Lately, while sleeping, I’ve had these dreams. Dreams where I’m socially adept. Dreams where I put old grudges behind me and reforge friendships.

In these dreams we all remember what we love about one another. We laugh at the strange chasms that divided our affections. I might even hug a few of you and say, “I will be a better man.”

But lately, when I’m awake, I’m driven. I write with a mania. I craft. I find satisfaction in the solitude of creation. My lonesome pours out like water from a hot kettle. Scalding, but pure. It’s my drink. My sorrow.

I would rather have solitude and art than a smile from any of you. But, if that makes you sad, just remember: in my dreams we’re having coffee and trust and love. If the world has any spirituality at all, in some part of it, like Peter Pan’s shadow, we’re up to a secret mischief.

I’m not any happier about this than you are, but I’m dutifully working on my thesis now. Mostly writing fresh poems and trying hard to do JUST enough to sell my soul to my committee.

This isn’t because I hate poetry or I hate writing. It’s just that I’ve reached the limits of poetry at this moment in my life and I’m ready to discover my next evolution. The only way to do that is to be as good at this poet business as possible for the next six months and close the deal.

One of the things I’m trying is silly, useless but happening anyway: I’m writing my entire thesis on my iPad. I’m even updating this blog right now with the wordpress app for iPad. Does it add or subtract any value from the work? Of course not. But it will hopefully give me something to talk about when I need to deflect attention from more serious questions about craft.

-Steven

I’m starting to realize that there will never be a time, for the rest of my life, that I will be free from the death of my father.

Repercussions are really the only things we get to hang on to forever in this life.

Joy is one of the most elusive and crafty escape artists in creation. Every moment of success is a small sand bag that holds back the floods of time and irrelevance. Because we have no choice we perch just beyond the beaches of our mortal lives and build our homes. The hurricanes will come, and do come. Each new flood washes away progress, trust, hope and possibility.

But the water is beautiful. The rain that comes in before the hurricane is the kind that we use to sleep through afternoons. The wreckage after is how we prove to ourselves that we cannot be completely broken if we still move.

But no matter how well we repair the damage–we have still used time and resources just to arrive back at a place of stasis–and so we have still lost more than we could afford to give.

What doesn’t kill us does not always make us stronger. Sometimes what doesn’t kill us distracts us long enough for a craftier thing to finish the job.

Some nights I hear a song, read a book, see a television show or find an old photo–and I can hear the wind gathering outside. I can hear memory, like a storm, banging against the shutters.

Now I know. As long as I live on these beaches, I will always hear rain. I will always hear greater waves crashing. I will always be reminded. And I also know this: These beaches are everything.

I’ve been studying stand-up comedy for years. It’s long been a passion and a fear of mine. In the last year several of my friends have taken the plunge and started subjecting themselves to open mic nights in Austin. In addition to being extremely jealous of them, I became motivated by them.

A few weeks ago I started doing stand-up as well. I’ve not made a big deal about it to more than a handful of people, but I feel that I’m always more accountable when people are waiting to see me fail.

I know two things: Stand-up comedy is really hard and it feels amazing to get a laugh from a room full of people.

If the laughs continue to outweigh the terror, I could really start to not hate this.

-Steven

Well,

I thought this semester was going to be all about the free time. Instead I’ve found myself at the helm of the North Texas Review.

We’re fairly deep into the process of pre-production at this point. Our book designer is lined up. So is our reception space/date (April 18th for those of you with itchy calendar fingers–get it into google–I’ll wait).

If you’re a student at UNT and you’d like to submit you can visit ntr.unt.edu for information.

-Steven

So, in Julie and Julia a sad and out of work writer takes Julia Child’s cook book and works her way through it (as well as half the dicks on the street, but they don’t cover that in the film).

Well, I’m a graduate student which is as near to employment as you can get as a writer without selling a book. Point is, I’m not quite sad and miserable yet. I have come to the conclusion (a little late) that to succeed I have to do three things:

1. I have to take off the gloves, slip on some brass knuckles and start taking some cuts. Watch your balls people, I’m short and I’m swinging my fists now. I’ve been a little too polite and a little less honest than my mind actually works. It’s weakened me as a human being and a weakened human being is an even weaker writer.
2. I need to regroup in terms of focus and pedagogical intent. This means close reading of books, essays and creative works that inspire me. Yeah, it’s great to play seven to twenty hours of video games during the week, but it’s been even better to half that and spend 10 hours reading different types of books. It was that obsessive desire to soak in information and influence that made me the best undergraduate in my program. That lack has reduced my standing as a graduate student. This isn’t acceptable now that I’m in my 30s.
3. I need to write. Not only that, I need to write in a way that’s accountable. I’ve found a few ways of doing this and one of them is going to take place right here in this blog.
   • First, I’m in a form and theory class with the amazing B.H. “But you can call me Pete” Fairchild. This is helping me see my poetry from a new perspective. His is the first new voice I’ve had in my poet’s world in over half a decade. The amazing Corey Marks and my friend Bruce Bond–they’ve changed me and they’ve changed my work. Still, it’s amazing to get a newer and sometimes more–let’s call it bold–perspective on the craft. In other words, Pete doesn’t feel the need to be as kind. Even when you disagree with him you know you’re hearing exactly what he thinks is up. In addition, his focus on form mirrors that of my friend and colleague Tori Sharpe. It’s going to nudge me towards a better understanding and utilization of form (or at least a stronger awareness of when/why I dismiss the formal) as I write. Since I’m working on my masters thesis in earnest, these things all become ideally married.
   • Second, I’m taking a screenwriting course with our RTVF department. It’s pushed me out of my comfort zone, demanded I think about entertainment as well as precision and it’s allowing me to become more versatile as a writer. It can never hurt to have more tools, even if some of them are rudimentary. One of the requirements for the class is that I finish an 80-120 page spec script. It’s a pretty intense, but incredibly compelling demand. The 17 year old version of me that swore I would someday write screenplays is about to shout “I told you so” into the future.
   • Finally, and the one that is most blog centric, I plan to work through a book called “What If?”

The book is edited by Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter; it includes tons of writing exercises designed to improve the tools and instincts of fiction writers. Now, I know I’m working toward my MA in poetry, but at one point I was as devoted, if not more devoted, to fiction. My other loves are playwriting and as i said before, my longtime dream has been to write a screenplay or twelve. This means that a lot of the time I write poetry because it’s like a rock that shields me from the hungry birds of the desert page.

I’m tired of playing everything safe. I’m tired of using my free time as if it’s really mine to waste on videogames and ESPN. That free time was long ago promised to my art and my improvement as a scholar and appreciator of language. It’s been my great misfortune to disrespect the time I could have spent growing. I’ve done no good for myself and there’s a chance I took something away from the world that I could have been writing. Now it may take me ten years to get to where I might have been tomorrow had I used my time with less casual regard.

Now then, this morning I have work to do for my poetry class, but starting tomorrow I’ll be working on the first exercise in the book. I’m going start with exercise one, then work all the way to #109. I’ll try to do one a day, five days a week. This means I could finish this project as soon as January. There will be hiccups and I will have other assignments that eat into my time and my willpower. Still, before I collect my masters degree next spring I fully intend to have completed this project.

When you put that next to my thesis and my complete script–I’ll have earned “writer” status this year. My hope is that this only ignites more. The next step. Some new and unflappable need to create.

If not, then it’ll still make me better.

It’s starting to become a ritual each summer. Steam slaps discounts on all its games at a speed that it so break-neck that it paralyses my wallet. I’m not complaining, but it’s worth noting that each year I wind up with a half dozen games that I’ll never play. A half dozen that I buy for two bucks and love and another half dozen that I can only rationalize away because of the low prices.

It’s still a lot of fun and it’s better to spend 2 bucks on a game that I can fire up any time I want than to spend the same two bucks on a cheeseburger or something.

Life is good. Gaming makes it better and the Steam Summer Sale makes gaming abundant. What else do you need to know?

Look, I get it, we beat the Lakers. It’s neat.

It’s also our first trip to the Western Conference Finals in half a decade. Our fourth trip ever.

I say “our” because I’ve followed this team most of my life. Some people, usually those who don’t watch or understand sports, are cynical about “we” and “our” when referring to a sports team you don’t play for. Those people are, due respect, idiots.

An honest fan is one that spends a whole lot of time suffering. As I said in a recent entry: most people don’t win championships. Not that many more get to compete in a championship setting. Being a fan means spending a whole lot of time suffering.

That suffering is why I’m trying to understand the cocky, ignorant and disrespectful diarrhea I’ve been seeing from fellow Mavericks fans.

Yeah, Odom over reacted, but it was no worse than fighting through a screen–he just didn’t happen to be doing that.

Yeah, Bynum is a punk–there’s no defense of that (or of Artest in game 2).

Yeah, Matt Barnes talks too much and doesn’t even come close to backing it up.

Still, the best way to stop that is to do exactly as the Mavericks said, “send them home.”

Once you start pretending that bad behavior externally justifies bad behavior internally then you’ve created a culture of zero responsibility. Always rise above shitty people and you’ll always have something to be QUIETLY proud of.

It’s that ability to show class in the face of an opponent that should separate the intelligent fan from the primitive.

To revel in what the Mavs did this week is to accept the responsibility of that success. In other words, to earn the shared joy of a contest that we have not bled in, we must at least pay respect to those who have bled.

Whether we like it or not, Pau, Kobe, Fisher–they all bled and ached so that we could yawp and hoot at their decay.

The least we can do, for those who pass with dignity, is to treat them as dignified.

For those like Bynum, who tear their shirts off and bark defiance in the aftermath, for them we can spare less venom.

We can never let classless people, though, be an excuse to become classless. If we do, then we become hypocrites and our tribe deserves to perish in the cold winter of early round defeats.

If this is a lesson that even Mark Cuban can learn–in his new and pensive state–then it seems worth emulating. Because in emulating the class, grace and respect that the Mavericks have shown we are most likely to be like them, one of them, worthy of “we.”

They’ve just done the impossible while NEVER talking down, talking cruelly, never taunting, always deferring, always respecting. If it worked for them, I can only assume that same level of class can make us all sovereign from moment to moment.

One of the great lies in sports as follows, “Nothing matters if you don’t win a championship.”

Guess what. Most people don’t win championships.

We must, as fans, instinctively know this. Players, especially guys who never won a championship (sup C-Webb and Charles Barkley) must instinctively know this. Yet we continue to hear it, repeat it, believe it.

But what else do we do? We hope. And when we watch a regular season game and our team is down ten, but comes back to win–we erupt. Emotionally we sour, we slap five, we (even those of us who would NEVER) dance.

Those sorts of moments of ineffable glee matter, even if there is no championship. One team out of over 30 teams each year will win a championship. Big market teams can spend more (and damn well DO spend more) than small markets. Teams with a winning tradition have less trouble bringing guys into town–as do teams in fantastic cities like New York.

Setting aside journeymen who get championships deep on some bench somewhere–most guys will never win a championship. A greater percentage of teams will win than the percentage of individuals. This is even more certain in the NCAA. In the NCAA Men’s B-Ball tourney nearly 70 teams go into the bracket. Only one of those teams will be a champion. See previous notes about tradition and money and you’ll notice a lot of the same schools hitting the final four with more regularity than, say, my school (UNT) which celebrates hardest when they simply MAKE the tourney.

In NCAA Football you really have zero shot at a championship. Out of the over 120 division 1A squads, only a select handful are even eligible for the championship. Just take a look at the broken BCS system and you’ll know that if the creed “Nothing matters but championships” were true–most NCAA football teams may as well shift their funding into some other program. Championships are NOT on the way.

In the NBA you’ve got the same systems in place. Systems that cause small market teams to give away amazing players (Pao Gasol) for pennies because they can’t afford to keep them, and teams like the Lakers snatch them up because they have the money and clout to get away with it. I’m not saying it’s bad for the game, but it’s certainly bad for most of the teams, therefor cities, in the league.

I’m sure that Miami fans are thrilled about last summer, but I also think that if someone like Cuban had orchestrated that type of deal he’d have been investigated in a second. Just look at the chaos when the Mavs wanted to deal and then resign Stackhouse a few years ago. That was them talking internally with a player they already had and they got dumped on. I’m not sure EITHER situation is one I approve of, but I would like to have seen more diligence in both cases by the front offices around the league (including THE front office).

When all is said, most people won’t own a championship. Dirk, a favorite of mine, will probably be among them. I don’t say that because I don’t believe in the Mavs. I say it because it’s really hard to win a championship. It’s impossible to think of one team making it to the biggest stage and both teams not being worthy of rings.

The best team, no matter how cute it is to say, does not always win. The best team isn’t the one that left it all on the floor, because sometimes both teams leave it all out there and someone still has to lose. Dirk is one of the single best playoff performers in NBA history and he’s playing that way so far through 2 games (especially when it counts), but people like Simmons claim that his lack of a ring means that he isn’t in the top tier.

Why? If one other guy on the team was in the same conversation, wouldn’t the Mavs have a championship by now? Is it too much to think that a man can be amazing even if circumstance doesn’t allow him the perfect storm required to claim a championship? Do we really want to give more credit to Kevin Garnett (a great player who is sort of a miserable representative for the NBA) simply because he was one of those guys who jumped ship for an easy chance at a title?

Can’t we also quantify greatness in this way: Dirk could have left to go anywhere for any price (including that Miami team I’d bet), but chose to stay here and finish what he started, even if the finish plays out so much like the start, the middle, and the now.

Kevin Garnett has a ring. Good for him. He got it by chasing it like a mercenary. Next LeBron will do so too. Same for Bosh. These guys might get a title and they will then be elevated above guys like Dirk simply via their jewelry.

But, no matter what ringless fools tell you in their night gigs behind a desk, there is more to life than winning a championship–and some of it starts with how you win a championship, how you lose one, and how you rise above both to be more than either side of the argument.

Did you know that a jig is a piece of artificial bait? It’s also some sort of guidance mechanism for machinery.

I’m not sure which one is “up” when a thing is over. I imagine it’s the bait because, if it’s down then you’ve got a fish and if it’s up you’ve either caught a fish or the fish has escaped. Is a jig skimming the water still “up” or is it merely midway between submersion in one or another foreign lands? Is under the water its natural state, or is it in some dry tackle box for six days of the week? When are we most ourselves–in the times we serve our function or in the times between when we simply exist in our compartments, stored and unused?

I guess the smart thing to do is look up the origin of the saying. It’s probably the dance now that I think about it. The dance is amazing–right? I mean, not if you’re some mess of an adult who evolved from a pimpled nerd. Not if you never had the guts to ask anyone to dance–let alone to A dance. Not if the act of THINKING of dancing is a physically unsettling motion.

But if you like to dance and the jig is up–well I guess that would kind of suck. Suck the wind right out. Suck all your juice through a straw and spit it on your shoes. You’ll hear the zip-zop sticky mess of it under your feet for days if you don’t hose your soles off. Every step will take a microscopic calorie more of your energy. You’ll slowly wither away from the lazy but constant effort.

But, whatever your jig is, if it’s up I hope it’s up top. High five. Like bros got it. If it’s up I hope it’s up to you. I hope it’s up your alley. Upon a time. And if you’re reading out loud, opinionated.

Because burning out is for pussies. There, I said it. So fucking what. You don’t like to dance, you don’t like to fish and the guide that feeds your art is jammed, broken, unwieldy. Don’t care. Don’t give one big old rat fuck of a damn. Just–talk about it. Yell about it. Or, better yet, don’t ever talk about it. Talk about all of the other millions of things that you love.

Don’t make who you are be all about what you’re not. Don’t even say don’t when you talk about it. Find some way to actively do and do well.

Because, fuck, we all know that at some point the jig is up. Whether you learned how to dance or not, one day your sticky worthless shoes are going to melt right into the floor. You’ll sock hop for a while, but once the holes hit your socks the traction is going to fuck up your swivel.

Even John Travolta (may he rest in peace) will one day stop dancing. The jig will be up. Gone fishin’.

What then? Better be a plan BE. Better be something else.

Every time god closes a jig he opens a window. Opens it right up. Up top. It’s up up up.