10 Minute Rule

50,000 suicides. That’s about the number of dead in the US alone. The American suicide rate has been increasing since the late 90’s and that to me feels like a connectivity correlation. Of course it is just a drop in the bucket compared to the 61 million people who died (vs. 134 million born) in 2023. Nearly 3 million of those came from the USA, which shows again that the number of suicides is a drop in the bucket. However, it isn’t. Suicides–that voluntary act of surrender touch people in a different way. It rattles–especially when it comes from an unexpected source. I suppose you would argue who would be expected to kill themselves, but the larger issue is that we are all here together on this planet trying to survive until some of us decide to not to.

Today was supposed to be freewrite friday. I was supposed to be getting back to making characters for an upcoming novel. I saw this stat and it floored me. A lot of what I’ve been seeing statistically has floored me lately. Part of what I am trying to do in the new novel I am planning is to look at the numbers and see how a system might think and respond to the data. The story is about AGI and in it the AGI is designed for mimicry purposes but I want to talk about other forms of that programming and how AGI may respond to data. That means understanding the data myself. Data like the material gathered in Our World In Data. But first I need to be able to stomach what I am seeing.

Some Thoughts:

1. I way too often say American when referring to the USA. There’s more America than that–even up here in the north.

I’m battling for coherency!

No. That isn’t true. I just have a lot to think about and say. I presently live in a state that is focused on rolling back laws to a time it wasn’t even a state in pursuit of a religious crusade against abortion. Only I feel like Abortion is not even the end game. Even if it isn’t I am trying to halt the process right there. Once we start taking away women’s rights we have entered some crazy. I am very much done with entertaining that particular brand of crazy. It feels more and more like the so-called chickens are coming home to roost in the sense of these plots and plans finally delivering because the ‘right people’ are in place.

What bothers me most of all is the telegraphing. When one side starts yelling about legislating from the bench and what have you, you can be certain that this is what they want to do. When they started yelling about various democratic presidents acting like dictators and socialists you can be sure they themselves want to enact powers to allow for this. So long as they get what they want then screw what happens (foundationally) to the country and her people. I’m tired and saddened by what is going on, and I truly fear the coming election is not going to make it any better.

If Biden wins, Trump will yell for years about it being stolen again, and this time people might be so riled up that they go beyond what happened on Jan. 6th and really do something stupid and crazy. If Trump wins he will enact four years of revenge politics that will set our nation back worse than it did last time, and all the while his supporters will either be quietly or loudly complicit as their version of the news soothes them by saying this is better while at the same time riling them up about something else because fear politics, fear economics, and fear governance is the name of the game for them.

We won’t hear about shutting down the government (like we do every few months) we will hear about the terrible things (including jail time) that should be done to the people who disagree with their party and slow down their agenda in any way. We’ve moved past negotiation and conversation to a political state of us vs. them and winner takes all. Only in such a state there are only the losers–that’s us folks.

And now…

Some Thoughts:

1. Shutting it down for today. I’ve done okay for myself in the writing space. I worked for hours on this novel and got back on track especially in terms of mindset and understanding of where the story is taking me. I am working on multiple projects and teaching, so all of those things deserve my time as well. However, the key is balance. In that sense I need to be smart about how I use my day and in terms of that I need to be good to my partner first and foremost.
2. Writing should not be a divider in my life but it feels as such more and more. I think it is because I don’t have a natural sense of balance. I work until I don’t and really let everything else happen when it happens unless we put a specific plan in place to not to. This is how writers end up single, you know…

I spent like fifteen minutes on twitter today and I’ll tell you in no uncertain terms: It is a ruinous environment that makes people actively stupider. It also sucks you in like no other. Turn it off now if you want to save your sanity… and not help the algorithm make it harder for you to ever quit. Heck the window is still open on the other screen right now, loading up some real nonsense.

I went there to get the 2025-25 FB schedule for my kid’s HS team. I found it and more. I’ll talk about the more another day. For now I want to focus on High School sports, starting with the kid moving to top 3 in AZ and top 86 in the USA in the 110m High Hurdles. Huge performance this past Tuesday puts him in shape to really explode as we near the end of his season and High school career. He’s worked hard for it and the rewards are starting to roll in.

Meanwhile the youngest is trying to find his groove now. He spent the track season hurt but managed to get some work in on the 7s circuit. Now he’s battling 5 other dudes for a starting spot on the varsity roster and dealing with a schedule that argues 5 possible wins out of 10 games. That’s enough for playoffs and a significant improvement over the past few seasons. So, though it is small and dimly lit, there is hope.

I wanted to blog before the night got away from me. Normally on Tuesdays I pick a specific post from history and reflect on the growth, change, and situation from that time in my life to now. However, I find my mind thinking more and more about ownership, place, and belonging and the thoughts arising don’t lend themselves to past post but to life before posting. A hundred years ago my step-dad died. At the time I’d been splitting time between his apartment and my mom’s. They themselves had already split officially by then. They never married, but he’s the dad who raised me. Without him I was left with this sense of emptiness not just because I lost a dad, but I lost a sense of home. His place was gone and my mom’s spot never felt like my own. She made a point to remind me that it was not my place but hers. Over the next few years I was thrown out six or seven times, finally realizing that this wasn’t home and I would one day need to make a home of my own.

I did. I lost that home. Bad financial choices and trying to carry too much weight for a family that didn’t care if that load broke me. It did. It eventually ended in divorce and the kids lost that sense of home themselves. I’ve never been able to give it back to them. I do not own the space I live in now. It belongs in name to my partner and in spirit to her side of the family. It remains a clear and present if unspoken truth that should we ever separate, I leave and I am left without a home again. It is also then true that without me here the kids themselves have no place. So, after nearly 50 years of living on this earth I’ve managed to do little more than to put my kids in the same situation I was in as a kid. Moreover, I myself am in the exact same position I’ve been in for most of my life. Trust in the woman I love makes that easier. It doesn’t change the facts. My nightmares over the past few weeks have been rooted in this truth and the worry that no matter how solid I think things are, I’m not the person who ultimately decides that and thus decides my living fate.

I don’t have any plans or means to change this situation. I spend my earnings looking forward to other joys. Yet these nightmares remind me that it never truly leaves my mind and that I have never truly moved from that mindspace I was in when my father died.

Sitting in Village Inn after over a year away feels like stepping into. time machine or visiting a museum display of the past. This space is unmoving. Even the people are still here. To give you context, I started coming to Village Inn by my campus about a decade ago. I came so often that I was deemed a regular. I’d sit and write and grade and prep for class and then go off to do what I do. I came less and less over the years and haven’t been here in a very long time. However, all the people I remember from day 1 are still here. The place looks and feels exactly the same. The food tastes exactly the same. I don’t know how to feel about it. I don’t know what I expect–comfort? familiarity? growth? I cannot tell you what I thought would be different. I’m different, so I thought they’d be too.

There is new tech. They’ve gone to the handheld registers for payment. That doesn’t change a single thing about the feel of the place; about the distance I’ve come from when I first started coming and the distance they haven’t. I see that more and more in my life. The people around me are entirely stagnant. It feels like if I don’t move forward, I’ll get stuck like they are. That is just the culture here, and I don’t come from this culture. Yet here I am, back where I started a decade ago, still writing and grading in this space that is largely unaffected by time. Still here with these same people who have not moved on because they have nothing to move on to.

I don’t want to be trapped here for the remainder of my existence. I want to grow. I want to feel new things. I want to experience new places. More than anything I want to believe that there is more out there for Lady Talis and I.

Some Thoughts:

1. Witnessed my first rocket launch over AZ. It looks like this. Crazy. I followed it across the night sky and wondered what it was. Research (read: Google) helped me learn more.

Whenever I have chips and wine I think of my mother. It remains one of the staples of her chill. Whenever I think about my mom I think about my fears of becoming her, which isn’t great. She will be here soon to witness the graduation of yet another son. I’m excited about the graduation part of that scenario. It is a well earned achievement–one she continues to take full credit for. I suppose I have entered into that mental space of realizing that the people around me are generally attuned to a reality and reason that is not in tune with the world as I see it. And with that I bring you…

Some Thoughts:

1. The other day I disengaged from a conversation with one of my boys because I recognized the futility of the talk. That doesn’t mean it didn’t bug the crap out of me to the point that I’m writing about it now. It started when I said that I didn’t want to hear life advice from Mr. Beast because we are in a different stratas. My kid responded with ‘what are you talking about?’ I suppose that was the moment I actually chose to disengage but my voice carried through one more statement. I said He’s a millionaire and comes from money. That was the wrong thing to say because he promptly shot into the narrative of Mr. Beast as a self made man who came from nothing. That isn’t the point I was making and… it isn’t entirely true. The point I was making was about where I am in life and where that man is. I cannot drop out of society and study a subject for years. I need to pay bills to keep a roof over his head. My situation–my strata is different. The story he told about Mr. Beast is another example of how filtered reality is for this kids… and how insanely false.
2. There are six of us in the household as of now. When we use the cook in bag rice it generally means one bag of rice per person. When there are six people and someone decides to randomly cook a bag a rice, it impacts the coming meal. Now we don’t have enough rice for everyone. It doesn’t matter to them because it doesn’t impact them. They aren’t going to buy another bag of rice to make sure everyone is fed. We are and they’ll act like nothing ever happened in spite of the extra time and effort that defined the experience of having to go back to the store in order to prepare a meal we already had ingredients for. It is always like this. This is life when living with grown children.

Yesterday was a junk post. We get those. We’ll take those. It happens.

Today is not likely to be as bad, but I will admit to feeling some of the same vibes. I’m missing keys when I type and having to go back over things once even twice. This is not to say I am having trouble dragging up thoughts but to say I am struggling with the actualization of those thoughts. Part of the problem right now is feeling the adrenaline drain from me following watching my kid run a race on the national stage. He came in second, which was solid (5th overall) but watching that lead slip away was tough. He didn’t even break his PR, which made it even tougher. The other athlete is on the field as we speak playing in a 7 on 7 seeding round for a tournament (two actually as he is double rostered). I’m not there. Not because I cannot be, but because I don’t want to be.

Why? It is a valid question to ask. I made the choice not to be at every event. If I am always there then my life is watching them play and I don’t get to do the other things that bring me joy and don’t have the time to get work done. I feel like I should go sometimes and pick and choose the things I attend–not like when they were young and I was always there. Heck, if that were the case I should be in California at that national meet. The key is balance. Gotta find it in your life.

Some Thoughts:

1. The opening of the game Control is definitely unintentional ASMR.

Let me start by saying I’m burned out for the day–I need and this is a legitimate need–some good fun TV to watch. I miss the good old DC comics and the stuff like that which was truly fun. I’m enjoying the Invincible series, but it isn’t happening as fast as I want it to come out. honestly, there is a defined difference for me between anime and American cartoons. I love both… differerntly.

Some Thoughts:

1. The return of Captain America in one of the later Avengers movies is the hardest intro I’ve seen.

Nothing resembling a coherent blog post today. I am sitting in bed writing between episodes of invincible and thinking long and hard about, well, nothing. Sometimes the brain needs a night to reload. So, let’s jump into…

Some Thoughts:

1. Been reading Cupid Coffee. Nice.
2. Toiletpaper nerdness: I realized that the stuff that feels like cotton is like something out of heaven. I’ll get brand info to you when I figure out what it is, but man…
3. Also, a man so obsessed with how nice his toilet paper is probably doesn’t have real world problems.
4. I invested in Nvidia at the right time. I didn’t invest nearly enough for the profit to be worthwhile.
5. Getting back to Invincible: the series got a bit meta about the shortcuts and difficulties of animation and then proceeded to use bad animation for the rest of the episode…
6. In thinking about the things I write and care about I find that there is a predilection towards sports, writing, relationships, and bad tv. Is this all I am?
7. I don’t have much else to say…
8. There is the one thing: I think I may have a medical issue with my right hand. There is pain in the palm on and around the finger joints of the index and middle finger. Not sure of the cause.
9. I also have a computer that is very angry at all the windows I keep open. It’s yelling right now… or maybe that is just the fan.
10. Now it’s getting really hot. Good thing ten minutes are up…

In this house the talk is all basketball–most of it negative of course, because this is the house of trash talk (and I know more than these players about the situation they are in and what they should have done in the moment). It is typical of the age and the generation, but this is not about why they are the way they are. This is about the crazy that happened earlier in the day. Stefon Diggs is going to Houston… for a 2nd rounder. I have no idea how this came to be fact, but unless the Bills know he’s washed, they just added a crazy weapon to the Houston Arsenal and that team is going to be wild.

One stat that told the tale was the incredibly high percentage of catches that Diggs is able to bring down vs. zone coverage. Pair that with Stroud’s league best success rate vs. zone and you have a Madden-esque cheat code in play. It changes the dynamic in that division–especially when you add in Joe Mixon who is not washed. I’m really excited to see the Texans operate this season. I don’t necessarily see myself as a fan, but man they will be a joy in motion.

Some Thoughts:

1. Had a moment to reframe my thinking about sports watching. I love watching certain players play basketball. I don’t like the teams persay. but I love the player. I say this now because I will be watching the Eagles play this season. I am NOT a fan of the franchise. I actively dislike that organization. However, they got Saqoun, so imma route for my guy and watch him work.
2. Giants? Nah they trash. Still watching as a fan, but they are really testing my limits of likability. I disagree with the concept of loyalty, because liking a team is a choice and occasionally a geographical burden. I don’t even live in the city anymore and besides, I can be a Jet fan vocally again so…