10 Minute Rule

I’m considering bringing my kids into the Fantasy Football fold. This might be the season we do a family league, draft, draft party, etc. It could be a really good time. The idea plunges me back into that world of stats and analysis and considering offensive schemes and defensive stoppers. It gives me an angle into the world of football that I lost by no longer coaching.

So, if this does happen who am I going to pick? Well, the Jenkins murder investigation sure raises some questions about the Giants defense. There were already lots of questions given the 3-4 switch and not knowing what we have at DE.

Offense is an entirely different situation. My doubt is melting quickly. I believe the Giants intend to do big things with the 12 personnel package. I’m a fan of the package–especially out of a pistol style or shotgun look. Of course the fantasy game is about picking individuals. It is about going team by team and figuring out who is going to shine. These are answers I don’t yet have.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am in withdrawal from coaching. Full on withdrawal. I want to coach and have been doing everything but asking my kids’ team coaches to put me on and my partner to tell me I ought to. None of those things are happening and that is probably for the best. It doesn’t stop me from wanting it.

I’m watching a documentary called The Staircase, which tells the story of a mysterious death. I’ve become more and more interested in these things as I move closer to a fall semester where I intend to teach a class about mysteries and find a few key cases to start us off. Memento Mori. For we too shall eventually pass. The dark tone of the blogs lately make me wonder where my head is at on such things and if I am seeking some personal resolution and preparedness on the matter. I’ve been wondering why now; why at this time death takes such precedence over other thoughts. I think I’ve been subconsciously reflecting on the death of my father and when it was I lost him. I was 12. I fear he was 43. I am 43.

It isn’t that simple, of course. Death is also metaphorical. These thoughts reflect the fear of failure and of being overwhelmed and succumbing to the load of work pouring over me. I think that this workload, while workable, comes at a time where my mind is not in the best shape to handle such things. It makes me wish for the days where I had the juice to write for hours. I keep on likening that ability–that point in time–to a switch that was flipped to the off position. It is a useful mental trigger, should I figure out a way to turn it on and not rely on the knowledge that it can be turned on.

The fact is I’ve been remarkably lazy and unsure of myself as of late and those twin concepts are crippling. All of it is in my mind, so I ought to have the power to reconfigure the obstacles matrix-like into a pathway back to success.

I love Luke Cage more than I have a right to love a show. It is a me thing. It is a Harlem thing. It is a childhood thing. It is also a good writing and integration thing. Many stories have problems translating on to the big screen–especially when budget and ‘power level’ demands that you limit CGI. Agents of Shield is terrible at this, despite being the one show that deals with the least amount of powered individuals (at least in theory). Instead of building in the rich history of the Marvel characters and their unexplored backstories Agents of Shield chooses to, unwisely, fall upon the creation of new powered individuals and mix them with icons and aliens creating little more than a hot mess (Ghost Rider pun!).

Luke Cage ain’t about all that. Cage is the antithesis of wrecking things to try to build your own thing. Instead Cage gently reshapes characters from the story canon–sometimes depowering individuals vs. pumping them up into super villains and heroes. For those who haven’t read the comics, Luke Cage is one half of the original Luke Cage and Iron Fist duo known as Heroes for Hire. Many of Cage’s original supporting cast have already appeared on the show and have been integrated into MCU: New York as part of the collection of shows on Netflix. This new season goes a bit deeper into the original run of villains and does so without really raising the power stakes but instead raising the emotional stakes for all of the characters. This is about how you feel about these people, not about how strong Cage is as compared to other heroes. Don’t get me wrong, you are going to get a villain that can trade blows with Cage, but if the first season is any indicator, that is only the start of the intrigue in this season.

Watch it. Love it. Go do it now… I mean after you read …

Some Thoughts:

1. I weigh more than I ever have in my life. I am legit fat. It is not a happy or healthy situation and demands a course correction–should I have the courage to correct the situation.
2. I’ve been thinking about death more and more lately and I cannot for the life of me (ha, pun!) understand why. I’ve resigned myself to the reality of discontinuation, but I am not yet at peace with the idea of it. Not yet. Not ready.

Another day, another blog almost missed. I am amazed at how quickly the habit falls away when the mind is cluttered by a great many other things. Stress is eating away at the core of what powers me and I can do very little about it other than to believe that this too shall pass. I am stressed about my living situation and what that means for my life and love moving forward. This too shall pass. I am stressed about my classes and the continuing failure to stay on top of the grading and to effectively release new material at the time (schedule) I want. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the writing projects not getting done in a timely manner. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the number of stories I need to read and judge for a competition over the course of this week. This too shall pass. I am stressed about the schedule for the week not being clear in my head. This too shall pass. I am stressed about how tired I have been lately–to the point where the fatigue seems to effect me in other areas. This too shall pass. I am stressed about not coaching and slowly coming to terms with leaving that part of my life behind–even if it does feel unfinished and always will feel unfinished and unproven. This too shall pass. I am stressed about tomorrow and not having a good gift for my sister. This too shall pass. I am stressed about my new writing class and not having prepared the required information in any timely way. This too shall pass. I am stressed about letting everyone down when it feels like people need things from me and need me to be organized and I am just not right now. I am overwhelmed. This too shall pass.

There are half a dozen more things I am stressing over that I can’t even list because they are further down the list of stresses and have been largely overridden by the larger scale stresses. They are the pain I’ll feel once I’ve dealt with this pain. I am stressed and all of it comes back to not taking time for myself to deal with any of the stressors. Instead the time I do get alone is spent checking out on reality in any way possible, because dealing with the unreal is far easier than dealing with the mountain of work and drama I need to hollow out in order to have any sense of where things are in my professional life.

It is wearing on me to the point that this key moment of my day in which I actually write is being totally overlooked.

I opened the computer to the window of an unfinished and unpublished blog. My heart froze in my chest. The air and sense all draining from me at once. Did I screw it up? Twice in less than a year? Does that mean the blog is over and done for?

No. I refuse to accept that. I left it as is and published it. Then I went to work on this one. I can admit my failures. I’ve spent 356 days wallowing in my own failures and inability to do things as they should be done. Yesterday I seized up in so many ways. I recognized so many failures. I saw the darkness in my finances, my parenting, my relationship, my writings. It was a day of realizations that saw me disconnect from the blog in a way that is unforgivable. The blog became another loose thread, unfinished and largely forgotten. How many threads are there? How many projects fall into ruin because I just don’t stay on it; because I cannot stay focused or pay attention long enough to get the work done?

There is a list that stretches down one arm and crawls back up the other. There is a graveyard of projects and failures and misstarts. There is also a realization in their remembrance. There is the realization that this will continue so long as I let it. My greatest failure is carrying too much and doing too little.

Some Thoughts:

1. I am more and more intrigued by mysteries of the world–both criminal and otherwise. I think I will indeed theme my research class around that concept.
2. Planning for class: Another thing that remains undone…

 

Today is movie day. At least that is the plan. I want to create a situation where we are falling back into something more organized than let’s play fortnite for 8 straight hours. It is a plan with little resembling form. At least I can rely on my kids wanting to eat popcorn and watch movies if not even theming the event to include games and what not.

August means back to school, so mid June is sort of a peak where we all hit the limit of what we can stand for freedom. Tomorrow the boys will be going to football practice and that means a sort of formality. All of these things are starts towards something. I too need to start towards something.

But what?

Some Thoughts:

1. Life is hard. Seems like it will be that way for a while.

Well, the NBA draft came and went. The Knicks continue to experience Cubs-like mediocrity which is further amplified by the pick of Kevin Knox, a scorer who can spot up and shoot and plays well around the perimeter like, well, that is pretty much all the Knicks have anymore. This is a collection of tall shooters who aren’t built to pound the glass when they inevitably miss some of those spot-up jumpers. Lebron James is not coming to the rescue. Sounds like Kawhi Leonard isn’t either. He just got rebuffed in the effort to go to LA. He’ll get there eventually, but it might take another year of his career in order to do so.

Back to the Knicks…

Blech.

Seriously?

The lack of inspiring picks and trades has me thinking the Knick front office is playing money ball and leaving it to a solid coach to come in and fix things up. Sorry, my NBA 2K character is not real and cannot come save the squad. Apparently nobody can. Extended mediocrity it is then. The really odd part is that Knox is clearly not the best SF that was left on the board at the time. They passed on a lot of talent to reel in this fish, and I have to say I have concerns about the mindset of the front office. No, I still don’t trust them even after Porzingas.

Some Thoughts:

1. Rough rough day in the life of love. Everyday feels like it should be better than the last, but tomorrow definitely has the legs to do just that. Today sucked overall.
2. Better blogging and writing tomorrow. It is getting near July and I have not been great about the words. Not great.
3. Or the stories needing review. That is also on the docket.
4. Big ass Docket.

Sense8 is about love and sex. Sense8 is about violence and connection. Sense8 is about pain and family. Sense8 is about all of these things and none of these things in particular. In my final verdict, Sense8 is a show about 8 lives intertwining and spiraling outwards to touch the lives ot those around them.

The premise of the show is pure J. Michael Straczynski. The writer broke on to the scene in 88′ winning the Bram Stroker award with his first novel, Demon Night. He went on to make Babylon 5–one of the most tightly woven series in the genre of intergalactic sci-fi. This show is the brainchild of him and the Matrix co-creator Lana Wachowski. Together they dreamed up a tale of groups of 8 people who are mentally connected and can share each other’s experiences and inhabit each other’s bodies. This would be a wonderful thing if not for the fact that each of these people in this particular sense8 is a cast-off from society in some way. They are racially, socially, and sexually marginalized including black, asian, hispanic, gay, poor, transgender to name a few.

Of course, it wouldn’t be an adventure if not for the fact that another Sense8 is led by a maniacal villain who wants to use his power to rule. Drama ensues and the group is forced together to face this evil and the conflict within themselves. In the end they succeed, but not without scars.

In truth the idea of verdict is anathema to the idea of Sense8. This is a show about the lack of judgement. This idea is best encapsulated near the show’s final scene where the story’s most uptight character relaxes her sense of judgement and in that moment reflects the hopes of the show’s co-creator, Lana Wachowski, who built this show around the idea of her own shift in gender and the hope that love and sex of all types can be appreciated without verdict.

There is irony at play here as I write a daily blog and go on about how the 24 hour news cycle is turning nothingness into story and diluting the attention of the viewers and readers. Truth be told, 6 out of seven days of my blog are utterly meaningless. I am guilty of the same stuff I preach about stopping. Okay, maybe my ten minute rants can even be a model of exactly how long it is okay for someone to say just about nothing. Anything longer than that and we are destined to start hearing stories about giant poisonous weeds and space aliens. Okay that second one gets limited coverage, but the weed story was picked up by every major news network. After a while it started to feel like a viral Little Shop of Horrors revival campaign.

Lately I’ve had nothing to write, largely due to feeling a ton of sadness, stress, and sickness. I just don’t do well in this state. This does not change the responsibility of writing, and I have been working towards completing my drafts. Gotta keep grinding or it never gets done.

As for getting done and being done, it is hard to be a writer while you are sad. I want to be done. forever. This too shall pass, but as it hovers over me scythe in hand, it feels quite awful.

Some Thoughts:

1. Funniest thing I’ve seen all day: Marvel Strike Force TV Spot
2. I needed that laugh.

I have goof days and bad days. This is a bad day. This is a throw your life into turmoil and deviate from the goal day. This is a lose sight of the goal and recognize that it is never ever going to happen day. Like I said, bad day.

I don’t have the words to talk about it all yet. So, I’ll let my mind spin away from the pain and land in…

Some Thoughts:

1. That took about a minute, which leaves me 9 more to dwell. I’ll start with a reflection. When I started the thoughts it was based on Peter King’s 10 things I think I think. That is over now. He left the Monday Morning QB after what he quotes (massively under quotes I suspect) at 5.5 million words. All those words spilled out of him and impacted people. There are people being born today that may never have the chance to read his stuff and I feel for them.
2. I feel for myself and I take full responsibility for so much wasted potential. Like so many overeaten and underused carbohydrates in my body, my potential has settled into useless fat. I still get a few stories out here and there, but I haven’t figured out how to turn things over as a writer–just like I haven’t figured out how to turns things over with my health.
3. By that account I’ll be dead soon and it will be a damn waste.
4. Those last three points crept out of me so slowly that I practically have no time left. This is a good thing, because I have nothing left to say on this of all days.
5. Happy Father’s Day to all the dad’s out there. You have a tough job and it rarely goes the way you want it, but know that your kids carry your spirit and your words and your lessons forward. It is all we can hope for as parents.