Category: Life

  • Doing Chores

  • ODDS and ENDS: Goodnight Tottenham, Goals, and Memorial Day Weekend

    (Sorry, Tennessee)

    And thus the 2022/23 Tottenham Hotspur season comes to a close. Sadly, just as I thought, Spurs lost their last home match to a clearly on the rise Brentford. Though Harry Kane had one of the most amazing goals I had seen in a very long time, it was all for not… This Sunday the Premiere League comes to an end, which has Tottenham playing an away match against Leeds. Though Leeds is sitting at second to last on the table, they do have something to play for. If they get a win with a Leicester loss or tie, and Everton loss, then Leeds will avoid relegation. So, as per normal for this season, Tottenham will lose this match. Which is an awful thing to say, but on paper, Spurs should win this one, no question. But they seem to give away all the easy matches. Then the real humiliation would be Brentford beating Man City (And Man City won the League, so they have nothing to play for) thus causing Tottenham to fall to 9th. Oof! What a season. I guess I’ll wait and see what this Summer brings, with a new manager and players, and also, let’s see who sticks around. In the meantime, I got European qualifying, MLS, and the Women’s World Cup.

    I do have two small goals for today. I want to finish up two flash pieces that I have been working on. AND, I want to submit to a couple of more online journals. I’ve been trying to do this all week, and today is the day.

    Memorial Day Weekend snuck up on me. Actually, all holidays this year have snuck up on me. I feel like I am running behind on all of this stuff. But being as it is Friday morning, we won’t be leaving the City. Also, it’s Taylor Swift Weekend at the Meadowlands, so stay the hell away from the George Washington Bridge and Northern New Jersey. One day, I just might get my life organized enough to plan a getaway for the family, and make a four-day weekend out of it. Until that, I just might be drinking a beer on the roof of my building.

  • Questioning Everything, Still (Unedited)

    There are some things that I don’t like about getting older, but I have mentioned my unfathomable dissepiment of ear hair already. But, I’m not here to speak of that.

    I, like most people, was an angsty teenager, and my distrust of anyone over the age of thirty was a pretty solid foundation in what I considered to be my character. I didn’t like the world that was around me, and I wanted desperately not to be the type of adult that reinforced the status quo. I challenged the ideas behind institution and conventions. Over my seven years of university education, I felt that continued in my questioning ways, and though I can admit that I came to no life changing conclusions, I did adopt the philosophy of looking to alternatives first.

    Then something happened in my thirties, and into my forties; I started to accept the way of things, and in some situations I would even get very angry at the way things had. I started to use phrases like, “That’s just how it is,” or “What are you gun’na do” way too often. I believed I was being a realist, seeing the world as it is, but in reality I was just giving up.

    I don’t say this lightly, but I gave up. I stopped trying. I started to look at life as something that I had failed at. That I had played, and lost, and I should just go away – Watch my tv, eat my chips, complain about the music being too loud.

    And I started to wonder; is this what it’s like getting older? Just being angry all the time? That sounds awful, but I began to ponder about it. How many people are out there are really angry that things didn’t work out the way they through they would? How many of those people are middle aged men? How many of these men are just projection their self-disappointment?

    Am I on that path right now? Can I still get off of it?

  • ODDS and ENDS: End of the Season, No Room, and 25-5

    (All This Can Be Yours…)

    Tottenham has two matches left to the season, and I think the best that they can do is 6th place. I predict that Spurs will lose to Brentford, and then end with a win against Leeds. There is still a chance that Tottenham will qualify for the Europa League, or the Europa Conference League next season, but being how tough the last several matches have been, they could burn out easily. I would like to see them win a trophy next season, any trophy. But all of that will depend on the next manager and if Harry Kane sticks around.

    I’m running out of room for books in my apartment. And, I have about nine file boxes in storage of more books that the wife and I have collected. I refuse to get rid of the books. That just feels like abandoning your child. Yet, I also feel compelled to go book shopping this weekend.

    I should get a move on, you know. I was able to write these first to sections of this post rather fast, and now, for the past hour I have been trying to come up with a third paragraph. Not sure why I hit this block all of a sudden. I started looking out the livingroom window, and everything just ground to a halt. I was thinking about the kid at school, and how close Summer is, and if we were going to be able to get a vacation up to Maine this year. (Rather late in the year, so I’m thinking not.) Just random idea after random idea, but nothing solid that would lend itself to a narrative. Has anyone heard of the 25 – 5-minute rule? You work for 25 minutes, and then give yourself a 5-minute break. It’s supposed to help you stay focused and not burn out. Huh?

  • What Does Malcolm Gladwell Know, Anyway…?

    I will be house husbanding it today.

    I also think the words, house husband should be spelled “house-husband,” but autocorrect disagrees with me. English is a strange language which never stops evolving.

    And when I say that I will be house husbanding “it” what that really means is I have a bunch of errands to run around the city for the family. Every now and then, a day like is emerges and I have to put a bunch of other things that I would like to do on the back burner. Life is about trade-offs, and today, I will be living the trade-off.

    But, one thing that I won’t let myself skip out on is putting down at least 250 words daily. I have been a little lax on the blog since the start of the year. I would post Monday through Friday, with occasional holiday breaks. But since the start of the year, it has been closer to four post a week. I still journal every day, which is how I normally hit my 250-word quota. A good day is 1,000 words, and bad day is 250.

    You know, I started all of this back in 2019. I’m four years into this plan. Outside of my marriage, this is the longest commitment I have ever maintained. I started to think the other day that I should be closing in on my Gladwell 10,000 hours. Now if I do some simple math, like saying that I write about 3 hours a day, on average for 21 days a month, for four years now which means…

    I’ve put in 3,024 hours…

    So… I guess I’m still in my beginner phase.

    You know, Gladwell said that the 10,000 hours was just a guideline, not a hard rule.

    Yeah…

    I need to get going on my errands.