You know what I miss?

Playing catch with my brother in the street. Long bombs, pop ups, grounders we threw them all, on purpose and by accident. For hours, up and down the street, on the school fields and peoples houses. It was tiring and fun, and I miss that. Now don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to play baseball or softball, 3 pitch, slow pitch, or T-ball. I just liked to throw and catch a ball. Cracking jokes, pretending to rob someone of their grand slam, world series winning homerun. I’m currently in the process of teaching my kids how to throw properly, and catch using a Mitt. The oldest is about 3-4 yrs in, and has gotten very consistent with catching, but the throws tend to go wild every so often. Lots going on around us, so can’t blame them for losing focus. The youngest started last year but fades quickly in the sun & heat. Hoping for a few top up lessons this year, and then get some real work done next summer. Every kid should learn to throw, catch, hit, run, swim and ride a bike. Just so they have options to move through as they get older and play with other kids more.

I do need to figure out a better way to work in new gloves, as mine is still stiff, and both of the kids gloves are less than ideal if you actually want to close your hand around a ball or manipulate the Mitt in any way shape or form.

We also practise with kicking and passing a soccer ball around. That’s a great lower cost sport in this neck of the woods. Fun to do on a beach, at home, or shallow water. Same with a frisbee.

My exercising is still moving along, but now I kind of want to move into weight loss too. Not so much I’d give up pizza and the occasional soda, but eh. Small active steps, and a new beneficial behavior take time to cultivate. I’m getting very close to 150 days of writing, so that’s pretty cool. That’ll be some time this coming week.

Took the kids out for mini putt today, my wife came too, which was really nice. Good weather, unruly kids and fun had by all involved. A great Saturday morning.

123 – easy as do ra me, simple as ABC…

What a funny looking number. Looks fake to me. Or oddly staged, as though someone were trying to find a random number. But here we are on day 123 of writing every single day. Yesterday I sort of completed my story arc, and now I’m trying to decide if I need to add an epilogue to fill it out a bit, or just leave it be. I could easily fill book three with the whole thing in greater detail, but I’m not sure at this point if I want to. Feels a bit rushed, but that’s the thing, building up to nothing is how life tends to feel. Blink, breath or loose focus for an instant and it’s all over and done with. Like studying your whole life for an event, having a sneezing fit that obscures the brief pinnacle moment and you’re left wanting at the end. Tragic, I suppose. Inevitable? Not sure. But that’s how I write. The fiction in my writing is that nobody gets off scott free, they all die in the end. Not so true here, is it. Awful, horrible people shrouded by money, privilege and power can do as they please and languish in luxury until their natural deaths. Fuck that, I say. Treat them as you would any, and every throw away character. Boring, work a day deaths for all involved, hero or not. A stubbed toe that gets infected, and they die of blood poisoning even though they were set to ascend the power structure or live forever after one more minor detail was completed. Nope, not on my story arc, fuck face. You die, no pomp, no circumstance, no banners or lying in state for you. Left to rot and decay in a random unlisted room someplace. Maybe the janitors turned off the environmental controls after cleaning, and didn’t realize you had a panic room back there, but were so cheap you used Company environmental facilities instead of paying for your own separate supply, and it’s constant maintenance. Ha. Eat shit.

I’m thinking that as the weather gets better, I want to focus more attention outside at the house. Windows, tree pruning, the lawn, the gutter blockage, driveway, vehicles. I’d like to start the screen door or coffee table build soon. I’m thinking about sculpting more again too. Playing the guitar and/or piano is somewhere I’d like to focus my attention as well. Same with teaching the kids about baseball, soccer and bicycling. We got out yesterday morning and played some ball hockey which was a lot of fun. So much to do, and try to focus on. Easy to get paralyzed by it all and wind up doing nothing at all. Except write. I’m pretty good of late about doing some of that every day.

Oh-oh, Spiderman No Way Home arrived this week and I got to watch that with my wife one evening for a date night. I ended up having to work for forty minutes in the middle and missed a chunk, but I liked what I saw the first time around. Watched the middle portion the next day, and liked it even more! Was pleasantly surprised by it all. Made me tear up in a few spots too. Not that that is particularly difficult as I get older. I’m sad that some major plot points were spoiled for me on Twitter, but I still enjoyed the whole movie anyway.

Hope you enjoyed all (41) forty one parts of book two, The Ghost of the Dirty Starling, as much as I did writing them. It started out heading one way, and moved around a bit, and was ultimately a fun little novella to write. Maybe now that it’s off my shoulders I will write some one off’s about my dad life experiences. Or not.