10 Minute Rule

So, first watch this. Now read this. And this. Now I will say that this is one of the instances where FOX provides a more measured coverage than CNN. I see this on occasion when the subject matter is ripe to be sensationalized. Remember the missing flight MH370? What I really want to talk about, however, is the situation itself. Strip away the interpretations provided by the various news outlets and what you are left with is a teacher who takes a swing at a student and a student who actively tries to provoke a teacher into a violent confrontation. That narrative is best told by this article. However, what we don’t know is what will happen next for both parties nor what are the particular social histories that led to this happening in the first place.

Let’s be honest with ourselves. We live in a country where being a teacher is seen as a ‘less than’ profession. It is more prestigious to become a nurse than to educate our youth. I personally believe that this is the ‘fault’ of the media given the high number of TV shows glorifying the medical field and the relative anonymity of teaching. In truth teaching is usually associated with negative feelings while nurses ‘save lives’. This is not a knock on nursing, but a point of comparison both salary and socio-professional street cred-wise of jobs that have a secondary layer. Teachers can also be College Professors. Nurses can become Doctors. When there is that layer of elevation I would argue that the so-called entry layer tends to be seen in a lesser light than the upper echelon achievement. In this particular case, being a teacher is not seen in any positive light. Because people hate school to begin with. They hate hospitals too, making both work environments places people do not want to end up. 

Back to the punch.

The dude punches the kid after a great deal of provocation. He is expected, as a teacher, to do anything else but what he did. Yet he decided to fall back into stereotypical masculinity and throw a punch. Once the punch was thrown he had sank to the kid’s level. Personally, I am glad the kid got his ass beat. As I said earlier, people lack respect for teachers in our culture. Unfortunately, this is not likely to engender any more respect. 

A year ago this week launched one of the worst periods of my life. In many ways what transpired is why I am on the 3rd iteration of the rule. When a person is really deeply and fully in love and that partner decides to walk away it can break you. It broke me. I’m writing a few feet away from the spot where I spent entire days without moving. I was destroyed and unwilling to do anything but go through the paces of life for the sake of those in my life who still mattered. 

The thing is, I don’t blame her. 

From top to bottom the entire way things went down was my fault. I’ve never been a good partner. I’m selfish in an unconscious way. I’m complicated to a fault. I need recognition, influence, and instant gratification. These are the reasons I coach. It fulfills all of those needs. It also complicates everything else in my life, because of the focus I allow athletics to have on my way of life. I continue to believe there is room in my life for more than that. I see it everyday in the many quiet moments spent wasted. These days I fill those moments with bad television or other equally bad habits that have nothing to do with the things I ought to be doing with my time (I ought to be writing when I have time that I cannot spend with my partner or our family or at least grading during those hours). 

She left because I couldn’t give her any form of consistency or even a shadow of the kind of life she wanted. I wanted to find common ground, but I don’t think she believed that exists. It does. There is a way and a rhythm that comes with bringing everything to the table, sorting it out, and deciding what to keep and what to focus on in order to find that small island of happiness.

As cheesy as it must sound, love is an island easily washed away by the tides of daily life. You have to dig in and hold on to each other less you be washed away and drown the way I did a year ago. 

That isn’t the end of my love story. Mine continues to this day. Sometimes it limps along and sometimes it is strong and filled with the kind of passion and connection that fuels stories. Still beneath it all lies a pain that I caused–a hurt that I don’t believe has fully healed and one that I fail to fully recognize. 

I was listening to an audiobook this morning on the way home and marveling at the use of language. Writers–really good ones–have a specific voice that, while influenced by others, is unique to them. The beauty of that is that every book is an opportunity–a reminder that the voice is a large part of the story and that it is important for a writer to cultivate voice.

To be honest, I struggle with believing in my own voice. It isn’t a case of feeling like I’m mimicking other writers but recognizing how hard it is to fall into voice. This is especially hard on first draft when I am just trying to get the ideas down on paper. That is part of why I outline. However, getting into that sense of voice is why I write. I want to be in the bubble where I can feel the characters and feel like a narrator recounting their stories. That space was easier to find as a kid who didn’t care for anything but letting it flow out. It is harder now that age and effort have worn me down. 

I wonder how writers keep that youthful will going?

Some Thoughts:

1. Stumbled across Znation this morning. It is not good but it is addictive in that The 100 sort of sense. Basically we are talking about the bad soap opera version of the Walking Dead. Yeah, I know exactly how that reads.
2. Yeah, it is gonna suck me right in and that is a bad thing… just say no.

I really want a cup of coffee. The problem is we are way past my bedtime and nearly on the wrong side of midnight. Still, I want a coffee and I want to stay up all night doing lord knows what. I feel like one of King’s character’s from Insomnia save for the fact that I want to not sleep. There is no real reason for the desire, but here we are.

I fell asleep a few hours ago, long after I put the kids to bed. I was laying in my own bed and listening to Andrew Cuomo prattle on angrily about Trump when I felt myself going. I let it happen for a while and then pulled myself out. I hadn’t blogged. I hadn’t taken any real time to myself. I suppose the sleep was a version of me time, but not a version that left me feeling any real satisfaction beyond basic refreshment. I suppose it is that basic refreshment that has me up this evening watching a ton of marginal to terrible TV. 

So I suppose the moral of the story is that I need proper recharge. Bad TV isn’t entirely good, but it is something. 

Apparently players still try to take matters into their own hands in the NFL. Take the sad case of Ty Montgomery. The elusive RB/WR from the GB Packers decided to take a kickoff out of the end zone after, reportedly, being told to down the ball. Instead of 12 getting the rock for yet another amazing comeback, Ty fumbled. Game over. Packers career over as he was traded soon after. This was a message: Do what coach says, or we won’t put up with your shit. This is the same sort of message going around the NFL this week. The ‘shit’ in question varies from salary to noise to whatever. A number of high profile players are on the move to new teams this week and the fantasy world is reeling.

Long time Broncos great Demaryius Thomas leads off the wire, because he was traded to the Texans who the Broncos play this week at home. You see the story implications? The Broncos plan to honor the man during the game, and the steal a line from Jarvis Landry, Thomas plans to ‘bless em’ during the game as well. Thomas has a great deal to reconcile about this trade and I think that, though he has not discovered a rhythm with D. Watson, he is going to play and going to score at least once this weekend. I’ll be sure to watch this tilt. 

Meanwhile the Giants fire sale wasn’t the only one to benefit defenses. The pack shed Ha-ha Clinton Dix, losing the best name in football and a top ball hawk. The Jags gave up a top pass rusher in Dante Fowler, relinquishing a player who was not even getting minutes for them but will thrive on the Rams D. 

It is that kidn of week in the NFL and the fantasy world benefits.

I find writers everywhere. I found a handful today sprinkled amongst my english classes. I found them because they announced themselves and talked about having a passion to write a novel or stories or scripts. They are out there, moving amongst the common folk undetected. These quiet and hidden seekers of story are the ones I need to cultivate if for no better reason than to hear some more good stories and absorb their tales into my own personal zeitgeist. 

The thing I dislike most about this entire process is the recruiting. You’d think it would be the best part, because I get to go meet people and draw them in. However, this is not fun. This is like submitting work for publication and getting no after no after no. Not fun. Instead of smiles I see that fear and doubt well up inside them and spill out in some bland excuse or another. 

Writing can be really scary. It is moreso when you are expecting to be judged. A grade is a judgement. I have to give grades, so I have to judge. 

I worry that I won’t be able to continue the incredible creative writing community that I became a part of here. I hope I can find a way for both of my writing classes to make and continue to share the beautiful art of story.

Some Thoughts:

1. Getting things off my chest helped. The school day was excellent and a reminder that I have a really good life.
2. 
   

I had a handful of things I wanted to write about today ranging from the power and role of story to education and passion. Instead I find myself in front of a keyboard and angry because of the role agenda and coddling play in all facets of life and how whenever that part of life worms its way into my own, things do not go well. 

There is a tendency to assume that because someone has special needs they are necessarily a good person. This is untrue. Having special needs does not determine a person’s personality or ability to manipulate a situation for personal gain. 

I find myself in a situation where I am faced with a person who is like many other people I encounter in day to day life–in that they are trying to get what they want and have no sense of anything beyond their own needs. 

This is a difficult one for me, because I will be seen as the bad guy for doing anything less than supporting and acquiescing to the needs of that specific person. I will not do that and as a result things are not going to go well. I can tell you this: I have learned from this experience that I will not put myself in this situation ever again. 

Some Thoughts:

1. I long for a life where my only work is the creation of stories and the teaching of the process of story.

Back on day 91 I hit the quarter break on this year of change, but I really haven’t fallen into that break and that self reflection/realization until recently. This 3rd iteration of the rule was designed to be a journey into personal understanding about how and why I write as well as how I intend to move forward in my personal and professional life. There have been glimpses of revelation and movement largely lost under the deluge of responsibility (and neglected responsibility) that is my life. I meant to get it all fixed in a year, which is clearly ambitious and more difficult than I thought it could be. Now I’m at the point of being resigned to certain things, and recognizing the likely irreparable damage I’ve done to parts of my life.

To begin, I have made mistakes and failures in many areas that have eroded the trust and faith that others have in me. That’s a real problem in more than one part of my life. Winning back that trust is not a realistic option. After so long you can’t change someone’s faith in you, instead I have to adjust to the new reality and strike a balance between making all the changes possible (both professional and personal) and hoping those adjustments lead to something better.

I don’t know what the future holds for me beyond more of a grind. I have a long way to go before I reach anything that feels like where I thought I was headed a few years ago. in the next 200 plus days maybe I can figure out a plan and a direction towards where I ought to be heading. 

My eldest son just came back from his first High School homecoming dance. Lets reflect for a minute on the fact that I have a son in High School and that he’s going to homecoming. It has been an incredibly long time since I was a freshman, but I remember clearly that life fast-forwarded from the moment I hit HS till my mid 20’s. Talk about a blur. Seeing my boy enter into this period of life is satisfying and strangely terrifying. He is going to fall in love. He is going to find out who he is. He is going to fail at things and succeed at other things. This is his time of trials. This is his coming of age story.

We don’t get to talk about mine. It is very sad and fragmented. It is story fuel and why I tend to script fantasy novels about communities in isolation. Like every other writer, I’m probably trying to work some shit out. 

What I am working out in my life right now is twofold. I’m trying to strike a balance in my personal life and a return to some sort of happiness. I am seeking a taste of professional passion–specifically for the words. I believe the two things are connected. Once I get right in my heart I can get right in my head. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Just breathe.

I play a lot of Madden. More specifically, I sim a lot of Madden. Having a game like that allows me to project and predict deep into the future. I can create a scenario where the Giants are finally good. Moreover, I can estimate just how long and what that will take. I suspect there is a version of this interface in a lab somewhere that is dedicated to GM’s really thinking through how long and what it will take to bring their teams to the top.

I am becoming obsessed with the idea of ancestor simulations–specifically the idea that we are living in a simulation. I have no evidence that this is happening. I do however recognize patterns in my life that don’t follow biology or social flow. One example is how if anything breaks down then everything seems to break down about the same time a year. It is never the same stuff either. I call it Gremlins, though it could just as easily be a test of my parameters. 

Those self same parameters are constantly being revised according to the choices I make, so having a recurring situation as almost a control would make sense. Why someone would want to do that to my or any simulated life form is beyond my present ability to understand. 

Some Thoughts:

1. Love is hard. 
2. Relationships ought not be so tough.
3. Love is worth the tough.