Month: August 2026

New week. New opportunities.

It is not off to the best start. Part of the problem is being in a space that exists in sharp contrast to the idea of getting stuff done. I’m flying around trying to handle every problem while everyone else in the space is playing video games and watching dumb videos to pass the time. We are all passing the time, but when I look back on it, I think I will feel better about what I did than if I’d done the same as everyone else. This contrast is a constant problem, if only ever to me in my own head. Yet that matters. It is nearly 11 and I haven’t gotten as much done as I wanted to, but I feel dragged down by the energy of what is around me all the same.

Excuses. I love making space for them.

There are other problem flies buzzing about, but at least the weather gave me some smiles. It rained here in the desert. Now I have an option to get out there and walk around in it. That ought to make me feel like I’m doing something…

Some Thoughts:

1. Odell made the first cut to 53.

At this point I am pretty much known for putting my business out on the street. Business ain’t good. I think that I can fix some of it with a shift in mindset. All that accentuate the positives stuff does actually matter. What matters more is analyzing the people who are core to my life and really trying to think about the energy I give to people around me. There’s a popular Nipsy Hustle quote that goes, “If you look at the people in your circle and you don’t get inspired, you don’t have a circle, you have a cage.”

I don’t get inspired by a lot of them. Nor do they by me. Yes, there are a few outliers (including the Lady Talis, of course), but the mode I’m seeing is making me recognize that I need to be the one to bring inspiration. That right there has been the key change since I’ve been back in the states. I’ve been living in a cage. I’ve been letting that drive my mood and actions. I hide in rooms. I check out. I bury myself in tasks instead of creativity and love. I need to be an example instead of a victim.

As usual, easier said than done.

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Trump cannot deport students for criticizing Israel, judge rules” I mean, why are we even bringing this to the courts? What happened to the USA?
2. Finding my way (slowly) back into fantasy writing. Good opportunities there for me to write a story I care about.

Worried about the UNI kid. He got sick like he did last year and it knocked him on his butt. It might have hit him so hard that he is no longer capable of starting at CB this upcoming week. He’s claiming he’s better or at least getting there, but I know what it is like when he’s being evasive and what that ultimately means. He’s hurting and it could mean he doesn’t play and that could be a spoiler for a kid trying to get to the FBS level and get a shot to go pro.

Every game counts. His little brother knows that. He locked in last night and put together some great tape. He picked off a pass for the first time since freshman year and added nearly a dozen tackles and a violent PBU on top of it. That’s a great start to the season right there. It is all a process. I’m hoping big bro gets to start the process next week, because he wants it so badly. I want it for him.

Some Thoughts:

1. Lil bro had that kind of game and they still lost. Offensive coaching is horrific. Multiple delay of game penalties trying to get the play in.

Recently I agreed to become the advisor for the Creative Writing Club at my college. It’s a cool thing to do and a way to give back to the college community. On the other hand, it is a stark reminder of how much energy and interest these young writers have as opposed to the weak mess I am facing in my own life. It wasn’t too long ago that I said I’d be taking a year off following the grad school program. The Lady Talis vehemently disagrees with this. I think she recognizes how the King Engine works. Getting it started is hard. Stopping it is easy. While in full steam, it is a force to be reckoned with. So, am I stopping the engine?

I don’t know.

I don’t know what to do really. I know I am leaning towards writing Counting Coup as my thesis work. It is the story I have the most on and the only bit of writing I can realistically turn into a full length novel in the next 6 months. So, I supposed tomorrow I am starting that process. I suppose today I am starting to turn over that engine again and get myself to a place of being a daily writer.

So why stop?

I’m afraid. Just like King. He’s no Class S hero. He’s been propped up by the preponderance of evidence that he is actually that guy, but the person himself is not that guy. I fear I’m at that point in my own cycle–Maybe I just don’t have it anymore. Fear of old age? Laziness? Fear of mental decline? All of these are ingredients to the stew that is ailing me (I’m mixing the hell out of metaphors…) but the fact that I am accepting all of this and accepting this idea of being an imposter is really the problem.

Some Thoughts:

1. Drake Football got got… More on that next week…

Didn’t get it done on Waiver Wednesday. The thing I really wanted to talk about outside of the Shedur thing was the start of the HS season. So, it’s happening tomorrow and I am starting to get a little geeked about it. The kid is a senior and is a captain. He’s ready to go. They are playing the Eagles, who have a 4star RB. That kid is not supposed to play, so we will see if that changes the outcome.

I’m also excited about the upcoming CFB season. I don’t have time to blog it out today, but the Top Gun Offense is something I am geeked to see at the D1 level. It was the top offense in all of football last season, but it came from the DIII level. It’s basically what I run on NCAA27, so…

Some Thoughts:

1. Absolutely Bonkers Headline of the Day: “Trump signs order to rename Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ as trade war with Canada persists” We have hit full baby mode here. Throwing tantrums over nonsense is going to ruin us… if it hasn’t already.
2. Peter Cullen died. Rest in Peace, Optimus Prime.

I made. crazy admission to my gaming students today: I’m about Shedur Sanders because he’s Deion’s kid. I’m going to defend him until he shows me, given a fair enough chance to start (equal to the other mopes out there) that he can’t actually play. It’s been in my mind and actions but I’ve never fully stated this as fact. Since it is out there now, I’m digging in. Let’s give the kid some rope and see what happens. Unfortunately, what happened was he was benched for Watson. The facts surrounding the choice are leaking out and have to do with a number of factors… allegedly. Pre-snap penalties were a thing, which translates to me as not having enough of a grasp of the playbook to execute the calls effectively. That’s a big deal. That is also something coaching should be able to fix. His physical skills are there. His mental skills need some help in terms of running the plays. So, fix him, right?

Not right. Not for Monken. Instead he’s leaning in hard on a QB they must cut by March or lock in another 200 million guaranteed. All that leads to me believing that he’s out. They’re tanking for Manning. Of course, Manning might not even be the best available, but that is a blog for another day.

Some Thoughts:

1. No thoughts. More tomorrow…

I gotta admit: I’m a little nervous about F2F classes starting tomorrow. This is not about lack of ability (though as I age I am beginning to experience a ton of Imposter Syndrome–especially as a writer). I’m actually concerned about how long I’ve been out of the game and how quickly I’ll be able to fall back into the rhythms of teaching class. I have 3 tomorrow separate from the slew of online classes I already started.

I also started the class I am taking… and instantly achieved my first late assignment. I guess I am out of practice with that too. What is it about the fall that makes me feel so stressed and rushed? Part of it has to be lack of sleep. I am waking up at 5:11. Like exactly 5:11 each day. It is spooky. It is sad. I don’t know what to do to break this sad cycle and get myself in shape mentally. I suppose there’s a drug for that? Pity I’m not that kind of user.

I need to figure something out though. And fast. The semester is here. I’m in front of 25 in the morning and all day after. I need to kickstart a club after that. There is very very very little room for me to slip here. There is also very very very little mental room for me to feel like I am sinking into a routine or into who I am trying to be while I am here. I haven’t even started and already I need a vacation.

Some Thoughts:

1. Speaking of that Imposter Syndrome, I’m at a place where I do not know what to write. Do I dive back into the Justice Engine? Do I try to go another direction with another kind of story? Do I finish the other novel I already laid out? I want to work on fantasy but there is nothing close to a story there. I don’t know what to do or even how to get to a place where I do know what to do. It feels like, as a writer, I am trying to please everyone but myself.
2. Perhaps my life is generally becoming that.
3. Lots of football stuff to talk about this week. Tomorrow, really.
4. Finished the second of the Locke Lamore books. Good stuff. Hints at massive worldbuilding, but we only interact with small parts of that world and usually the same types of parts to a certain extent–the poor robbing the rich. Still, it has something.

I was awake at 4 this morning and realized a very important concept an hour later. Love is surrender. Surrender is good. I wrestle with my thoughts and problems constantly. The resultant stress levels are not healthy. This is only heightened by the awareness of it. My (step)daughter, who is unfortunately similar to me in all the bad ways, has these issues as well. I’m going to tell her what I am going to share here right now. Surrender to love.

When my wife, the Lady Talis, woke up and saw me playing on a screen she all but took it out of my hands. She made it clear that screen time was not scheduled at that moment. I could’ve resisted. I didn’t. Instead, I relaxed and let go. I let myself focus on her instead. The mental aspect of that was far more pleasant than where I’d been only moments prior. In short, I remembered the woman I fell in love with and, as a result, forgot all of the outside noise.

Leaning in matters. Carving out time to lean in matters. What you do together during that time does not matter so long as the focus is on each other and the shared mental energy that arises from love. The Old Greeks spoke of love in eight categories. Lately, we speak of it in Languages, but I prefer to fall back on those older understandings. Eros is passion–that romance and desire that fills you with heat. Philia is the friendship that comes from respecting who the soul of a person is. Storge is that familial love that is born out of the time and closeness spent among family. This is how and why I, a single child, can have a brother from another mother. We grew together over decades. The love there isn’t breakable. Also not breakable or selfless is the Agape love that we as beings can feel for brethren or for all people, depending on who you are in your heart. There’s also Ludus, which I like to describe as the fun flirty kind of love. There’s Pragma which, if you’re familiar with the root word is mature and based on commitment. Mania… is rarely a good love.. usually associated with boiling bunnies and reminding people you will not be ignored… but a love nonetheless. Then finally Philautia is that self-care and self-compassion.

I say all of that (as I am running low on time) to argue that love comes in many forms and the ones that stick are the ones that engage in multiple forms of love at once. The way you know this is by checking in. Leaning in. Giving yourself the time and space to remember what it is you love and why…

Some Thoughts:

1. Why do they call them “step?” I’ve never actually given it a lot of thought. I have 3 step kids and have no real idea what that term actually means.

Tomorrow is a new beginning. This week is a new beginning. I start taking classes on Monday again, and I start teaching them two days later. I feel like a kid in spite of being a fifty year old. I feel like a young dad in that sense as well, with my mid-kid telling me he’s going to send me first day of school pictures on the morrow. Yet, here I am saying old head stuff like on the morrow. It is truly a weird and wild time anymore.

Some Thoughts:

1. Still haven’t come up with a bonkers headline. Whether or not I get back to it without some political nonsense remains to be seen. I am still working on not being political, but there is so much more of that than anything else lately–especially since being back here in these United (fractured) States.

For a rather brief period of time I found myself watching the Giants game. OBJ went up for a catch in the end zone and it went through his fingers. He’s not all the way there yet. He’s looking good and getting open against the second stringers pretty good though. I don’t know that he makes the team. I don’t really understand how this is going to go for anyone on that roster. Once heralded as the future of the RB room, Tyrone tracy could be gone tomorrow. They have till the 30th to decide, and given how people really really want to preserve talent for the practice squad, I don’t see the big cuts down from 90 happening until that last day. This is the new NFL. It’s not bad. Sucks for those who want answers fast.

I’m learning patience in a lot of ways these days…

Some Thoughts:

1. Not here for the constant complaining and negativity, America. Stop. Just stop.