nobody said it was easy

 I won't lie to you

This life ain't easy.

Except for the parts that are wildly easy sometimes.

And then other things that seem like they should be doable--

completely impossible.

So I guess what actually isn't easy

is knowing if things will be easy or not.

Because you really can't argue that at least a few things aren't easy.

Grilled cheeses.

Couldn't be easier.

But I'm lactose intolerant.

Scorned by God then, I suppose.

Retire to your chamber of seclusion

and wax on about sorrows innumerable.

Not me though.

Over here on the couch

eating this banging grilled chee

rainbow kitten unicorn leotard

 this girl came into the gym yesterday hiding behind her mom, she was probably like 4 years old, and she looked upset and her mom explain that at the gymnastics gym across the parking lot where she had just been, she had seen a leotard with rainbow kitten unicorns on it and she really wanted it.

they checked in and before they went up the stairs to the climbing area the girl had to pause and, like an actor giving an especially juicy monologue, say, "BUT I WANT IT! I WANT IT!"

And she kind of threw herself to the ground as if the force with which she wanted this rainbow kitten unicorn leotard was too much for her body to contain.

I used to want things that badly. I remember my dad had to drag me away from a card stand in the mall because I was screaming that I need to buy an Electabuzz Pokemon card with my own money for like thirty dollars and it was such a rip-off that my dad refused to let me buy it. But man did I want it.

It's probably some combination of training self-control and seeing enough things that you lose that all-consuming want but I aspire to want something as bad as this girl wanted this rainbow kitten unicorn leotard

loving the song Fall in Philadelphia by Hall and Oates

 a beautiful lovely song about a terrible time in a terrible place

that's songwriting

that's craftsmanship

you ever just pluck a memory out of your brain

 When I was young I went to this daycare called Minnieland from pre-k to like 3rd grade and on the playground area we had this big house thing made of like plywood. I guess it was technically a small house but in my kid eyes it was a big house. And I remember once that this girl named Katie Crittenden told me that I pushed her out of the window of this house when she was sitting on the windowsill. But I don't remember that. And I didn't remember it at the time. I only have the memory of her telling me that I had done that years before. 

And so maybe that's my first memory of not having a memory. And it was this thing that she very clearly remembered about me and felt the need to tell me about it years later and I had absolutely no memory of it.

Which is kinda monstrous, if you think about it. So I don't know maybe that's what set me straight. No more window pushing for me after that.

Also today during the warm-up at practice someone said, "I've known myself my whole life."

Which I immediately took issue with. You haven't known yourself your whole life. Not even close.

You haven't even begun to know yourself until Katie Crittenden reminds you that you pushed her out of a window one time and you have to reckon with others having a perception of you based on your real words and actions but is, at the same time, entirely removed from your subjective experience. That's knowing yourself.

mice bread

 mice bread

"Oh that's just mice bread."

Mice bread is a phrase I just made up where you give up something that is relatively small to you to keep a potentially chaotic situation in check. As if leaving out a small piece of bread would appease mice you have in your house and keep them from getting into your other food. Which obviously wouldn't work. Mice won't stop at free bread. They have ambition. 

So maybe that's part of the phrase too. You think you have the upper hand in the situation but really it's going to escalate way faster than you're prepared for.

Mice bread.

I don't know man that seems like a mice bread situation. 

brewers and rays tied at the end of the 6th in game 4 of the world series

I'm almost a baseball fan now.

I like the Brewers.

They're one game away from sweeping the Tampa Bay Devil Rays.

Last game they beat the Rays 10 to NOTHING.

Jacob Misiorowski is a very tall man who throws the ball very hard.

He throws the ball harder than any starting pitcher in the history of baseball.

Misiorowski threw over a thousand pitches faster than 100 mph this year.

The old record was 673.

However you think 'Misiorowski' is pronounced is probably not how it's pronounced.

I famously said in 2022 "Ooo wow the big tall man threw the ball hard -- we're so impressed"

But in 2026--we are impressed.

This is nothing.

We're trying this thing out on the competition team where we have the kids reflect and journal and we don't read what they write it's completely private but I really believe that it's important and I hope the kids are engaging with it and then I remember when I was given the same task in 9th grade and all I ever wrote about was how dumb I thought literary analysis was and that it was all a bunch of nonsense. And look how I turned out. So, trust the process I guess.

stay with me now

Not taking anything seriously is worshiping at the altar of Nihilism.

The most powerful god is the god of apathy and indifference.

When I tell a small child

that climb didn't count

you used a blue hold on an orange climb

you have done nothing

you have accomplished nothing

and if you continue down this path

any memory of your name

will shrivel into dust so fine

it will be but a mote on a speck

on a granule of sand

in some unknown corner

in the unending hall of eternity.

I'm affirming their existence

way more than any "chill" coach ever could.