me reaching out to him and him possibly responding within a few days. It sucks and it hurts, especially since I was not invited on a single college visit that I didn’t pay for. That doesn’t feel like respect or love. I am supposed to provide and I generally do, but this one hurts. It feels like an opportunity to teach a lesson. The problem is, I don’t think it will teach the proper lesson. I think it says, “dad won’t come through because dad doesn’t care.” I hate that this is the script he’s being read on the other side of the parenting fence, but there it is.

Unfortunately I am trapped in a situation where giving without receiving is the known currency of love. I don’t want to be trapped in that. I know how painful it will be to break that hardened cycle. We are running out of moments, the kid and I. There’s a few more HS dances, there’s a few more big game moments (will the Lady Talis and I be invited to walk with him for Senior Night?). I don’t know what I will be a part of and what will be denied me. Then its college time–where he really has to learn how to be an individual fast.

I hope we have enough of a relationship left that I can help him through that extremely tough time.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Australian officials ask fans to respect the privacy of Neil, a 1-ton seal who respects nothing” This after a saw a Sea Otter run up on to the beach today and up into the city. Animals be wierding.

I never quite came around to seeing Sunday as the beginning of the week. I work Mondays. I set up my online classes so Monday is the start of the week. This is the 7th day in biblical terms. Honestly, it is only the US that recognizes Sunday as the start of the week, and that’s a bit odd. We have a lot of odd here. The refusal of the metric system, Fahrenheit over Celsius… We have our way and it is kind of weird.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: ” FIFA lifts US star striker Balogun’s red card suspension at World Cup after Trump calls Infantino“
2. Getting harder to find these bonkers headlines. Maybe what should be bonkers is simply becoming commonplace? If you eliminate politics, there’s not much left that is all that crazy at times… Most of the politics stuff deals with Trump…
3. Like this: ” Trump posts a doctored photo of the Obamas and Air Force One with graffiti spray-painted on plane“
4. Fun fact: In order to achieve the Beam Me Up achievement in Minecraft, it is easiest to build a tower of blocks 100 high and more or less over water, stand on top, and throw the Ender Pearl down. You will teleport and live–if you hit water. I say this as a man who has yet to actually attempt the achievement, but that’s solely about not logging on in over half a year.

Best soccer game of the tourney went down… I didn’t watch it. I’ve been barely sports adjacent since the Knicks won. I think in general I’ve been gravitating towards a more balanced life with that kind of thing where I surge through the fall in a football stupor and then chill out over the next few months until it is back to the FB. That is even slowing down. One kid is going into his senior season, so I don’t think he’ll play much as a freshman. The other is still going strong, but one game a week–one day a week–is better than the constant FB madness that consumes our lives.

In general we’re in that victory lap stage of having the last one becoming a HS senior. That means life really changes after this. It means a lot of new opportunities for us as a couple to explore the world more often and really decide how we want the rest of our lives to look. Exciting times ahead.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Trump says he will still deliver July 4th speech after weather prompted evacuation of National Mall” But why?
2. Not a bunch to say today. I feel like I’m a bit worn out this weekend. Ever since the rainy day a few days back it has felt like I am slowly turning the lights back on in my brain. That power up needs to get going, because I have a deadline in two days.
3. The deadline story is something I am very far removed from. I am writing about a 27 year old going on a date with someone he met on an app. The idea is to talk about modern dating and how much of a false construct it is. I felt like I was being clever at the time of coming up with the concept, but now it feels paper thin. I’m feeling that way about a lot of my writing as of late. It isn’t about anything. I write enjoyable anecdotes, but they don’t pack any literary weight. There isn’t enough there to keep you thinking about the story after it ends.
4. I’m not sure if I am (or ever was) the kind of writer who makes up stuff like that. I write glimpses of futures and pasts that ought to feel authentic. This concept of being about something feels like it walks hand in hand with my inability to write good endings. There’s something there I am missing. I suppose in order to find it I will need to read more stuff. Better stuff.
5. Bout done here with this stream of consciousness. The fingers are moving fast today, but the brain has little to say…

Back to it.

There’s writing to be done. There is speed to be achieved. Then, I need to start looking for a new job–as a writer I mean. I keep coming back to RPG work, and I know I ought not to. I want to finish this novel, take a break, and then think about the next step. Yet in these posts and conversations I continuously skip over the part where I finish the novel first. Am I so anxious to get to the next act that I refuse to fully be where my feet are at in this one? What, after all, is the rush? Or is it a more honest reality–I don’t know how to write this novel.

Yeah, that one.

I’ve spent more time thinking about the book than I have writing it or even sketching it out, and I continue to fear that it will not happen. I think about more and more other stories I could be writing instead of the one I should be. Story of my life, I suspect. What I need to be doing is locking down and locking in. That means getting away from all of the other stuff distracting me from a narrative and then sinking into that one story until I reach a point of churn that gets me to get it done and then edited and then sent off to someone with an eye for wonderful things. I’m not expecting it to be the next best seller so much as I want to finally tell this story with all of its layers and then move on with a sense of accomplishment.

That feels more like the story of my life.

Instead my life has been thus far a messy series of failures from football to college itself to marriage to parenting (which is always some degree of success and failure no matter who you are, I suspect). Each one of these things has been a fail followed by a hard-fought success. So, I’m in that arc with the writing now, and I need to see it through.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Permit obtained by AP shows schedule for the wedding” What’s bonkers is the level of attention we see being given to this sort of thing. Yes, I know they are both famous and this feels somewhat like a Royal Event, but that makes it even more insane. Are we so starved for aristocracy as a society that we clamor for the moment that two knowns become one? Even more, the amount of money being spent is so wild. A fraction of what is being spent could be life changing for so many people. Of course, the couple also is aware of such things and is donating 26 million to charity as part of the event… which argues they may have spent 26 million on the event itself.

The amount of unusable energy in a closed system. Or, me on a rainy day when I don’t feel like doing a thing. I didn’t, you know, do a thing. I ate more food than necessary and walked far less than I have since May, and in the end I simply did not feel like dealing with the world. It is a bad one too, because in feeling this way I find myself wondering how to get back to usable energy. I hit this ‘suck’ low and decided that I was done being useful to a functioning society. I played a bit of NCAA 27, I watched TV. I played a bit of Starfield. I graded student projects that were almost entirely generated by AI. Slowly, I lost faith in humanity and began taking it upon myself to withdraw further from the world and into this small apartment where it felt like I didn’t have to do much else but be this dude who does nothing.

Then, I realized that I don’t live alone in this space and part of the reason I can never fully detach from reality is that I have a wife–My Lady Talis who keeps me tethered to this planet though there be days I prefer to fall far far away. So, what is to be done tomorrow? Anything else but this. A rainy day is a great opportunity to lay low and be a stick in the mud, but I am learning to pull out of the spiral before it becomes a long process. I need to get up, get out, and do something straight away. I fear if I don’t I will regret it for days to come.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Maine couple spots a bear chasing a moose calf and helps it escape“

I have a revision due on Monday. I have not even considered starting. It isn’t like I’m taking a break. It is more like I move slowly between fiction these days, a sure sign that I ought to take a break and recharge. I ask myself almost daily, what would a recharge entail? Now there is a chapter for a book on writing. Recharging yourself is important–especially in the later years of life when the brain does feel like it takes a lot more to get going. I’m past that 50 year hillock and realizing that my brain has been slow for the past ten or more. Now is that age, or is it about not being fully committed to the content? Or is it the other thing–fearing that I am not creating anything sharply original and fearing that AI is going to catch up and surpass me as a writer?

Sounds like charging up and fear of the future are two things wrapped up together. As I try to unravel this tangled mess I have to think about what wears me down. First it is the coming up with finely woven sentences. I used to be able to craft them quickly, but lately a smooth turn of phrase takes longer to leap to my mind, so I end up writing more bad sentences and having to spend more time in revision. That is about confidence more than it is about fear (though those are also tied up). A second knot in that tangle is this inability on stay on task as long. That has everything to do with stress and distraction. Whereas writing used to be about de-stressing, lately it has been the cause of a chunk of my stress.

So, we have stress, fear, fatigue, distractions, and reduced mental fortitude. All of these things are cause for recharge, but I still have yet to understand what recharge actually means or does. I suspect that part of it is to listen to and read on paper good writing.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “A man lost his wallet at a Dallas World Cup game. Argentina fans cleverly crowdsourced it back to him” The best part is these guys chanting the dude’s name in order to find him in the crowd and get him his wallet. I mean, wow. I love what the World Cup atmosphere can do to people.