Post-Gym Brain Scramble

A $36 Million boat named the Queen Anne Water Beetle that had a route between Fukuoka and Busan hid a serial leak on the ship. Apparently, the Jetfoil was too expensive to repair, but in the leak being leaked (haha punderful) the company was forced to close the line as they didn’t have another boat for the service.

Now, if you’re asking what this has to do with the price of milk, you’d be right in thinking the answer is absolutely nothing.

It does inspire the thought of how tenuous, seemingly invincible societal infrastructure is. It was just like the beginning of COVID-19 when the race for groceries was on, and everything cleared out before the hats dropped. We live in an elaborate ruse if you’re conditioned to believing that we exist as fully separate nations instead of some slow transnational meld.

Today was the first time I’d been involved in my high school soccer program in over a month. It was a reminder of the importance of building community and also the joy and ridiculousness my players exude.

How does Alvaro do it?

I have questions about how the hell Alvaro Morata keeps getting starting striker positions at top clubs in Europe.

He’s currently playing for AC Milan— a storied club known for playing at the historic San Siro stadium that’s shared with Inter Milan.

Morata has played at Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, and now AC Milan. That’s a crazy list of clubs. Another player who had played for the same range of clubs would be considered one of the greatest of all time, or at the very least, one of the best of their generation.

That’s not the case with Alvaro. Even with the international winds that he has had with Spain, he is not considered a talisman striker. But obviously he brings a level of experience and capability to teams. But it’s wild to see essentially a sports version of failing upwards.

Andes Explanation

There’s something called the “cocksucker swivel” and buddy, you have mastered it.

But that’s something I’d expect from someone who ran off and pawned their wedding ring for an ayahuasca trip in the Andes.

There’s no rotgut whiskey that’ll ease your mind now.

Twin prop propeller plane on a downward journey. Worn rosary beads and burnt prayers can’t turn up the nose of destruction.

Bountiful harvest in a sensual weight. Each key tap echoing out past the edges of an unprepared end.

Lancaster Downs

The Affable Mutt was the only place you could stop for a drink without being bothered by the Amish.

That wasn’t the worst problem after Y2K. But it did stick in Gerald’s craw. He’d thought the “end of the world” would be a more dramatic affair. Instead he was left dealing with inflated egos propped up by their lucrative butter trade.

The promised future didn’t include rival carriage makers or barn builders. All his life Gerald had been told about flying cars and space travel. They’d barely made it past jeggings and Limp Bizkit before everything went south.

Anew

It’s a new year and I find myself once again sitting in my car waiting outside the fingerprinting office on Seventh Avenue.

I submitted my teaching license renewal to be a substitute teacher again. Only this time I won’t be in Portland proper. I’ll be on both the east and west sides of town as I settle into a new routine of coaching and teaching.

It’s another year and I have a new daily story section. Last year, I really didn’t write all that much compared to the two years past. I didn’t have as much of a reason to. Even with publishing my first anthology and navigating return to Portland, I didn’t find many stories that I wanted to take beyond any of my notebooks.

I initially started my 365 story challenge to push myself creatively. It wasn’t about churning out. Highly refined works or even having stories that I thought would be imminently publishable. I wrote them because I needed something more. And I’m remembering that now as I have settled back in into Portland, and for all the friends and family, I find myself wanting more from myself.

I don’t know if this will be another go at trying to write and post something every single day. But I do believe this is the beginning of a stretch of time where I will be productive. In my eyes, I have two years ahead of me to, get my feet sorted for coaching and trying to push myself past self regulated limits for writing.

I have another anthology of stories that’s more or less ready to go. I need to edit them a little bit more and then release them with this new year. It’s little by little that dreams are realized the second anthology wouldn’t have come about without these daily stories or living so far from Portland.

Blackwing

“Not just an uneasy silence in the dark,” he said as a murder of crows gathered below. The night wore on Orion’s nerves as the sound seemed to creep away from him.

Living in the city, Orion wasn’t used to the fresh snow silence he’d found outside of Collyswood. The rural landscape felt like it had one last midnight before chaos broke loose. He stood on the edge of the cliff that overlooked the valley hoping he’d find the answers promised to him.

Orion returned to a small cabin on the edge of the woods. He opened the worn journal he’d brought with him from the city. He read through the crimped handwriting one line at a time. Trying to string the ideas that his brother had left behind.