Captain’s Log – Page 2

In the Queue

My summer goes by slowly.

Ever since the semester ended at the university, I haven’t had much work-for-pay. One job I hold there is writing consultant, meaning I assist students with their writing assignments (if they ask for help). The other job I hold is administrative assistant to one of the department heads, meaning I do anything he needs me to do in order to assist him with his duties.

The first job has mostly evaporated (temporarily) due to there being few students taking classes over the summer. The second job is hit or miss lately, with me working only when my boss has tasks for me to complete. I’m squeaking by in the pay aspect, with just enough work to keep bills paid until the fall semester will start. This is one aspect of scholastic work that I don’t particularly enjoy, at least at this university: the lack of a consistent paycheck all year ‘round.

However, with unexpected, though unpredictable, time on my hands, I have a few projects that I could work on when I don’t have much else to do.

Scanning

My mother is a shutterbug, and something of a photo collector. In the age before this one, when photography was analog, she amassed quite of lot of photographs. Now that we are living in a digital world, she would like these photos available to her on the iPad and in the cloud. That means scanning. She has procured a scanner (albeit a finicky one) that works well enough and quickly enough to scan in many photos in a session. I have already scanned a few albums worth, but have many more to scan. I think this will end up being more than a summer project, but it is in the queue.

Poetry

It is now two and a half years since I completed my first compendium of poetry, a book that has sold about four copies worldwide. And while I have barely written any poetry since, I am thinking about what my next poetic project could be, and I have an idea: a chapbook. My book of poems comprises several sections, and I thought it might be cool to create chapbooks of each section, and sell them individually as art projects containing both word and visual. I have saved in a wishlist online some appropriate paper, and a heavy-duty stapler that could aid me in creating these chapbooks, and all it takes is putting some together. My wife maintains an area on consignment in a local craft shop, and perhaps I could add a few of these chapbooks to that area and see if they sell. I don’t know that they would, but it is an idea in the queue.

Reading

I start to sound like a broken record in this regard, but I find it difficult to read these days. I wish I could read, but every time I think about opening a book, it seems an insurmountable task. But, I have a book that I bought a while back, Patrick Stewart’s Making It So. I would like to read that book this summer. It used to be I could read twelve books every couple of weeks, but maybe I can manage one book by September. I don’t know if that is achievable, but that book is in the queue.

Photography

Lately I acquired some scenery material: driftwood, sand, rocks, etc. and I aspire to use this to craft photo worthy scenes. While I’ve yet to use it as such, the ideas are percolating in my head of photos I could take. I have a few difficulties to iron out, such as a lack of room, not wanting to build permanent dioramas for the photos, and what to do with the scenery media when I am done with it, but I can’t shake the images I see when I close my eyes and dream of what could be. The pictures shimmer in the queue.

Organization

My wife and I moved into this house just after Christmas Day in 2024, which means we’ve been here almost six months now. The house is just now starting to feel like a home, and as such, it needs a few things internally, that thankfully aren’t plumbing or maintenance related. No, I am speaking of decorating and organizing. I have made great strides in the craft room (what was supposed to be the master bedroom) in terms of both decor and optimizing storage, layout, and usability. But the living room, the kitchen, and even perhaps the bedroom could use some help.

The kitchen in particular has very little decor, and still bears the marks of being moved into hastily, with little organization, optimization, and isn’t terribly user friendly. It does the job, but it needs TLC. The bedroom we are only in for sleep and whatnot, so that is low on the priority list, but the living room is the third most used common area (after kitchen and craft room). It, too, needs a little thought and love. Decorating and organizing thoughts drift through the queue.

Clearly, I have plenty to do. It has helped to streamline my priorities just in writing them down. Before I had vague ideas, but now I have action points and even some hazy plans. Yeesh, that sounded too much like a few of the committees I was on for work this past year. Shudder. If I could accomplish even half of these queued tasks, though, I would feel like I had a great summer, and my environment would benefit, as would my creative expression which needs, um, expressing.

And also in the queue? R&R. I can report that I have been already availing myself of some of that, and with a trip to Boston planned for the end of July, I can even take some time to see another part of the world. Won’t that be fun?

A Dash of Magic

I can’t be the only one.

Since 2020, the pandemic year, I feel as if I have lost something. Something that hasn’t come back to me.

During that time, I’ve gotten married, inherited two wonderful dogs, sold a home, got out of much of my debt, and bought another home that suits better, all with my wife-partner’s help.

I have many wonderful things around me: tools to create, entertainment to enjoy, and the aforementioned wife and dogs that add so much. But.

But: something is missing. Could it be the magic of the world has started to vanish? Before the pandemic, I would visit the movie theater and enjoy a film. Restauranting to savor a good meal was a particular pleasure. Taking a trip and experiencing a new part of the world was fun and wonderful. But now? I can count on less than one hand the movies I have seen in the theater. I go out to eat but it seems routine. I am and am not excited about going to Boston this summer.

Since I contracted Covid-19 and almost died, and emerged with long-term health issues to compound my mental health struggles that were already extant…

I haven’t been the same me.

Add to that the hell show that is America’s political theater, the wars and rumors of wars, genocides, plagues, economical disasters…

It is a lot. I acknowledge here my privilege to only be obliquely touched by most of the above, and my fortunate recovery from the plague a few years ago, yet I can’t quite recapture what I once felt.

And I can’t be the only one. If you are out there, struggling like me, please reach out.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the most recent television show that I viewed, Star Wars: Andor Season 2. The show itself was bleak, grey, and hard to watch. There was little joy, little positivity, and little hope. The show was well-written, but it was about a very dark time. It has massively good ratings, and I’ve been trying to figure that out. Sure, people love a good drama, but beyond that, I can’t help but wonder if its grey-ness is reflective of the times we live in, and that is resonating on an unconscious, or maybe even conscious, level with so many viewers.

So many of the characters in Star Wars: Andor, who are fighting tyranny and oppression for a future they never even see, lose their joy, their happiness, their positivity. There are smirks, but no smiles. There are barks of jest, but no laughter. There is the smoldering fire of rebellion, but no light in their eyes. Have I, like them, lost what makes life worth living? Do I only have the drudgery of resistance to look forward to each and every day?

I hope not. If so, better to go out in a blaze of hateful dissent and be done with it all! The world is desperately spiraling, but hasn’t it always been so? Isn’t it always just a whisper away from spinning apart? Through many dark times, beauty escapes the bleakness, and flashes with bold colours across the horizon.

I think one of the problems with Star Wars: Andor is that it did not show what the characters were fighting to preserve. They made speeches about it, referenced it, but precious little of it made it to the screen. A daughter of one of the main characters in the second season was wedded, and insisted on a traditional marriage, following the ancient customs of her people. However, the entire affair was overshadowed by the mother’s problems, cares, and desperation. This would have been a fantastic opportunity to show that even in a galaxy overwrought with an Empire, there was joy and love to be found, but the entire ceremony was bleak. The wedding toast talked more of pain than pleasure, as case in point.

Sure, show the hardness of rebellion, the persistence of purpose needed to beat a remorseless enemy capable of atrocity, but give me the hope, my only hope, that I need: that life is still possible! Let me know that what I am fighting for is worth it, that I needn’t lose who I am and wish to be.

I believe that true resistance, true rebellion, comes not from tearing down what we hate, but by building up what we love to bridge over the troubled waters. Connection, beauty, passion, vibrancy is what wins the day, not gritted teeth and grim jaws. Show me the rebels alive, and making merry for tomorrow they may die, keeping the spirit of their bodies fed as much as the fervor for which they fight the next day! Why else would they fight?

I’ve lost the ability to eat anything and everything whenever I want. For a year or more, I was restricted by masks and caution. I now face an uncertain future for years to come. But…

But how is that different than any other day, really?

I could walk across the street tomorrow and be flattened by a submarine falling from the sky. Shouldn’t I then enjoy what I have before me today?

An old friend of mine said once that “restrictions breed creativity”.

“Restrictions breed creativity” – Joel

What he meant by that is unfettered access to whatever we need or want leads to slovenly and lazy work. True genius emerges from using what is at hand, and forging out of that the spectacular. Take Jaws, for example. The animatronic shark barely worked, and wasn’t very convincing. So Steven Spielberg hid it in the shadows, in the darkness, and barely showed it on screen for most of the movie. The restriction of a malfunctioning prop forced him to compensate with a dramatic tension that makes the move ten times scarier and more menacing.

I can’t have much sugar? Be creative with what I can have, and make every bite worth it. I couldn’t go out into the world due to a raging pandemic? I wrote poetry through the looking glass of my house windows. I can’t help what my government is doing? I can live flamboyantly and be unapologetically myself.

I can create the magic I need out of the dust and ashes that I see. After all, in the trite example of geology, natural diamonds are formed through putting ordinary carbon through immense pressure. Take what is there and make it beautiful is the lesson. Love the rebel you are with, and make love last throughout the rebellion. Hope can only exist where there is joy and unfettered expression, and, after all, rebellions are built on hope.

Otherwise, why rebel? Look away from the Imperial flag and miss the blue sky. Wear black and white and grey, and miss the green and blue and red and the blazing yellow that we borrow from the life of the stars.

The lesson to myself here is to make my own magic. I think back on another aspect of Star Wars, to the magicians of Industrial Light and Magic that created the film’s special visual effects. It was hot, hard work, but through the days they made fun, had parties, and (barely, to be sure) got the film across the line. If it wasn’t so, I seriously doubt Star Wars as we know it would exist. To tell the story, they needed to live their own.

To experience magic, I need to manufacture my own.

This becomes my mandate to myself: make magic as often, and as exuberantly, as possible, out of whatever I have before me. Join me, and together we can re-make the galaxy into a place worth saving!

Update: May 2025

Wednesday in north Texas is supposed to reach triple digit temperatures, on the Fahrenheit scale anyway, so I guess summer is about to make a bold entrance in 2025. I thought I would take advantage of the brief time before the heat arrives to take stock of where I stand as I head into the imminent summer.

Health

Tomorrow marks three weeks of my change to healthier eating. I am experiencing increased energy, decreased lethargy, and I am staying awake longer than I have before. Important numbers are down, and in general, I feel better. I relish the change, and while weight loss is not a goal, it’s happening anyway. I am able to wear a 2X shirt for the first time in many years, and have more room in my jeans than I used to. I enjoy purchasing new clothes from time to time, and now I may have an excuse in the near future to do so. That’s exciting!

Andor

Light spoilers follow for a TV show. Skip the next paragraph to avoid.

I continue to watch Star Wars: Andor and it continues to not be my jam. I understand completely what they are doing with the story and the horror of the Empire’s rule, I just don’t think that it is necessary to see in stark “reality”. A recent episode showed a brutal massacre, and it was very difficult to sit through. I prefer my Star Wars more lighthearted and adventurous than dark and depressing.

Making

I started to build more with LEGO in the past weeks, having built one MOC (my own creation) out of an official set, with more custom building to follow. I even bought a few new shelf units to spread out my “on display” LEGO collection to provide more room to expand my MOC. I plan to build an entire street or two in a small Tatooine town, hopefully. I also bought a few Ultimate Collector Series sets (well, one was free due to reward points I’ve been saving over a few years!) that I can’t wait to build: the X-Wing Starfighter and the TIE Interceptor. They are updates of the first two ever UCS offerings that first appeared waaay back in 2000. Twenty-five years is a long time to wait to finally own the pair (though I did own, briefly, an interim UCS X-Wing that debuted in 2013, but I sold it not long after building, as was my habit back then).

Other making includes a diorama for my Star Wars action figures. A while back I bought miniature replica skulls of a rancor and a mudhorn, and I’ve finally got a few ideas of how to photograph them. I need to purchase a few materials to complete the dioramas, but once that is complete, I think I can break out my camera and finally snap a few photos. It will be a long time coming, but worth it. I also recently bought some new texture paint I can’t wait to play around with that might lead to even more creative dioramas and photos.

The past few weeks, or months, I remained busy with stuff around work and other pursuits, but I think I will finally start to dig into my hobbies with gusto. Especially with the summer coming up with less responsibility at work, I will have larger blocks of uninterrupted time. All that remains is to put down my phone and pick up my paintbrush or break out my bricks. That part sounds easy, but as most know in these futuristic times, putting down the phone is sometimes difficult.

Baseball

The baseball season must travel a bit before it reaches the dog days of summer, but things are heating up with the weather as the competition gets going. I love watching the Cleveland Guardians play, especially as they are a young team finding their way. Excitement abounds with each game as different players step up each game with a direct impact. Far from being a “one-man-show”, the Guardians showcase a true team effort. I’ve also been watching the Texas Rangers some, and the Boston Red Sox, as I always love seeing the always iconic Fenway.

Speaking of Fenway and the Red Sox and traveling: I am going to Fenway in-person this summer! Towards the end of July I am taking a trip to Boston to take my dad (who is a huge Red Sox fan) to finally experience all that baseball has to offer in one of the oldest baseball towns in America. This is going to be a really fun trip! We will also be able to visit the U.S.S. Nautilus, which is now a museum in Connecticut, but was once a key part of the US NAVY, aboard which my grandfather served for many years as an engineer. I very much look forward to seeing the first submarine he ever served on, and get a glimpse into what his journey under the sea might have been like all those years ago. Other highlights include meeting up with an old friend (possibly two), seeing some of my wife’s family I’ve yet to meet, and being a tourist. We still need to plan a few details, but I am getting more excited for the trip each day.

Challenges

I still can’t read. I feel sad about this, as reading has been a huge part of my life for a long time, but focus and motivation to read remains absent from me. I recently purchased Patrick Stewart’s memoir Making it So but have yet to crack the cover. I have other books I would love to re-read, or explore further. Maybe as my physical health, and as an extension my mental health, improves I will be able to try to read again. I did recently read through the audiobooks of the Lord of the Rings with my wife, a thoroughly enjoyable time that gave me new insights into the story that I want to dig into academically in the future, but again, finding the mental impetus to do so remains difficult.

An aside, of sorts, here: when I do have time, I don’t reach for a book. Part of it is an irrational feeling of not being allowed to. I feel as if I would be wasting the time spent reading, even though I know time spent reading is never wasted. I don’t know why this is, especially when I usually spend the time I would be reading doomscrolling on my phone or playing Scrabble instead. It might mean just taking the plunge, but that is a leap I’ve yet to make. If I am going to sit around anyway, I may as well be reading instead of scrolling social media.

I know the world, and my country, is much not good right now, but I cannot carry that burden myself. Yes, I am deeply concerned, scared, and angry about what my government is actively doing to so many innocent people, but I feel for me, right now, the best resistance is to deny the evil-doers the ability to darken my soul. The best resistance I can mount is to live a good, positive life. That is how I defeat, not with hate, but with love, and love starts with loving myself. I cannot pour from an empty vessel, but with a self full of love, I am able to love others and pour into their lives. That is how the way will be won.

All in all, I feel as if I am in a good place in many ways. I want to continue to build on the progress I have made thus far, and see where the future takes me. I have many pursuits on my horizon, and endeavors I would love to reach towards, and journeys to take. It is a wide open summer.

Sweet Conflations

I’ve been feeling better.

Part of it has been my poor diet, which I’ve tried to turn around in recent weeks. My mastication habits are almost entirely in my domain to handle, and since starting to handle them, I’ve felt much better. It is amazing to me how something as simple-seeming as food choice can affect an entire life, but it has. For over a year, I haven’t been sleeping well and I’ve been feeling worse: I’ve been lethargic, listless, and weary.

Look, it is hard to engage in doing something when you don’t feel like anything. Now I feel like All-the-Things! I am thankful. I thought that the way to my better self was in denying-self-denial. Articulating that now, I realize how dumb that actually is. I was eating whatever I wanted, more or less whenever I wanted to. Not only was it literally contributing to my sooner end, mentally it was fogging me in.

I hate feeling that way: all fogged up and tired. The past two weeks or more have been a revelation. Mentally I am clearer, physically I am peppier, and holistically, I am better. Even tonight, I made a poor choice, and already I am feeling the effects and I don’t like it. I am more resolved than ever to do different.

I try not to make moralizations out of food choices. I don’t believe cravings are my fault. Sometimes food does look too good to resist, like tonight. But often, choices are in my control and control them I must. The only way out is through, as the old saying goes. I make choices when I am able, and let the rest lay as it falls.

For too long I was conflating the sweet allure of confections with the way to feel good. I am a feelings eater, or was (as it turns out, that is changing quickly). I thought the way to feeling better was to eat what I wanted to eat when I wanted to eat it. It ain’t. (Which may be why my feelings are evaporating from my mouth.) I am happy to finally have a solution. It isn’t the solution I thought, but it’ll more than do.

It isn’t easy, of course, not having that cake, or drinking that soda, or even having a late night snack, but feeling how I feel makes forgoing the sweet choice a more desirable option. “Nothing tastes as good as this feels” is another old saying, and while things really do sometimes taste amazingly, this feels pretty good as well.

I am excited to see what comes next. I have had more gumption, more energy, and more ability to choose to do things. Even now, as I’m writing, which I haven’t done much of lately, I rejoice to have the zest to do so. I’ve written many times before about all the creative excursions I’ve wanted to take, and couldn’t, and now I feel as if I can finally walk those trails and smile in the dappled sunlight.

A Quiet Rage

I’m sitting in my home in the middle of Texas, on a “holy” day, thinking on the evils perpetrated in the name of a god that many in my country claim to follow. An idiotic madman wannabe dictator, with the assistance of a South African Nazi, is turning my country into a hellscape I no longer recognize, helped along by American Christianity. There are pictures of this madman being prayed over in the Oval Office by someone who claims the same faith of many I know.

Innocent citizens are being kidnapped in the street by law enforcement and sent to a concentration camp outside our borders. Medical research that would have saved lives is being defunded and halted. Lies on every topic spew forth from the cesspit of the capitol. Bombs rain down to murder brown people in countries beyond the sea. Unjust war is waged in Ukraine. Genocide is methodical in Palestine, again, in the name of a god many here claim to worship. Many I know would claim separation, but it is difficult for me to discern a difference.

I’m sick of it.

I haven’t said much publicly for several reasons: mostly, I am cowardly. I hide behind pacifism and a desire not to have the FBI (or whatever goons the government might start sending after those who criticize the would-be king) come to my house and disappear me. Also, I am afraid for my job, my livelihood, and my comfort being taken away. How pathetic of me. But when the aforementioned atrocities are being carried out every day in my country, or in my country’s name, or with its consent, how can I remain silent?

I don’t want to ruffle feathers, or have an argument, or engage with the people that support such evil under the lie that our president will save America by making it great again, whatever that even means. Therefore, I have said nothing and done little else. I don’t know what power my voice has. Many millions are already screaming in the streets against the injustice and evil that has risen, so what good will my voice do when added to the din?

I don’t know. But I no longer wish to be counted among those who remained silent while evil reigns. Here I am, speaking out. Maybe I will speak again in the future, I don’t know. I am still plenty fearful that I will face consequences for this little that I am saying. I don’t know who exactly reads this blog, or how they feel about things, or what they may wish to do to me for venturing to have an opinion, but brave little me is deciding on this “holy” day to not care.

If there ever was a Jesus, and if he were god, I wonder that he is allowing such utter black evil be done in his name, seemingly without his rage visiting retribution upon them. If he be risen, as many are joyfully proclaiming today of all days, where is he? Such things are beyond me, but I am done waiting for a god to reach down from heaven and right wrongs. It is up to us to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with each other. That means, to me, not tolerating evil anywhere, fighting injustice everywhere, and loving all regardless of creed, color, gender, expression of love or any other petty “difference” that may be perceived between me and anyone else.

If anything I have said offends you, please, look beyond me to that which I am decrying. I’ve barely scratched the surface of what is going on, and America is doing little to cover any of it up. Much of what I’ve said is public knowledge and public news. Look beyond your pearl-clutching of me, and see what evil is being done to those all around us. Please, stand with me, and speak out. Add your voice. Together, we are stronger and we will not be defeated.

In the end, I believe, as did Samwise the Brave, that this shadow is only a passing thing, and when the sun shines again it will shine all the clearer and stronger. But we must persevere, and endure, and fight back in all the ways we can to defeat the shadow and the evil beneath it. Hyperbole and ridiculous sentiment? Tell that to those languishing in prison for committing no crime. Tell that to those suffering. Tell that to the dead that should be breathing free today but for this evil.

May their memories rise again. May they be risen, indeed.

Middle Ages

Every so often at this time of year I reflect on my life, past-present-future, and consider what it all means. Making a big assumption of the universe here, but should I live as long yet as I have lived, all the way to 76, I am only just at the half-way point of my life. In my twenties and early thirties I could ignore the passing of time and enjoy being young(er). Now that forty is only two years away, I have to face the fact that I will soon be going downhill, in perhaps more ways than one. *grimace emoji*

My twenties were rough, do doubts: I went through university, exhaustion, untreated mental illness, marriage and divorce, and two large moves. I lived primarily in Wisconsin, where the overhanging grey of winter lasted far too long each year, and I was never quite sure at this time of year if we wouldn’t still have snow (still a distinct possibility).

My thirties dawned in 2017, and it was, in so many ways, a different world. Since then I’ve remarried, moved a few more times, bought a house, acquired two dogs by marriage, and found a measure of stability and happiness for which I am so very grateful.

I am 38 today. In many respects, I am still the Star Wars, fantasy, baseball, LEGO loving kid I was at 8 and 18 and 28. I have grown in a plethora of personal ways, to be sure, but the core of who I’ve always felt myself to be hasn’t changed much. I hope that remains true at 48 and 58 and, well, we’ll see I suppose, after that. I have few grand ambitions except to make as great a world as I can for my nieces.

Despite health troubles, the rise of fascism in the US, global warming, and a host of other difficulties that beset, I am enjoying being where I am in life. I love having two young nieces nearby to spoil and have fun with (being an uncle is the most fun I’ve ever had), a sister I get to see when busy schedules allow, and parents to interact with on the weekends and sometimes during the week as well. Life is, objectively, good.

always in motion, is the future

-Yoda

Subjectively, I still feel at times beaten down, weary, and struggling. “Always in motion the future is” and none can see where it will actually lead. For now, each day that I wake once more is a day to try again to do the best I can for all the people I can, and to have fun along the path before my feet.

I am currently reading through the audiobook of the Lord of the Rings with my wife, and we have reached what is the darkest point: Frodo and Sam’s journey from Cirith Ungol across the Plains of Gorgoroth to Mount Doom. There is no color, no joy, and no fun to be had in this section of the book. All is thirst and weariness and gray ash. The only thing keeping us reading is the promise that they will reach Orodruin, destroy the One Ring, and set all things right again. However, Sam and Frodo don’t know that they will reach the mountain of fire, or achieve their goal, or even reach home again. At this point in the story, all they have is hateful day after hateful day of trudging weariness. It is a stark reminder to me that dark times must be traversed before the light comes again.

all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us

– Gandalf the Grey

I write this from the university library where I work. Light is streaming in the large windows behind me, and I am at peace. It has taken much toil for me to reach this peace, and it is still something that I must find, day after day. I have no doom to reach, no talisman of evil to destroy, but each day I do have personal darkness to overcome. Depression, bi-polar tendencies, and exhaustion ever gnaw at me. I can either choose to embrace that darkness, or choose to thrust it aside and reach for enlightened joy. Well, somewhere in all that hyperbole and metaphor is this truth: “all we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” I choose today to make my time as good as possible.

Here’s to many happy returns and a great day. Thank you for following along all these years, as some of you have (I started this blog in 2005)! I appreciate all the support and camaraderie I’ve felt.

Reclamation Projects

Shiny and new has its place, but more than anything, a good project with recycled materials is something special. I love building things out of cardboard boxes, scraps of materials that I’ve scrounged, or spare parts. This is less about physical making, and more about psychological reclamation.

As a kid, I remember being obsessed with Charles Schulz’s “Peanuts” comic. I loved Snoopy in particular, and his adventures with his little yellow fowl friend Woodstock. Of course the whole gang is charming: Charlie Brown’s hapless baseball team that can never seem to win; Schroeder avoiding Lucy; Linus with his blanket and philosophy; and all the rest. A while back, despite how much I loved Peanuts, my brother claimed them as his thing and I’ll admit that I let that rob my joy for the comic. Clearly a me problem, it nonetheless rubbed me the wrong way for too long.

Recently, I was in Half Price Books and found a volume of the Complete Peanuts from the 50’s, and was struck by how much I loved the strip. I bought it, and since then have been contemplating how to acquire the rest of the collection. I’ve been reading through a volume that includes ‘87-‘88 (my birth year) and have found many dailies that I have never read. More than individual comics, I have reclaimed my love of Snoopy and it is bringing me so much happiness.

In another vein, for my entire childhood, I built and played with LEGO. Pretty much every day, I was sorting, tweaking, or lost in imaginary worlds built out of the little plastic bricks. Twice in my adulthood I sold my entire collection on eBay. Once, it was at the memory of my ex-wife’s disdain for the hobby. The second time I felt like I needed the money. Both times I tried to make the best of it, but internally, I was very unhappy about the sales. I felt I was losing a part of myself.

In the past few years, I have started to rebuild my LEGO collection. I am doing it with a bit more intention this time, but the promise I made to myself when I started buying was to never sell my collection again. I am feeling the old joy I used to have, and getting back into the mental space of making my own creations. I am noticing some rust on my concentration and abilities, but it is coming back to me piece by piece.

In these ways, and others, I am my own reclamation project. I am taking bits of myself I have lost, and putting them back into my life in intentional ways. It wasn’t my brother or my ex-wife to really blame for my brokenness, it was me. I let myself crumble to other’s opinions, proclivities, or my own circumstances. But now it is time to reclaim things long gone, and add them to new hobbies, new loves, and assemble a new amalgamation of me.

I used to think, and say, that I didn’t have regrets, but now I realize that life isn’t about avoiding regret, that is inevitable, but life is about learning to let regret motivate me to something better. I regret losing my childhood LEGO, but I am motivated to curate a great collection that I can enjoy for years. I regret letting my brother’s love for Peanuts steal mine, but I, too, can enjoy Snoopy and the gang into the future. I am done living by others’ rules or opinions, and letting it steer my ship into shoals I never wanted to sail. Going forward, I want to set my own course towards sunrises I want to see.

Old Friends

I recently had a chance to connect with a group of people, some of whom I had not seen for many years. The twenty year anniversary of my high school graduation is this year, and my class comes from a unique place in the world: Papua New Guinea.

I haven’t talked about it much on this blog in a long time, but my family became Christian missionaries when I was sixteen. I had no choice in the matter, and was moved from my home in Norfolk, Virginia, with my sister, across the world to that large island in the South Pacific just north of Australia.

About a year after that, I found myself graduating with a group of about forty other teenagers from a missionary school in the mountain highlands. We all went about forty different ways after graduation. I’ve seen some of my classmates at different times during the intervening twenty years, and some I haven’t seen since the day I left.

This blog isn’t long enough to detail everything that experience, or that those people, mean to me, both good and bad and everything in between. Suffice to say, I will never forget my senior year of high school or the influence it had on my psyche and makeup as a person.

Two weeks ago, some half of the class converged in a small town in rural Georgia to reconnect. Among them are a core group of people I consider my best friends. Again, it is hard to explain in a short form how someone I see only a few times in many years can be a best friend, but something of the crucible of the place where we came of age forged close relationships that will never die. We understand each other in ways that our parents, sometimes siblings, and other friends we have made since, can never comprehend.

We had no activities planned during the weekend we got together, and that turned out to be the best way we could have spent our time. We talked. All weekend, in ever-revolving groups, we talked. One or two people would leave a group, and one or three would join. We would gently pause for meals, and move outside, or go on long walks, but we talked all weekend. Only a small portion of that time is what someone might consider “catching up”. In fact, we started the weekend with a round table where we all took a few minutes to catch up the entire group on where we were in life and what we were doing, but that was only to forestall twenty more or less identical conversations later.

From there, we talked life, growth, family, experiences, reminisced a little, and explored what is important to each of us and to all of us. It was the best few days I have had in a long time. Not just seeing and being around my old compadres, but meeting a few new ones (again, no real time to go into that). Over all, what mattered was our connection to each other, and to a place that, in many real ways, no longer exists (at least, not as we knew it).

It was good to know and to have reconfirmed to me that the ties that bind are as strong as they ever were. We are all twenty years older than high school, and are starting to feel the effects of aging. We didn’t stay up as late as we would have in high school, and we got up later than we used to. We drank more coffee to stay functional, and there were some children around that didn’t exist the last time we met. But we were us. We haven’t lost that in the intervening twenty years.

Leaving was difficult and something I can’t quite put into words. I recaptured something during that weekend that I wish to hold onto. I want to be more intentional about keeping up with my friends, and not just on social media, and I hope it won’t be another twenty years before I see them again. We all have our own families and lives and responsibilities and cares, of course. But like I said, little of that matters to our connection to each other. I want to be intentional about reaching out every so often to them, if nothing else to say “hi, I am here, and I love you, and you mean so much to me”.

Thanks to all of you who have made my life what it has become, and who were around me at a very awkward stage of my life and who didn’t reject me then and who still haven’t rejected me in the twenty years since. I do love you all, and you do mean so much to me. Here’s to you, and let’s keep in real touch. I’ll be calling or emailing some of you soon, and might even be seeing some of you again before the year is out. I can’t wait!

Like a Kid Again

One of the more bittersweet parts of growing old is that you can never recapture a first time doing something.

For me, it is the wonder and amazement and fun I experienced the first time I watched Star Wars, which I don’t actually remember I’ve been watching it for so long. It just feels that it has always been a part of who I am. As a boy and teenager, I read every Star Wars novel I could find at my library. I pored over every making-of and behind-the-scenes documentary there was.

I grew up way back in the before times of the internet as a member of a Star Wars forum and message board. I would endlessly talk about the three films (all we had back then) with young fans like me in Australia, Europe, and the States. That forum no longer exists, but it was a great time for me to share fan fiction and thoughts and ideas.

Since 1999, when George Lucas exploded the Star Wars universe again with a new film in what would become a new trilogy, the galaxy has not stopped expanding. We fans got tv shows, both animated and (finally) live action, and more films and ways to explore corners of the galaxy that we had only dreamed of before. It’s even reality now at the Disney parks!

The latest offering from the galaxy far, far away is a little show called Skeleton Crew. It feels like Goonies meets Star Wars and is about four younglings who take their first steps into a larger world, and grow up a little bit along the way. It is about pirates and Jedi and the wonder of the galaxy, in all its darkness and light.

Anyone who knows me knows what a mega fan of the entire universe that I am. Heck, I’ve written about it endless times and in endless ways on this blog. It is my ethos here, and part of my online identity. I also love pirates, having long been fascinated by them, and was again, at the perfect age when the Pirates of the Caribbean films came out. Skeleton Crew is the perfect blend of all the elements of everything I love about Star Wars and pirates.

Watching through Crew this week made me feel like I was a young boy experiencing it all for the first time: the epitome of cool that is Han Solo and Chewbacca. The magic that was Obi-Wan Kenobi. The brash and sass that was Princess Leia. The excitement and the sheer joy of Luke Skywalker growing up to win the day. All of that was in Skeleton Crew.

I’ve appreciated (almost) all of the Star Wars offerings for what they are and how they expand the galaxy. But for all the complexities of Andor and Ahsoka, the storytelling of the Clone Wars/Bad Batch, the continuation of the saga, and even Solo and Rogue One, nothing made me smile and laugh and experience Star Wars the way Skeleton Crew has.

My wife can attest to the smile on my face as we binged the show, and then caught the finale just tonight. I hope it gets a second season, and another chance to evoke those feelings one more time. But even if Skeleton Crew comes back again, it may not be the same. If so, that won’t be a failing, just life. But for me, somehow, this show was the ephemeral “lightning in a bottle” that inspired me to build endless variations of the Millennium Falcon out of LEGO, to write my own Star Wars stories on that old forum, and to imbibe everything from that galaxy that I could find.

I thank everyone involved in the making of Skeleton Crew for making me feel like a kid again. It has re-ignited something in my heart, and for that I am grateful. I might just have to build my own pirate ship out of LEGO now…something I’ve not done in a long time. A long time.

Best Of: 2024

As I write, the new year has barely begun. But I’ve been super busy, for reasons I’ll explain shortly. Every year, at the end of the year, I like to write about my best things from that year. Usually that encompasses objects, gifts I’ve received, and media I’ve watched – that sort of thing.

There has been plenty of all of that, but none of those things stand out as my best from 2024. To qualify for a best of, I need to have lived with whatever objects for a year (Christmas gifts don’t count) in order to ensure that I actually keep them and enjoy them for a period of time. Media usually is something that had a greater impact than just “oh yeah, I enjoyed that!”

This year my best of is people, and so many people that I don’t even know. Who are all these people? Read on because they were apart of a journey that my wife and I started in May of 2024 that just was completed yesterday: we moved house.

Our old house, that she had purchased at the end of 2018 and that I moved into halfway through 2019 when we married was a two-story, four bedroom, two bath, two-car garage house. We had a roommate that lived downstairs, and we occupied the upstairs. It was a good house, and we mostly liked it. But my wife is developing arthritis in her knees, and the stairs became painful for her to navigate. We made the decision to sell, and look for a one floor flat. We little knew what that would take.

We made offers on three houses, toured almost twenty (my memory is fuzzy) and were rejected for one. That is chronicled elsewhere. My first person of the year is our realtor David Nealy. He started this journey with us at the end of May and has become a friend throughout the process. He came recommended from a coworker, and is a quality person first and excellent realtor second. He was our ever patient guide, confidant, cheerleader, and companion. He’s knowledgeable, funny, considerate, and went many extra miles. If you need a realtor in the DFW area, let me know, and I’ll connect you.

We sold our house, fairly easily, but three or so days before closing on the sale, we were rejected for a mortgage on a little house we really liked. Suddenly, we were about to be homeless. Quickly we moved most of our belongings into storage, and then were contacted by my sister. Hallie is my second person of the year. When she heard of our predicament, she reached out to say that we were going to live with her. She has a large house that she shares with my parents, and her two kids, and their three dogs, and two cats, so it was no small thing to accept my wife and I and our two dogs into the mix.

It became a juggling competition to use the kitchen, to rotate dogs outside (because they didn’t all get along that well), and to generally make it all work. My sister is the absolute best there is for giving to us for six months. I am sad to no longer see her in the morning and not speak to her because she hasn’t had her coffee yet, or to pass her on her way to work, or to randomly hug her when she is chilling on the couch after a long day. I love her so much.

My ma is my third person of the year. She lives upstairs in the shared house, and never once did she deny me entrance to her apartment when I was tired after a day, or fail to be a listening ear, or a huge help with what my wife and I needed throughout our time there. But my mom went above and beyond that. When we moved out, unbeknown to us, she cleaned the room we were living in top to bottom, front to back, and probably even sideways. We had even asked her not to, planning to go over today to clean ourselves, but she loves us and wanted to give us that gift.

Not to stop there, but yesterday, after we had loaded our new house and garage with all of our possessions, she showed up with energy and motivation I didn’t have, and helped me organize and shuffle furniture so that when my wife returned from work, our house looked and felt like a home. At the end of the evening yesterday, she had accomplished exactly that and my wife was surprised and delighted.

Between my sister and my mother are so many people that round out my people of the year. A cleaning lady who cleaned the house top to bottom. A painter who was also a house remodeler who painted, repaired a window and a cabinet and a floor and a toilet all in two days before and after Christmas Day. Again, if you need a guy, boy do I know a guy! An HVAC guy to replace a thermostat. A locksmith to change locks. A Home Depot delivery crew to deliver appliances. A Home Depot employee who helped us pick out a fridge to have delivered. Three funny and great movers to help us empty a storage unit and load a garage. An unexpected storage unit manager to keep us company when the movers were a little late. And lastly, a great Spectrum technician who hooked up our internet with good conversation. Oh! And a title agent who had us laughing so hard while we were signing a huge stack of paperwork to close on the house. She was fantastic, and also explained everything we were signing so we didn’t miss anything.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anybody, because my wife and I did not move house by ourselves. So many friends and family and strangers helped us move and get the house ready so that this morning, it is a home. Sure, the garage is still full of boxes and we need some furniture to fill out the corners, but this feels like a home we haven’t had in six months.

People are my Best Of: 2024. So many people on Facebook, on Mastodon, and elsewhere encouraged us while we were looking for a house, finding a house, buying a house, and moving house. Many people I haven’t seen in years, or have never even met in person. I am so blessed with the people around me, most of whom I didn’t even know were there. Thank you so much, everyone, for making 2024 a good year!