10 Minute Rule

I found myself thinking about this meme this morning. I find myself thinking about the moment often. More now that Trump is targeting law firms who hire lawyers he doesn’t like. This situation we are in is largely being promoted by one “side” of the media, and not being given enough gravitas by the other. What we have is a sitting president using the power of the government to go after citizens he has beef with. These are not criminals. These are not people who’ve done wrong. These are people who have opposed him in the past; people he doesn’t like.

That is some real dictator shit, and nobody it taking it seriously enough.

The man is talking in news conferences and interviews about seeking a 3rd term. That has been constitutionally illegal for 75 years. So, now we are changing the amendments to appease a bully? He would need to control three quarters of the country’s state-level governments to approve such a change. That means that the narrative is going to be about how those resisting states are “holding back freedom” and “don’t believe in American values” which will lead to them loosing government funding (also illegal).

Honestly, I didn’t think it would get this bad. I voted against the man, but even at the time it felt like a number of Americans wanted to just let him have his turn so “it would be over”. Few realized it would not be over until he says it is over. The democrats don’t have the same level of machine that republicans do to prop up candidates. There is not someone out there right now that can deal with the overwhelming nonsense and two-faced policies and smiles of the republican party. It feels like we’re fucked as a country. It feels like the people who will be worse off are still going to clap and smile and support this nonsense because they like the optics of some of the things that are happening. All of it tracks with their belief system. None of it helps our nation internally or externally.

USA is starting to feel as short-lived as all the fiction suggests. The corporations at the top aren’t going to be too terribly impacted if we crumble as a nation. They can always go somewhere else. But where are we going to go? I’m trying to figure that out now. I’m trying to figure out if my state retirement is safe.

The truth is, I have no idea.

This is the first week things really got tough in relation to the grad school work. The problem wasn’t content so much as time. Rewriting a novel, teaching all these classes, and having a life really interferes with trying to get the studies right. I learned that I am failing at organization again. In truth I am in that moment where I can see a clear path forward to success. Unfortunately, I tend to see that path and say, “I got time today.”

I don’t. I really don’t.

The issue is not taking the time I have and using it wisely. That is the secret of the ten minute rule–that is the message to be shared from this blog overall. We have the time, so long as we are willing to devote the time and energy and planning to use that time effectively. We don’t know how much time we have, so we tend to waste it until, ultimately, it is too late.

Perhaps we would be different if we knew exactly how much time we got start to finish. Perhaps our lives would be coated in purpose as opposed to waste. As it stands we don’t take advantage of the time we have. I am guilty of that. I don’t want to be guilty of that any longer. I want my life to be better. I want to enjoy my moments and I want to do what I can with all the time I have left.

This is the day I am supposed to be leaning into the week. I am supposed to be getting ready for what is to come and prepping for those classes in any way possible.

I am not.

I’m not even watching football. I’m doing very little in terms of what needs to get done–mentally and physically. The realization of this hit me about two hours ago and I… still did nothing. It happens from time to time that I get tired of being an adult.

Some Thoughts:

1. Yeah, super short. The thought itself came out fully formed, but there wasn’t much there. That in turn leaves me time to wax about all of these other things…
2. Like the fact that I am realizing that one of my step kids, who was raised as a Suns fan, is having the same existential experience I had as a New York Knicks fan all those years ago. He was in front of the TV when they lost in the finals. He realized the loss (worst in franchise history, btw) was a defining moment in the franchise, and they never saw the finals again. So even now when he does watch, it isn’t with a ton of hope. They killed his hope just like the Knicks murdered my own.
3. Hard life talks with the people you love matter. It sucks when you cannot put them at ease. Then all they are left with is this terrible feeling of anxiety about what they cannot fix and or what doesn’t sit right with them.
4. Running out of things to say, but also fortunately running out of time. I plan to take a walk with the Lady Talis. It will be the third day in a row we took time to do such things. It will be the 7th day in a row I didn’t do my personal exercises. I am winning and failing at the same time.

This is going to be one of those stream of consciousness situations. It has to be that because I don’t have a single cohesive thing to say. This happens from time to time. It happens more when I burn my mental energy early in the day and wait until I’m laying in bed, head and shoulders propped up by a stack of pillows, laptop balanced on my lap. I get here when I’m trying to do too much and when I am not seeing the reward of what I’ve done.

Getting here is better than quitting here. Getting here means I am trying to reload and rebalance how I spend these hours as opposed to saying that I cannot do it all. I have to do it all. I have to carry a load because I want the things I want for myself and I want the things I want for the people in my life. It’s been this way for fifty years. It will be this way for as long as I have left.

That doesn’t mean I will always be overwhelmed. It means I will keep pushing myself to do good things and to create. Without creating I don’t know who I would be. I watch consumers every single day and I ask myself if they are creators as well. Most of them don’t seem to be. They lack the basic appreciation and patience for the act. I could be generalizing (and probably am) but I fear that more and more people prefer to offload creation to a device–be it an AI or other preformatted junk designed to present whatever customized reflection of empty ideas they’ve picked up by consuming other empty ideas. That’s what the internet is anymore.

I don’t like Arizona.

Initially I thought I would. Initially I thought everything here had the level of green that Flagstaff presents. I realize now how stupid of an assumption this was, given the reality of the southwest being largely desert. I knew nothing about Phoenix. Once I did know (upon arrival at that), I convinced myself that I could make a life here replete with large house and suburban lifestyle. It worked for a while. I managed to get one kid to middle school before the wheels fell off entirely. After it was a steady stream of things going wrong mixed in with meeting the love of my life, and all of the nonsense that unfolded in between and after.

I’ve been having bad dreams. I don’t remember most of them. I remember images that feel like bits of my real life pulled back into focus. I remember places and peoples faces and all of them are moments from this terrible place. It feels like my soul is telling me to move on. Every part of my being needs me to move on–sooner rather than later. The problem is in what that actually means. I’m so close to retirement that leaving now would hurt immeasurably. Actually, there is a measure–I’d get an extra $1,200 dollars a month–if I stick to the timeline of leaving when the kid graduates. $2500 a month extra if we tough out two more years beyond that. We are talking about $10-30,000 dollars in annual benefits depending on if we make it two or four more years here.

But can we?

I don’t really know that it is realistic to stay that long. Everything here is heat and sadness. Everything here is a support system for the kids and will be as a result of proximity. It is the way of all offspring. They don’t leave until they leave… or you do. So, as I sweat in this office kept at a loving 86 degrees I am wondering what sort of plan the Lady Talis and I need to put in place to make our time here livable. That will determine how long we manage to do it.

I waited several months to write this initial post. Knowing where things are headed it is probably really stupid to say my piece at all. However, I am a writer, and I do have a small measure of protection in terms of relative anonymity and, more importantly, natural born citizenship. They haven’t tried to come for that yet. If I were a student on a Visa or an immigrant I would be afraid right now. I would be afraid of trying to embrace the very bill of rights that citizens cling to. I’ve read multiple articles in the past few days about students being scooped off the streets and disappeared into a complex and non-transparent deportation system simply because they stated an opinion that was contrary to what the majority party thinks.

Ozturk was not the first student detained for an opinion and will not be the last. It is worth noting that these claims are being made as a part of a larger conversation about what it means to be anti-semetic in America. From what I have gathered, Otzurk and several others were reported to the government as terrorist supporters via a website called Canary Mission whose purpose is to identify anti-semites. The Nazi’s used a similar system, btw. It is rough to see this thing have come full circle in under 100 years.

What is really disturbing–beyond the fact that there are very little facts attached to these profiles–is that there is no distinction made between Hamas as a terrorist organization and Hamas as a governmental entity. To explain, when Hamas took over the strip in 2007, it became the legal government of the region. This means that anyone speaking about or in support of any official government action or taking part in any government action (such as voting) is considered to be a Hamas supporter. These profiles argue, “they supported Hamas” yet fail to distinguish what this support was. Otzurk’s op-ed (which she co-authored, btw) never mentions Hamas. Yet support for the organization is the reason stated for her being detained.

I thought we were on the verge of something bad. 3 months in, we are in something bad that is going to get much worse.

I want to believe–I really want to believe the Giants know what they are doing. I’m not sure that’s real, or that what they are doing is actually a working plan. They picked up “Not-s0-dange-russ” Wilson, adding him to a pile of QBs that live in the Madden slush pile. Wilson was good a decade ago. Winston is a big time gunslinger who, with the right WRs can put up big numbers. They are not entirely different, but they are entirely different from anything that Daboll has had success doing, and they themselves have never had success behind a trash O-line.

So, what they heck?

Here’s what I think: The Giants want to grab the best player in the draft. I think that is Travis Hunter. I think they think that is Abdul Carter. I don’t at all think they intend to pick a QB early. It looks more like there is a plan to scoop someone (like Carter) early and then work a trade (likely Kayvon) to get a late first simply to have the optional year available only for the first round tenders. Who is the QB? No clue. At one point I thought they were looking at Milroe. The Jets are the only other team who may take a QB in the first, so gambling on getting a guy late is a good bet. This is a pretty deep draft. I see options. I see hope…

I hope they don’t screw this up.

Some Thoughts:

1. 20 days since I blew this entire thing up. Time flies.
2. At some point in the near future I ought to go back to the day before it fell apart and get a Monday morning QB sense of what actually happened. It may still be having repercussions.

I’ve been living this life for a long time, and over that span I’ve really started to see how I might be remembered. There is still ample opportunity to change things, and some things really ought to change. Others are set in stone, based in the long tradition of relationships that have wilted over time. I know now, for instance, that I will be a footnote in the majority of my kids lives moving forward. For some I am an attachment to their birth mom. For others, I’m the guy that pushed them–either too hard or out the door. Two might remember me fondly, if so it would be as a result of deep conversations, spilled and shared emotions, and above all else, trust.

I think about these things every so often, but on the heels of a new marriage I am really internalizing what I bring to the table, and what life, if any, is left behind. For my birth kids, who have been openly accepted into this new space, I do feel like they may feel left behind. This is not across the board or even through my own actions as it is a function of location and the pressure of their mother. I have my Lady Talis. Their mother has them. This “I” is truly a we as the Lady embraces these kids as her own. They have to recognize on some level that I’ll be okay. They have to recognize the inverse of that on some level as well, and I fear it powers behaviors nearly as much as the fact that she lives considerably closer to their friend groups and they don’t own cars in this state.

The question most on my mind is what do I bring to a legal marriage. How does marrying me benefit anyone? I’m not sure there is a benefit to being my wife that I haven’t already freely given without the involvement of laws. That is something to consider.

Some Thoughts:

1. I try not to speak of the Lady in these pages, and I will work to do so even less. I respect her privacy in all things. I needed to bring her slightly into focus here, because she is a part of me and a part of this dynamic of which I speak.

We–I–need technology that allows thoughts to flow directly into a save file. I want to be thoughtwired like that. I want the opportunity to capture all of the ideas that pass through my consciousness when I don’t have a pen or a keyboard handy. I was going to write about something else today, but I forgot what it was because I am not thoughtwired. I used to have a website with that very name. It is the name of a screenplay I wrote when I didn’t know a thing about writing screenplays. I feel like it is an idea I should go back to, especially now that I am in a sci-fi class in a graduate program that appears to embrace my brand of weird.

I used to have ideas all the time. They happen less now, perhaps through aging or TV usage. The problem will absorbing so much media is that it leaves you less time to think and imagine. The time I spent as a kid staring out of 17th and then 8th floor window was time well spent. I don’t spend that time as well these days. I waste a bunch of it on bad fiction. I absorb that stuff like candy anymore. Just today I sped through one of those videos on daily motion that are chock full of bad acting and rather repetitious scenarios that all revolve around some incredibly wealthy man who is hiding his wealth and identity and all the people around him are treating him like trash. Incel bait, this. Still I struggle with putting down stories when they hook you right away with a moment as simple as wanting to see someone snooty get theirs. Unfortunately, these things make you wait an hour and a half (plus ads) to get to the payoff. Thankfully, I am a master of fast forward.

No, the payoff isn’t worth the speed scrubbing.

What I do realize in all of this is that I need to spend more time offline. The stories are there. The stories are floating around in this jumbled psyche of mine and, not being thoughtwired, I need to dig them out by analog. It is hard work, but if I can mine a few really good tales then it is work worth doing. Besides, I tend to enjoy silence, nature, and moments of peace. It is all I crave when the house is full of noisy kids.

Some Thoughts:

1. Not a lot of thoughts but a little bit of time left.
2. I will say one thing: I’m excited to see the draft… be over. I just want to get on with it. Being a Giants fan has gotten tougher. I’m out here rooting for Jameis. That’s wild.

“I want that one,” Angie said. Her long manicured finger hovered over the fifth of nine images laid out in a semicircle on the Siamese rosewood table. 

“That one,” he repeated to no one in particular. There were five of them in the room. Darius and Angie stood on one side of the desk beside the forgotten Thai interpreter who said her name was Sally. The negotiator spoke English. Of course he did. Behind Sally, a woman in a white server’s outfit hung near the door holding a tray of pastries and waiting for any indication that someone in the room might one another. On the other side of the desk sat a man who could’ve been sixty-seven or one hundred and eighteen, so reworked and smoothed out were the lines on his skin. The few that remained were close in around his deep gray eyes like the rings of a tree. Darius didn’t like those eyes. He didn’t like anything about this situation.

He liked Angie; loved Angie, to be certain. He loved her enough to fly sixteen hours to Thailand to be here in this office picking out his future from a collection of photos. 

“You have a fine eye, Ms. Manna,” said the man behind the desk. He’d said his name twice now, but Darious couldn’t remember it. He was distracted by the images. Each one was a rendered image of a twelve year old child. Five girls, four boys. Angie was tapping on the picture of the second girl now. Her hair fell in strawberry curls around her olive-toned skin. She had green eyes, perfectly straight teeth, and a smile to rival Angie’s own. 

“ And your decision, Mr. Greeley?” 

He wanted the boy. He always wanted a boy. He pointed to the last image. He didn’t look anything like the girl. He was dark skinned, darker that Darius was, but his piercing blue eyes and kinky hair were everything Darius ever imagined in a child. 

“I don’t understand. How can you do this? Aren’t there laws against this sort of thing?” He wanted to be outraged. He wanted to believe he didn’t want to be there and he didn’t want to take advantage of this opportunity, but he was here. Angie didn’t force him on that plane. If anything, he’d been the one excited for the opportunity. 

The man’s smile looked like a slit run horizontally across his face. He said, “The beauty of Thailand is in what we are allowed to accomplish on private land.”

Angie curled into him, the warmth of her snapping him from his uncertainty. She said, “I think what my fiance’ is trying to ask is how does it work.”

“Genetics, Mr. Greeley, Ms.  are like the sliders in the games you’ve made so much of your wealth developing. We can control many of the polygenic factors that are not directly determined by Mendelian Inheritance. Your genetic samples were processed, and based on your preferences, we were able to create some wonderful options. Skin tone, hair, eye color, all of these things are only bound by your ability to pay for the work required.” 

“We can pay,” he said. After all, what is the point of having money if you didn’t spend it on what you truly wanted.