10 Minute Rule

I won’t be watching the Super Bowl with kids this year and that is quite a relief. The NFC title game and the AFC game (which I straight up walked away from over this) was spent listening to one of these 5 kids in particular complain loudly and endlessly about how Tom Brady is covered and treated. He’s terrible. He falls to the ground without being touched. He throws picks. The announcers say everything he does is great… It gets old really fast and it sounds an awful lot like the crap you hear from anyone who has an opinion and is unwilling to accept any reality beyond their opinion. Is some of it true? Of course? Does that dismiss the man’s 20+ years in the NFL, half of them ending in the Super bowl? nope.

That is what I struggle with in terms of teens. I don’t need to struggle with it for the best football game of the season.

That being said, I am looking forward to spending more time working with these boys in general. I absolutely want to be out there running and rehabbing and getting in shape. This is a big sports year for all of them. The youngest is taking a step forward, realizing his potential. The freshman is finally going to be old enough to be a freshman and we get to see if he’s physically hit the point where he can be competitive at the high school level. The Senior is likely ending his career as he rehabs from a torn ACL and prepares for a college life that is unlikely (at this point) to include football.

Through all of this is the thread that I need to get my body right. I am convinced that a mission to train them is helpful to that personal agenda. I will be working towards this over the next few months, with the goal of shredding at least ten lbs of this fat gut. It has to go. It is going to kill me otherwise.

Some Thoughts:

1. No predictions this week. Let’s wait for the ‘not’ pro bowl blog to discuss.

Since I’ve been ill I have been dutifully avoiding the world.

Since I am starting to move towards recovery (symptoms are either holding steady or improving), I am starting to let the world back in. Turns out Biden is slidin back towards the policies and place where we existed 4 years ago. This is not a bad thing. It is different. It is clearly not the new disruptive ‘norm’ that was established. He’s rolled back everything but Trump’s Wall and, possibly, our membership in the WHO. Haven’t found info about that one yet.

Without giving too much away, I am working on a novel that tackles the nuance of corporate life from the inside and that spurred me to look into financial news and learn more about what has happened and is happening. Fiction–science fiction–is an extrapolation of what is happening now to what could happen tomorrow. So, what could happen tomorrow? Privatization could pave the way to a new kind of nation building. All of the signs are out there. Dubai is a prime example. All we have to do is put our finger on what will be the prime markets and decide that it is okay for the leaders of that market to unite and set their own rules and value. The world goes downhill from there.

But I digress.. One other thing I find interesting is how some movies are being held back. While Matrix, Suicide Squad, and other so-called Blockbusters (including Tom Clancy’s very dark Ode to Rambo, Without Remorse) are being released as streaming films, Top Gun and others are not. The thought is that the movie theater will make a roaring return. I don’t think it will. In a sense we are witnessing a pivotal point in the future of humanity. Will we just go back to how things were or will we change?

Some Thoughts:

1. I need to turn my mind and thus heart towards physical improvement. There is an opportunity here to get healthy and I need to do that before it is too late for me. I am well over 40 and the belly is showing.
2. Speaking of which, they never tell you in school that the way to get plumbers crack is to have that belly. Once the belly expands the front of one’s pants the rear slides down to compensate and you see it all…

It was about 6 AM when I started to question my reality.

The puppies were barking. Usually that meant my only daughter was up and wandering about the house. Only, she wasn’t. There was no familiar thump, thump of footsteps, the click of the bathroom door, the snap and whir of the fan as she set up her space for examining her face, a strangely feminine morning ritual. I stirred painfully, shifting into my partner, the love of my life. Her skin was warm and compelled me to come closer, I did, touching her gently, probing for a response. She stirred. I knew then that she was already awake, thinking. This was her morning ritual, as familiar to me and opposite to her as my own habit of rolling over a few times, reaching for her, reaching for a gaming console, reaching for anything that wasn’t internal; any reminder that I was not alone in the dark.

I felt her move into my arms and I felt her warmth spreading across my skin like sunrise. I held her in my arms until the single bark grew into a chorus and that chorus threatened to shake the foundation of the house. How could seven tiny creatures make such a ruckus? I separated from her warmth, rejoined the cold of this world, sliding on pants and a hoodie. I left the comfort of our special space to enter a home that belonged to the rest of the world. The sounds of that world flooded in, but the smells did not tickle my nose. No taste flickered across my tongue. It was as if I was watching my reality on film and not entirely a part of it.

What then is reality? Is it the full sensory experience? Is it the idea of what is happening and how we react to that? Is it our choices? Our thoughts? Our imagination splayed out in front of us and crashing into what is happening like waves pounding the sands of a beach? My morning reality is scraping up puppy shit with a squeegee and a blue plastic dust pan. I load the not-quite-dogs into pen in the garage where the brick walls dim their thunder. I open the sliding glass door in the space where they are kept, expecting fresh air to fill my nostrils. Nothing.

I can feel the cold of the air but I cannot smell it. I cannot taste the rain falling lightly into the pool, but I can feel the cold of it on the back of my hands. I am here, but I am not entirely here.

So where is the rest of me?

Still sick.

The sick has extended to problems with vision–especially in relation to screens. I think the real issue there is I have been in bed for over a day and doing little else than watching screens. My therapy will be to stare at the rain for as long as I am willing, hoping the fresh air and cool view helps the body work its way back into relevancy.

I gotta get out of bed. This is not a good look for me. I have not been productive in two days and that is two days longer than I could afford time off. In the meanwhile I did catch up on the Expanse (as I explained yesterday), so there’s that. Te series is going to conclude with season 6, skipping the 30 year time jump between books 6 and 7. This makes me think about my own future series and how I intend to write it. I don’t know. More importantly, I have a novel I need to deal with today before I worry about tomorrow.

Some Thoughts:

1. Tried to get all the boys to watch the fight last night on ESPN+. I figured it was something we have never done and something new to do and get excited about. Little to no excitement, and that is a good thing, because ESPN+ is a fraud. I still was required to pay $70 to watch the fight. I did not pay. McGregor was knocked out in the 3rd, btw. Just the result I wanted to happen. Now maybe he will go fight one of those YouTube stars, so we can all laugh about it.

I almost didn’t get this written. I’m in bed, as I have been for most of the day, and in my feverish haze I remembered that I had not blogged. I tried to write and even work earlier in the day but my brain was mostly non functional. When I move my brain still feels like it’s slewing around in a soup. This is not a healthy me and this is the not a time frame in which I feel I have the time to be ill. Feels like a rap line: No time to get ill.

Not a lot more I am feeling like I can say tonight. It is all just babble in my fevered brain…

Some Thoughts:

1. Talk about a God complex. Chapelle got the ‘rona and I got sick and suddenly thought I had it. I am sure I don’t.
2. I’m a hot mess this evening.
3. Been binging the new season of the Expanse while re-watching the 1st season with my partner. This is a really well written and well developed show. James S.A. Corey is the pen name for the authors of the 9 novel series. I’m curious about the books…

Today we are in 1st person. I’ll be using Rory’s Story Cubes again. I’ll roll three cubes. and assign them to character, plot, outcome.

Word (Theme): Sarcophagus
Character: Alien
Plot: Key
Outcome: Bridge

Return

Humans are desperate little creatures. They strive and strive for recognition, power, comfort, and never consider the larger context of these things. Their writers construct tales of humor and woe. Their actors wear the faces of pride and pretend that caring is the central unit of the human being. It is not. I spent three hundred human years here walking amongst them. They did not notice me. There were times when some drew near, fearing that prickle at the base of their neck. Some drew me. A precious few that I interacted with spoke of me, but their stories became lost in the chorus of fiction. No matter. My purpose was not to be known. My time here was to find what another before me lost; what humans would call a key.

It took me longer than expected. In my understanding of time I was here for 6 cycles. In three of those cycles I was forced to sleep. Once I slept to acclimate to this place. A second cycle was spent sleeping through their many great wars. It was between that second cycle and now that I found the key. It was buried deep in a collection of sounds they call language. A pattern of such, applied properly and at the correct tones and spacing is that key. Once I heard it, I knew that the one who’d lost it had not in fact lost it but had given it to the humans as a way to bridge their potential. They could have crossed that space from a species of self worth to one of collective value.

It did not work. As I sleep in this third cycle, preparing for transit back to the existence I call home, I can note that these humans have evolved very little. They do not grasp the idea of growth and change and cycle. They do not process the concept of mutually assured evolution only that of destruction. I have what I came for. I have no more value for them. I wonder if they will survive another 6 cycles?

It all slips away so easily.

I spent a month on break and happy not to be in the daily grind of classes and happy not to feel like I was behind on stuff and I woke up this morning behind on stuff. Such is the life, I suppose. Today I am back to posting on the big board and learning about the things I need to do in order to be more organized and the things I need to do in order to be more successful in my professional life.

Having a daily plan matters. Lately the plan has been ‘write’. This is not a detailed plan. There are no times involved in that plan, no sense of how long but the one chapter mark offered a sense of how much. With the grading and planning back in my life I need to do more in terms of planning and deciding how to move forward effectively.

The first stage of that is getting up earlier and getting going when I get up. Mornings can be powerful workspaces. Once the puppies are cleaned and fed it should be on to the schoolwork, then a break, and then on to the writing, and so on. I need to find a way to ramp up productivity so I am spending less time focused on work and more time focused on love.

Some Thoughts:

1. What I failed to reflect on yesterday was the fact that these all star events are a machine. The entire league is really an industry to keep these kids and parents traveling and playing and pretending to be the best–pretending that what they do now echoes in the higher ranks. In the extremely rare cases it might. There are always going to be the Bunchie Young’s of the world who have out of this world ability and work ethic, but the fact that there is only one kid doing commercials, etc says all you need to know: It ain’t gonna happen for your kid or mine. In truth, I am not even the parent who is putting in that level of time and effort to ensure it happens. I’m not up with them every morning at 6 to workout and get the body trained up. In fact, I still want them to be kids and not live life on such a training schedule.
2. The more I step back from being invested in that youth sports world, the uglier it looks. I am grateful that next year is that capstone year. Following that we will take a year to not do football (save for the 1 high school kid) and truly appreciate what else is out there to be done and to be learned.

I’ll start with the youth stuff:

My youngest was chosen to represent the 11u All Stars for the state. He is one of 36 kids selected out of several hundred who tried out. He views the selection as a starting point; an indication that he has what it takes to be a successful football player at any level and against any competition. That being said, now he’s gotta go to Texas and face players that aren’t from around here. That will be the real test for him.

I am excited for the kid. I won’t be there with him, but I look forward to his success. Yes, not going is strange, but going is beyond what my expenses allow at this point. While this is all still lower level stuff, it teaches him to work hard for what he wants and that what he wants is no small thing. I dig it.

On the pro level, I’m curious about what is coming down the pipe.

DeShaun Watson is likely on the move and his move will trigger others–especially in the draft. I believe this could be fortuitous for the Jets and Giants both. Either team could acquire Watson and be happy about it, but the Jets are the more likely suitors. They continue to speak highly of Darnold, but folks spoke highly of Rosen right up until the pick was announced for his successor (who was actually successful). 1st round draft picks are a huge investment that teams get wrong far more often than they should. At this point the Giants and Jets both need to get it right and get someone who can help them in the long run. No need for a quick buzz pick for either franchise. Why get another unproven QB when you can wait a few rounds and get someone who you can build up to be the next big thing. Or better: Get that man Watson. You have the picks to do it…

Like I don’t have enough to do, right? Now I have my mind set on developing fictional Madden draft classes a la Kebow’s draft. For the uninitiated, Kebow has created multiple (7?) draft classes for the Madden 21 Xbox version. Each of these classes is designed around the stories of college football teams and players and their rise to NFL stardom. He doesn’t do complete backstories but he does create a sense of character for college award winners and high draft picks with discussions that hint at their actual skills. It brings fun and context to the draft and makes the game a bit more nuanced and enjoyable. What I would ultimately like to do is to create a series of these and backbuild the stories of the players and the teams, showing the rise of particular teams/players as a conduit towards their NFL lives. I think there is a real interest in story in regards to games like this–enough so that I want to tell the stories.

But will I?

Like I said, I have enough on my plate. What I wish I could do is get paid for it. I wish Madden Franchise was developed enough to allow for freelancers to create reasonable draft classes and have story built into it. This is extremely easy to code using the existing in-game news platform which discusses signings and other happenings. Once again, it is about who you know vs. what, because if I could get just a tithe for the work then it would make it worth the time and effort needed for creation. Only, I don’t know anyone at Madden. So, we wait, we design, we prototype, and… we wait.

Some Thoughts:

1. Getting published in the Imaginary Papers this week. Excited.
2. What role do the people we surround ourselves with play in promoting a healthy and positive energy? If I am surrounded by negative energy and a blistering lack of ambition, will I just adopt that stance? Part of being in NYC was knowing that everyone was grinding and trying to get somewhere. Since I’ve settled into this life I’ve settled. Even the things I want out of life feel like I am not reaching anymore. I don’t know that anyone around me–especially not the young people–is reaching. What is there to reach for?
3. Perhaps I am getting closer to an understanding of my day to day depression…

Writing is a job. Like any job you must do it consistently and constantly in order to be effective. I struggle because at times my emotions impact my ability to put out good writing. There are days when I am extremely depressed and on those days the words are not my respite. I need to learn how to fight through that and write in spite of the pain. If I could do that I would be a more consistent writer and perhaps a better writer as well.

Clearly, I am still at the bottom of that dark well. It is 8:40 and I am in bed on a Monday night. Yet it is later now than it was when I first went to bed last night.

The other thing about writing is time. Time management but also time on task. In bed at 8:40 argues that not enough time is being spent on the task and moreover, my life is shrinking to something less than lovely. All in all it seems that 6 is off to a very bad start.

But enough about me. Back to the writing:

More and more as I grow old I believe the iterative process is useful. Perhaps it works better for me now because I tend to write stories in bits and pieces, writing through sections again and again the way a painter applies a new coat. The first layer of words does little to tell the story that the 3rd and fourth bring forward so well. I am still a great believer in the outline, but the more I write the more I recognize that the outline is simply me taping off the boundaries of what I think the story is, and as I write more I discover more and learn more about the characters and the concepts involved. I work to tie all of it together in a way that feels interconnected.

Good Writing makes me feel good about myself and the life I’ve chosen to live.

Some Thoughts:

1. Did not do chapters today and that means more work for tomorrow–the official first day of the spring semester.
2. Even in the event that I fall prey to depression I will get the words going.
3. I tried everything to shake loose of it today. I even started playing 2K, just to fall into that story. I hid myself away under a VR mask and played my first game. I liked it.