10 Minute Rule

I am afraid of first drafts.

I’m serious. They terrify me. I used to love them. I used to get everything down on paper (actual paper!) and feel so great about having it all down and having the chance and ability to do that. Now… Now I am paralyzed with fear every time I try to write a draft, because I expect it to need to be perfect the first time around. I don’t know if I am afraid that I won’t have time to write a second one or that I am worried about what people will think about the first draft. My partner asked to be my beta reader, and I fully intend to take her up on it. I don’t actually have one. She should have always been the one. Instead I put the drafts to a group of people who I am wanting to impress. I don’t need to or want to have to need to impress someone with a first draft. I need to be focused on getting it all down and getting it out of my brain so that I can mold it into something fantastic.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. New York cynicism is deeply important to one’s concept of how great one is. I miss the hell out of it.
2. I watch a lot of bad movies still.

My kid just explained to me that Santa is real, and I don’t know how to feel about it. He’s fairly new to being 9, but young in terms of magical thinking. After he said he believed in Santa he went on to explain that the tooth fairy is 100% real, because there is no way a parent could sneak into your bedroom, move your pillow, and replace a tiny tooth with money. In other words, I am an exceptional thief. Not sure that is something to be proud of, but here we are. Where do we go from here?

I don’t want to tell him. I realize that it is part of parenting to share the horrors of the world with your kids and to help them grow up when it is time. He approached the conversation from the standpoint of others (kids? YouTube? I did not ask…) claiming the falseness of Santa. Maybe this is how flat earther’s get started. Maybe I am exaggerating a small myth that a child relies on in order to still believe there is something magical in this reality.

I did not break that spell. I have no intention of such. The Santa gift hunt will go on this xmas and maybe he will decide it doesn’t matter if Santa is a physical person but instead, as I did say to him, “The spirit of Christmas is the thing that really matters.”

 

I’m struggling with parenthood in the typical way this week–there is too much chaos and not enough time to get anything done. In essence it is the first week of class and that is compounded by the practices all three kids have at different times. This will all simmer down once I’ve worked out a sensible schedule and gotten together a transport plan but in the meanwhile, chaos. I am managing to keep my spirits up and keep my eyes on the goal. These are good things. Doesn’t mean the words are flowing out of me at break neck speed though.

Some Thoughts:

1. Read a post from 2016. I started playing Clash Royale back in June of that year and I am still playing… WTF?
2. My mid kid informed me that he is the best JPW wide receiver in the nation. He was not kidding or attempting to over-inflate his skills. No, he was straight up serious. So, he got my ego.
3. Three episodes in, Cloak and Dagger is following the small screen largess of most other Marvel shows. It recognizes the central role of powers without leaning on that to tell stories. The directing is solid and backed by a consistent episodic format and a solid supporting cast of characters with their own stories.

So, we are doing this fantasy football thing! We discussed it and decided that we all wanted to be involved. I’m talking merged family involvement, draft night antics, etc. This is going to be our first one and there is a good amount of excitement attached to that–for me. Let’s be clear: I am talking about me here. In truth, I believe the (now 5) boys and the partner basically submitted to this situation as a ‘sure, if it makes you happy.’

It does.

Sure, I want them all to want it, but I also appreciate exposing the original franchise boyz to something new and giving them something fun to integrate with the twin towers. I’m a New Yorker… I can make that reference. And I can say that out loud and on paper. So, back to football…

The main bit of conflict this season has been what service to use (again we are talking about me and thus internal conflict). There is the old standby–Yahoo. There is the new flashy NFL network server. Finally, there is ESPN. I’ve used Yahoo and ESPN with varying degrees of success and prefer the smoothness of the yahoo interface. Still, the twins (who aren’t twins at all, but are merely tall) and the partner are used to ESPN. What to do?

Move on for a minute and talk about the game itself?

In that sense I am thinking about not having the first pick. I think that in a snake draft there is more value taking what would be the 7,8 picks overall. Your first 5 are ‘sure things’ which generally relegates you to a QB or a steady RB. 7,8 in terms of there being 32 teams gives you possibly top 5 talent in both areas. So, I expect to trade down should I get a higher draft pick. Who will I pick? That remains to be seen. There are a number of options available. I have my eyes on David Johnson (not the one from the Browns) and Aaron Rogers. I also think I could grab a decent QB in the third/fourth round of picks. A lot of this is based on what kind of strategy I am going with. Am I relying on the NFL being more ground and pound this year?

Time will reveal more answers. Next waiver Wednesday I’ll shore up decisions on when the draft is and what service we are using… and why.

A few moments ago I woke up my boys and informed them that this was the last morning they would be waking up late. School is back. We had a second meet the teacher night (of three) last night followed by additional football practice, all of which left the entire group drained. They slept in. We went to bed late too. All of this adds up to a condition that needs to be be handled relatively quickly. For all of us.

I’ve grown used to fairly late nights. While I don’t sleep in as much as the others, when I am on my solo nights I am up to around 2 AM (barring last night when 10 PM seemed way too damn late). Of course late nights are part of the equation with late practices. We go 2 hrs in the late evening, which puts us on a collision course with bedtime and little opportunity to squeeze in a home cooked meal. I haven’t quite figured out how to work that out. I am thinking about preparing meals ahead of time or arranging to be the guy who brings kids to practice but not bring them home in order to have that hot meal waiting on the table. It comes down to me sitting down and having a serious look at my calendar and my responsibilities and saying, “okay, this is how it is.”

Some Thoughts:

1. No Waiver Wednesday today. I am going to push that to Thursday this week along with a rousing discussion of which particular service to use for my first league with my kids.

I initially termed this ‘Tured Tuesday” which should be all the indication you need of my state of mind. Since that moments I’ve already made six (seven) major typing mistakes requiring me to go back and rewrite things and had to remind myself of what I was trying to say at least once. In other words, I am exhausted (9). There is not going to be a lot here today. I don’t have any sense of why I am so tired (10) (11) or how to solve the issue.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am typing this incredibly slowly, because I got up to 16 by the time I wrote the word ‘issue’.
2. The diet is going well. Slow but well. I am learning how to limit myself and have better food overall. Lots of walnuts and coffee.

So, I’m going to admit my age here. Not in the sense of how old I am, but in the sense of failed elasticity. A younger version of myself adapted to change extremely fast. I was about floating through tech trends like an ultralite skimmer atop the water. Lately I have been unable to allow things to gain the proper traction in my mind. inelastic. Old.

I was late to the MySpace party. I openly hated on Facebook. I refused to accept the idea that playlists have completely overtaken the idea of listening to an artist’s catalog. I missed vines entirely.  I still call myself a snapchat denier. I refused to accept the YouTube generation.

Yep. Past tense.

I get it. I get Twitch. I get the concept behind such things and the powerful platform that allows you to connect and share with people everywhere. I get how and why it is monetized. I get Ninja. I get SSSniperwolf (men are straight up perverted and lonely). I get why my kids are totally about such things. I even fall into specific ‘artists’ such as Mr. Nightmare and Hacksmith. These are escapes that are faster and more readily available than the orchestrated escapes I call TV Shows. These are quick, well produced, and promise content faster. These feel more accessible and reflect the desire of many to feel like they are part of the conversation. They are, in essence, short cuts.

I get short cuts. What I fear is that this is how things are trending and I don’t develop content fast enough in order to be able to be in on what is now and next.

In other words, I’m old.

It can be hard to decide what news to focus on. There is a persistent 24 hr news cycle which offers little in terms of diversity, but much in terms of the number of ‘partisan’ angles from which a story is approached. In this deluge of news and media opinion one can struggle to see the ‘true story’. I won’t pretend to know all the real, but I have managed to figure out a thing or two over the four plus decades I have had the honor of walking across this planet (more on memory and self and the concept of soul and reincarnation at a later date). I know this: Every angle has a purpose and audience. So, the real trick is to decide what news stories are actually relevant and examine them from multiple perspectives.

The Mueller thing is a good one for this. The republicans, bolstered by Fox News and the tweeting power of Donald (how in the gray fuck is this guy president?) Trump, have created a story where Mueller absolutely hates Trump and is in the pocket of the (formerly feckless) democratic party to destroy Trump as some sort of petty personal agenda over Golf.

Bullshit.

Yeah, I’m going to dismiss that on the surface. Mueller has been openly praised by both parties over the years as a stand up guy and solid leader of the FBI. He was nominated to the head post in 2001 by Bush to great applause. He continued on through the Obama presidency, because everyone still thought he was great. Eventually, he retired. Trump’s appointees are the ones who brought him back as a special counsel.

This concept of a witch hunt is designed to reach the people who either don’t know how to filter out bullshit or want to believe in Trump as a way to feel like their vote was not a step towards destroying the country they thought they were protecting by shutting down Clinton. It is reaching them. It should not.

Some Thoughts:

1. I think I have a kid who is suffering from lingering sever’s disease and another who has Achilles tendonitis. I also think that I am dealing with cyberchondria and diagnosing dang near everything over the internet, so there’s that.

I’m watching my kids play Fortnite and it is the worst version of down for self I have ever seen. Nobody wants to share weapons. Everyone wants to go their own way and every instance of imperfection ends in an argument. In other words, it is a natural extension of brotherhood. Everyone wants to be in charge and everyone thinks they are right. It is ridiculous and childish and they tend to make it seem like it is of the utmost importance in their lives. They have to be absolutely right and superior in this moment, because, well, I really have no idea and that is the problem.

I don’t understand brotherhood just as much as I don’t understand Fortnite. This last failed effort dragged us into a fight that split the family for the night. Yay, Fortnite. In general the game seems to press on emotions in a way that leaves me confused and breathless. It is entirely worth a sociological study. I mean seriously, the game is predicated on people gaining skins and dances that have no value outside of social currency for which you can either pay real currency or work towards (after an initial payment of $10 per season or $40 flat rate in order to enable you to grind for more currency).

Both the game and the generalized brother drama are predicated on how people think and feel about themselves and how they judge the others around them. Each of my boys brings a sense of pride and expectation to the table. When either is challenged it results in emotional distress, which tends to play itself out as a larger conflict–either through a game or argument or both. This has been going on for over a decade and each day is another day of learning about how and why such things happen.