10 Minute Rule

Tradition is, well, tradition. So, here comes a ten-minute xmas eve poem…

Twas the night before xmas 
Twas a night of great cheer
Twas the night before presents
and excitement was near.

On this great evening
much fun to be had
Chores for the little ones
who long had been bad

For this was the day that
that long into night
All those naughty kids 
tried to make it right

They talked to their teachers, 
and parents, and friends
Like long time abusers, 
tried to make amends.

But this is the magic
when christmas is near
There is no better push 
then the christmas coal fear.

We do things for self 
we do things for love
we do things to feel good
nothing else above

For xmas is time
to fill up with glee
Some people even rhyme
Some people like me

Because in the end 
I prefer we find joy
I wish only happiness
for each girl and boy

So let them find christmas
their one chance to repent
They’ll do all your bidding
Till bad karma is spent.

So in this last post
before christmas day
I say merry christmas
In this poetic way.

Merry xmas, dear reader!

I’m just gonna say it like it is. Some things suck. Some things suck so bad and predictably that it makes you yearn for the stuff that is actually good. At times I wonder if the bad things lower my standards for the good things. To wit, I believe Spiderman: Into The Spiderverse is among the top 5 Marvel films of all time. The next day I watched Batman: Bad Blood and recognized how awful it was and how awful the DC stuff has presented itself in recent years (Marvel is not to be excepted from this generalization). 

The spidey movie was really good, but that is a blog for another day. The real here is that things are crappy across the board. I believe our president sucks and inexorably is tugging our country towards the normalization of behaviors that would otherwise be considered crazy, bullying, racist, lousy, etc (and will again should a democrat try anything like what this president has done). 

I don’t have a lot specific to rant about, but it isn’t quite christmas, so I thought I’d get it out now before I get to the point where I am reflective and grateful and joyous. Gotta get the rage out…

I don’t live in the world I grew up in. Not in any real way. It is a version of that world. It is a version that is draped in technologies that barely existed in my childhood. It is a world where the characters of my past–The Trump’s included–are caricatures of a past that seemed to make so much sense at the time. This is the central idea I wish I could find a way to capture in print. 

There are some serious problems with taking everything from my past and watching it turned into a movie vision by people from that time. It is the realization of everything we all wanted. But where do we go from there? What I loved about the Iron Man movies is that they represented a modernized version of what was essentially a B character done up to represent the angst and ego of a generation. What I didn’t love is that they unleashed a new era where there isn’t the gestation period of twenty years plus to realize that dream on the big screen and for the idea of characters and the zeitgeist they represent to be fully matured before being unleashed to a hungry, idea-starved, public. We get everything now. We get it in a hyper-shortened and summarized and even homogenized version. 

We get content without content, and I think that is where things are starting to go seriously wrong.

Fitting that I didn’t post the blog last night. I was overwhelmed by a great many things. To begin, break has begun and the kids are totally jazzed about xmas being around the corner. Me, not so much. I haven’t gotten all the gifts, I have no real plan on how to spend the time with them, I haven’t finished the work I need to do pre xmas, and did I mention gifts?

This is not supposed to be a stress-filled time but, here we are. So, it is no surprise I only hit publish one time and clapped the laptop shut before diving into an episode of God Friended Me with the boys (we do love our shows). The moment was indicative of two things: First, the double tap publish is not intuitive. You can always unpublish or delete, BTW. So, why do I have to hit it twice?! It makes me look unfocused, which I am. So, stop exposing me. Second, as I said, I’m unfocused. I wasn’t sitting down to the ritual of writing. I was trying to squeeze in ten minutes so I can feel accomplished and go kick it with my kids. 

So, that there is the real trouble. I’m not living that life I just talked about wanting to have. I’m still diving from cave to cave and watching the rest of the world turn to dust in the interim. In other words, I need to get back to balance. 

Funny… I’m not sure I know what that really looks like. I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it. 

It has been one of those crazy kind of pre-christmas seasons. I’m not talking politics or world events but the crazy in my own life. I’ve come to a particular set of understandings: 

1. I am in love in a way I have never experienced before, which is both deeply fulfilling and terrifying.
2. I am actually interested in becoming a better teacher. This is a rare condition for someone with tenure. I should be, according to stereotype, checked completely out.
3. I want to put more focus on the blog and thus the writing career and recognize that the two are in fact part of the same lifestyle.
4. I’m not dedicated to building a creative writing program at my college without monetary compensation. I should feel differently about that situation, because the more I build a program, the more classes I can teach. Still, the urge is not really there. Maybe I don’t want to teach 16 week CRW classes any longer? Maybe I just don’t care for the politics of the thing.
5. I want things to be better with my kids. I want a home life that makes me feel good about being with my kids and proud of the time we spend together. That is not happening. Hell, I’m not at all proud of my home itself.
6. I want to manage my time better instead of falling into things and drowning in them to the point where once I emerge everything else has been forgotten… or messed up.
7. I always want to leave one blank.

I can talk about the Giants again. They are officially eliminated and in the space where they are not looking to take a particular QB in the draft and make him an immediate starter, but might be in the market for a solid free agent (Teddy Bridgewater, anyone?) to relieve Eli Manning. While we can argue whether or not Manning is entirely done I would argue his downfield confidence is hindered enough that he is not the guy we want moving forward. So who do we get in the draft? 

I am openly arguing for a 1st round defensive pick (DE) and WR in the second. I don’t see any Offense Linemen jumping off the page and I do think you can get a solid QB in the 3rd round. I want A big body WR to help Eli (or whoever) and take some of the pressure off the guys we have now. I recognize how silly that seems on the surface, since the Giants are in love with 12, 21, and 22 personnel packages as of late. The Slot I is a masterpiece with a solid FB and I think the Giants have most of the ingredients including a pulling guard on both sides. In fact, I intend to fall into the Slot I and pro packages when I return to coaching, because I know I have the personnel. 

The Giants have a bright future despite a disappointing season. While they were exposed so was the rest of the NFC and out of the lot the Giants appear to be the most promising. Exciting things are to come–New rookie QB or No.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yes, I’m saying ‘we’ in regards to the team because I am of the faith without owning the articles of the faith… kind of like a Christian. 

I’ve been playing video games far less than I normally do. The reason is not because I’ve grown up in any significant way or lost my desire. The reason is far more interesting. I’ve reduced game time because I am far more interested in spending that time with my partner. As a result I don’t game nearly as much. Instead I play the games I know incredibly well (Madden) or are low stress (Minecraft) and allow me to multitask. 

I’m growing. I’m growing old, but I am growing and part of that is compartmentalization of time and effort. Games will always hold an important role in my life, but they haven’t held the primary role in years. Instead they’ve become a momentary escape as I find fewer moments to engage in them. So I’ve focused on the games that are long term wins–games I can dive into a get a short term high but overall can sustain me for the year. I invest time in the games and get a lot of imaginary play out of them whereas the straight shooters fail to grab me in that way or seemingly in any way anymore. It takes too much time on task to level up and be effective.

The main thing is I have better things to do with the time I spend. I’m loving the time I spend with my love and with family. I feel like the writing even benefits in spurts from the relaxation of the games and being able to fire off my imagination into the digital abyss. 

Jara told me things would be better now. She smiled and smoothed over my hair in that motherly way. I held on to her for a minute longer, squeezing tightly as I did. Outside the sun was rising behind a sheet of grey clouds bringing the promise of a days work on the farm. 

“He’ll make it better. He has to,” she said. I didn’t put stock in politicians. The one before him changed everything for the worse. He made us pay more money to the government for healthcare we didn’t have the time nor patience to use. Beyond that he was different. Everybody outside our country liked him and thought it was such a great thing that we made a black man president. But what did a black man know about life out here in Iowa? What did he have to say to us? He was just another politician with lies and a smart mouth. He was just like that lady they tried to prop up on us all ready like her destiny was to lead things. She didn’t know nothing about us neither. No, I was going with the other guy. He might be a son of a bitch, but at least he was our son of a bitch. 

I sighed and let go of Jara. I put on my jacket and headed out into the dust and dirt of a too dry summer. The corn we grew mostly went to ethanol. Two farms over Monsanto pushed out thousands of bushels of edible corn, but we couldn’t sell ours like that. It was too high risk. Every morning I had to walk the fields to make sure no Monsanto seeds blew into our fields. They’d taken down old Hank a few years back for him growing their seeds. They had a patent on those seeds, which was pure nonsense in my mind. Seeds fall where the winds blow them, and if you let them grow there, well, you’ve just broken some sort of corporate law and it could cost you everything.

Family. 

Well, thats all I have to say about that. No.. there is more. Family is difficult and irritating and sometimes you have kids you want to lock in a room by themselves forever, but family matters and you love them no matter what.

Or you tolerate them.

I tolerate quite a bit. I’ve discovered strategies to make it work. I don’t quite understand how they tolerate each other. The part that gets me is the seething anger that is beneath the surface in some interactions and the deep happiness that serves as the foundation for others. 

I’m thinking about these things near xmas as I am falling deeper into my partners family while I watch my kids enjoy the relationships I left behind in my former marriage. It is a very odd thing knowing that your kids have a family that you are not a part of in any way, shape, or form and to know that the family you left behind has hate for you and likely efforts to transmit that hate through your kids

Christmas. 

Family. 

The whole thing is difficult.

I watched the Favourite this evening with my partner and… wow. There are few movies that can hold tension largely through conversation. This film is about Queen Anne of England and her aide, Lady Sarah. The deep friendship between the two is put at risk by the arrival of Sarah’s cousin Abagail. I refuse to give away too much except the say that the movie is carried by the conversations between these three women. It is an excellent film that goes too far at times in the heavy handedness, but does a great job first creating a delicious sort of tension and then stretching that throughout the film with highs and lows that give the characters a chance to win–if only for a moment–with deepening losses and challenges to their character. 

In other words, this was by the book writing. 

Tension is the key to good fiction. You have to have something at stake for the characters overall and smaller steps to that larger stakes which are won and lost throughout. We have to see progress being made towards and away from the goal at every scene and every turn. If you can do that you have a chance to be a really good writer.

Some Thoughts:

1. I’m thinking about using the Write the Story book as a template for at least a weekly post that is a 10 minute story. I don’t want to get to the point where the blog is categorized by day. I want the freedom to write anything (or absolutely nothing of value) at any point in time. Except Wednesday… I kinda like the Waiver Wire structure for that day during that season…
2. This is a chance to work on some of those skills I wrote about in the blog above…