10 Minute Rule

I always feel a little better about myself when I can make a clever joke that other people might get… and might not. Call it a weird literature superiority complex… or just a guy who is kinda glad he knows stuff. To quote a great man, “I drink and I know things.”

This is about the Gilmores. This is about a Year in the Life, which is the four episode mini series that closes the door on the Gilmore Girls series. This is the second time I’ve seen it and second time I’ve blogged it. I have to say that it is better the second time around. Like marriage, I suspect.

Here is the thing: I have a near spiritual connection with the show. It is absolutely not about me and my life. Yet it is absolutely about me and my life and my love and my relationship and my desires. This show is me and her and us and this show is all of what I want and need out of life. It is also something completely separate. It is, as Lisa Cron notes, how I envision life and happiness. It is also the difficulty of a thing coming to an end.

There is a small part of me that realizes that I might have more days behind me than in front of me. I’m looking at stages of my own story come to an end and that makes me enormously sad and more than a little creeped out. To see the show end helps me to put all of that in focus and imagine what the end of one stage and the beginning of another. I’m in that part of my life where such things are less than fiction.

In the end there are few things that can bring me to tears but the endings are always among them, and this one is near the top of my list.

I am in the final stretch of the spring semester. That means I have come through almost 32 weeks of teaching and being ‘on’ only to be provided a month’s respite before I turn to the online showcase to teach again. Despite how it sounds, I’m really looking forward to the summer break. I’m not only happy about the break, but happy about the opportunity to have time to put word to page. Perhaps I can work in a second 1000 wd session a day and even develop time to go back to the words/drafts/etc I am developing to give them another pass.

This is, in part, the flaw of 1000. When the goal is to produce and you set a goal to do that, all you can manage to do is that. Why? Because the feeling of accomplishment is absolutely enough to make the desire go away for the night. I hit my 1k and I feel like I’ve done something. I feel accomplished and fulfilled by that accomplishment. A higher goal, at this point, would be destructive to that zen-state. Eventually I will push for a second session of 500 words, etc. Still having the 1k floor is revolutionary thinking and so healthy to the words.

Now I need to find other manageable goals. 7 minutes of exercise a day? maybe I can manage that. Sometimes a time goal is more effective than a count goal. I tried to do a number goal with pushups, but I added one to the number every day, and the addition pushed me towards surrender.

What I am learning in all this is that I am the arbiter of my own programming, and I truly need to allow myself to reprogram the system. It is going to be painful and difficult but ultimately it is what is needed in order to continue living a healthy — check that. To begin living a healthy lifestyle.

Some Thoughts:

1. When typing something that I am rewriting/reading from I type 30 WPM with 75% accuracy. This argues that I am faster making crap up than I am when otherwise applying hand to key. Part of that argument suggests that the average length of these posts ought to be 300 words. This also argues that there are many a night when the words burst right out of me and many a night when the words must be dragged out as though clinging to the sides of my brain for dear life.
2. 418.

So the end is here.

I’m officially a week behind the start of GoT, because I was waiting for the stepkid to get done so we can all watch together (he’s grown. All gravy). So, tonight is the night it all ends/begins. I’m excited to get to it. As a writer it is a wonderful and sad situation to see a saga come to an end. I look forward to discovering how the character arcs all wrap up.

On the other hand this truly feels like further evidence that the books will not ever be written. I don’t know that he has it in him, and that bothers me. I get a conclusion, but it is only a semblance of what was started in the books and leaves a great many character arcs unfinished (as they were not even represented or misrepresented in the films). That is a cardinal sin of writing: finish what you start, George. Finish.

Still, what I am most excited about in this present incarnation is the Arya Stark arc (which feels done), the Jaime and Cersei arc (which nears its completion early on I think), and the Bron arc. He’s a great character and under appreciated on screen. Other characters exist. Melisandre made some interesting promises that remain to be upheld. There are also epic battles to be fought.

In the end I will settle in with my family and my GoT brand bottle of wine in a few weeks and celebrate yet another of my favorite TV series coming to an end. Funny how there seem to be more endings than beginnings these days.

Some Thoughts:

1. Outstanding Easter. Ranks among the best. More on this tomorrow.
2. You know you’ve lost touch with people when your first notice that they’ve fled the country is Facebook.

The AC has been on upstairs for most of the day. This is especially troubling given the disparity in temperature between upstairs and downstairs. I’m trying to keep it at 80, which is anywhere between 4-8 degrees warmer than downstairs. The key difference seems to be that there are multiple gaming systems upstairs and they run all day. This is what it means to have kids. The kids game and game and game and… You get the picture.

Tonight I’ll get a chance to spend some time with my lady. This is a rare Saturday event. Generally speaking, I have coaching responsibilities or dad responsibilities on a Saturday. However, that is less so the case this particular Saturday. Boys are mostly handled and I don’t coach this weekend. Instead I am taking the time now to get some writing in before I go be with the lady.

In so far as that goes, I am hitting a really good stride with the words leading into the summer months. Honestly, knowing what I want and what is important has been a huge boost for me in terms of productivity. I can focus on the needed and leave the rest of the nonsense to rot or be addressed when needed. Maybe I can start generating enough income to be able to pay these upcoming massive electric bills.

Some Thoughts:

1. New Hobby: Rebuilding and Updating Macbooks. Not going great. Actually, going about how it always goes with me and software. It fights back for a long time and then I eventually figure out how badly I’ve screwed up and correct the problem. Still, the crazy tone my mac is making does have me a bit worried. That’s normal, right?
2. Budgeting is really cool math magic. Until you realize that you have to only spend what you said you would. Then budgeting is junk.

I remain surrounded by people who desire recognition and leadership who believes that providing such to the people who they feel have done things in the fashion they choose to be relevant and desirable will best indenture the service of those individuals. In laymen’s terms, I presently work in a spot where folks are about the likes.

I used to be about the likes. I used to be all about the likes and I had an excellent mentor who told me the most important thing of my professional career. He said (I am paraphrasing here), If you’re in this job for people to say thank you, then you are in the wrong job. I really was that guy looking for the thanks and the camaraderie and the adulation. It came in thin streams like water from a spigot covered in grime. It was never worth what I gave to get it. Not the time or the energy or the sacrifices in other areas of my life. Instead I reached the point where my value to the people I care for the most was at its least. So, finally, I started to move on.

Now I can see from the other side of the process. I have moments where I laugh at where I was and how hot I would get at people taking credit for my stuff and or alienating me in order to advance their own agendas. My greatest agenda in all of it was to be liked and appreciated. That isn’t much of a goal and it led me to rolling back and forth between initiatives like an unmoored bottled on a ship at sea. I never gave my all. Today I give my all to a handful of things and I know damn well what I want. Everything else is just a job.

It helps to know what matters and what doesn’t. For me what happens inside the classroom matters. Working with my teaching partner matters. The community I create with my students and between my students matters. Though there remains a lingering sense of the life and self that was, I clearly recognize that the rest of the work experience doesn’t matter.

I ain’t in it for the likes.

I was in the middle of a conversation with a student about Simulation Theory when I started to see an image in my head of a man holding a coffee cup. This sort of vivid imagery used to be normal for me and a sure sign of my connection to the story realm. I saw the man, Oliver, holding his cup and staring at it in absolute confusion. See, when he picked up the cup there was a particular picture on it (I cannot see the picture yet). However when he looked again the image had changed.

This was a glimpse into a story. I gained access to that view because my mind was open and I was allowing myself to see the world in story and drawing inspiration from everything in my path. That last part is key. Not everyone is nuts like me and believes that all stories come from an alternate reality of some type. Most of us feel like stories are born from inspiration, but it is hard to find a way to be inspired.

We can find inspiration anywhere if we allow ourselves to see. There is inspiration everywhere. Listen. Look at the news. Talk to your friends and see what is going on in their lives. Everyone and everything around us is living a story. That bird sitting on the roof diligently tugging at a shingle? It came from somewhere that taught it shingles were to be had and even made into homes. What does that world look like? That boy laughing and twisting in his stroller seat? Why is his glee making his mother frown? What does that world look like?

Always be asking yourself the question: What does that world look like, because we are merely translators, dear writer. It is our job to show others these worlds we see in our heads and our minds eye. In order to do so we must be open to the experiences around us. We must allow ourselves the space and patience and even courage to see the lives unfolding in our shadow.

Behold!!!

So, it is time to figure out how these things are gonna play out. This is my pre-draft edition, so you cannot put a ton of stock in such things. I had a preseason version of this kind of thing for the 11u team I coach, and boy was I off! (we are presently headed for 5th overall and a dance with the 4th seed that already beat us once. If we win, we play the 1 seed and get abused. I thought we would go 3 or 7. Eventually I settled on 6 and that was also a fail).

The Giants have a year of the playbook under their belts and a better equipped squad to handle that offense and that defense especially. So, what does that mean? It means week I is going to matter mucho. I’m calling it Giants over Cowboys and we move to 1-0. The party continues into week 3, following a thumping of the Bills in the Battle for NY (only every few years do all 3 NY teams face off). We get a surprisingly tough Bucs squad but hold on to go 3-0. The Redskins game is about a team that is fully in rebuild mode and The Giants. We win that too! 4-0.

Reality arrives in week 5. Despite momentum and a clear understanding of what Minnesota can do, we cannot do much and are defeated. 4-1 quickly becomes 4-2, because the Patriots are still the freakin Patriots!

The Cards come to town soon after to restore our faith in ourselves. 5-2. Week 8 brings a very good Lions team and a tough loss for the G-men. 5-3.

10 minutes about done and we are halfway there!

I remain quite fond of the term/concept ‘Garbage in, garbage out‘ which argues that the input data you receive serves as the basis for what is being produced. When my partner mentioned that my recent work has felt very “CW” it became clear that this concept is quite real.

I am a fan of bad TV. It is not even bad TV to me. It is instead TV that is light and doesn’t require higher mind. It is often trope driven and simplistic in many ways. As a result much of the new writing I am producing falls into that same trope trap. This is where things become difficult. I don’t want to be a walking trope. I want to develop deeper narratives that veer away from the traditional characters and roles and offer us a reflection on what and who we are as a human society. However, I struggle with the reality that most people are driven headlong into lives defined by these tropes.

Think about it: We live in a world where the social influencers are largely shills for the biggest companies whose lives play out on varying scales of social media. On the largest scale you have the Kardashians and the Real Housewives of Lord Knows Where. On a smaller scale you have the Youtubers followed by the Instagram Models followed by the Snap Story mavens. More and more my kids are defining themselves by who they follow vs. who they want to be. I’ve heard enough about T-series v. PewdiePie conflict to fill a novel.

So, how does any of this pertain to what I write? Well, I am doing a bit of excuse making here by saying the world is powered by tropes and memes. I am allowing myself to write in that fashion because the masses are ‘about that life’. Still, I ought to be better than that and more true to the message I see and want to put out into the zeitgeist. That starts with reading and watching a better class of stuff. No more Black Summer-esque nonsense for me.

Well, maybe just smaller doses.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Trump’s America. It is hard not to in a state where MAGA bumper stickers are about as common as possible. This is also the state where the symbol below remains prevalent. I’ve included the symbol with the instructions and explanations that don’t normally appear on it here.

The sticker is another example of a dog whistle: a secret communication that is only meant to be seen by a particular group. This particular one means that if you have this sticker on your car we can pull your car over if we spot black people inside. It means that because black people did not use and were not given this sticker. MAGA hats are kind of the same thing.

Make America Great Again. What does that mean? Contextually it is a response to 8 years of presidency by a black man–8 years that the current POTUS is trying to dismantle policy by policy in spite of the overwhelming success and support for many of those policies. He was elected largely on two fronts. The first is open distaste for Clinton. The second is a fear/anger based response to the shifting demographics and power structure of our nation. Make America Great Again means make America a safe power structure for old white men and their children, so they can transfer power to their children as has been done for hundreds of years. However, that reality is no longer so certain. As with any group in power, that ‘base’ is going to hold on whether it is consciously or unconsciously.

Great Again precludes America having been great during the time that change was underway. This is in many ways the acceptance part of the argument that is so insidious. It allows us to believe that America is only great when led by people who look a certain way, which largely allows us to forgive how they act.

Even when how they act is unforgivable.

Netflix cannot stand folks doing a genre and them not having a cut. Moreover, they want a really big cut and they want to basically take over the entire operation. Only, they remain late to the party. Black Summer is a version of the Zombie shows we’ve been watching for years. However, it is a version of that show that loses all credibility by episode 4. If not for an incredible performance by Yuk Guen Lee, the show wouldn’t have been worth a single episode.

I think the conversation begins with Lee. An actor from Hong Kong, Lee has been around since the late 80’s as a child actor. She is responsible for carrying the show through multiple episodes where the writing fails to do more than anything we’ve already seen and succeeds in doing less in character development than I thought possible through 4 episodes. It was the 4th that killed the show (pun intended) for me.

The show exists in vignettes. Or at least it is supposed to. We fade to black every few minutes supposedly opening on another ‘beat’ in the script. The 4th episode is a perfect example of those beats leading us in circles. In that episode we follow a lone survivor (actually, one of the beats is called alone) as he flees a lone zombie. Now in this scene we realize the running man is a coward and a fool. 5 minutes in I’m waiting for him to die.

Spoiler Alert: He does not die. Instead we watch the silly running nonsense and him making every mistake in the world and being rewarded for it. We learn nothing about him and the entire episode (because it is the entire episode) is a waste. Even if he died, it would’ve been too much for too long.

Maybe that should be the name of the show: Too much for too long.