🎥 Go Ask Daddy About Movie Casting, Data Blasting, and Bald Britney

That’s me in that picture, getting ready to take on the short-track at Hickory Motor Speedway, back in the day.

I’ve fallen behind on all the Star Wars movies.

It pains me to say that but also doesn’t. Camdyn didn’t give the most glowing review of Solo: A Star Wars Story. What we have feared for years seems to have come true: Disney might just be stinking up our story.

I didn’t ask for details.

We’ll see, though. When Disney first got ahold of Star Wars, I was apprehensive. I ended up crying in the theater! (My girls noted that all the other old dudes in there also cried.) I don’t want to cry sad tears again for the loss of the story I grew up with.

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👴🏽 5 Reasons You Should Fall In Love With Aging

Writing’s been a bit of a struggle of late.

Not the writing that pays the bills. Although, that’s been a slough too, to be honest. I read lots of cool newsletters and emails about writing newsletters and emails. They help. They add skills or ideas or just gumption.

You can do stuff with gumption.

I have a secret writing process I’ll never fully disclose. It involved random choices and brainstorming and generally thinking within rules I set for myself so that I can think outside the box. Well, it probably wouldn’t make much sense to describe anyway.

10 things grateful, plus that kickass feeling ✈️ | #gratitudeandshit

I’ve just got that feeling.

I’m not worried about jinxing it. I never have. Things aren’t perfect. Are they ever? But optimism … it’s tough to cover up. It’s like that first day of warm sun in the spring. That first deep breath of a kickass meditation.

Or how your car smells like pizza the day after you bring home takeout. #mmmm

It’s like having your good shoes on with a huge hike ahead. Deciding on a lineup change your rival hasn’t seen yet. I’m not sure it’s a 2019 thing. I don’t know when it started. I know it was good today. Shifts. Adjustments. Rules set for me.

Go Ask Daddy about follicular properties, sweet debates 🧁, and milestones for our beautiful game

Sometimes, the kids don’t believe me.

I used to be a football player. And I used to have big hair. Not really at the same time, though. My football days, I was clean cut. Didn’t even have a mustache. It was the 80s, not the 70s. And I didn’t have long hair until high school.

Anyway, the coach and dad they see now has stories.

Not Superman stories, mind you. But stories. In middle school, they called me Speedy. Okay, it wasn’t the school team. It was intramurals. All the real players played real football. But all things being equal … I stood out in the field.

⚽ 10 Things Grateful, plus extra soccer #gratitudeandshit

We made it!

After a season of grit and a whoopin’ or two, we made the state playoffs. They assigned us in Round 1 to a remote outpost: East Wilkes. That’s in Ronda, N.C. That’s not a lady, that’s a town, although there was probably a handful of women named Ronda about.

We lost 8-4 in a crazy match that included eight goals from one player – and a view into the valley so breathtaking that I said, Damn, son, that’s a helluva view you guys have up here to the kid serving as ball-boy for the match.

I was grateful for one last game. I was grateful Remmi made it, hobbling in on crutches but in good spirits. I was grateful we fought back to within three, twice. I was grateful for the annoying siren they turn on when they score only rang out … well, eight times.

I was grateful that when it was over, the girls seemed pretty pissed.

10 things grateful, plus adios #AtoZ! 🦚

Man – I’m glad the #AtoZChallenge is over.

It’s fun. It’s just … extra. I love going to other blogs I’d not normally see. But the engagement is wonky, and I miss conversing with the regulars here. And visiting their blogs. And having time to post on social media and find your links there, too.

When you’re in the challenge, man, it feels like you’re kind of a narcissist.

Not to mention what it does to your non-blog life. I struggled to keep up, and sacrificed progress toward other deadlines. And sleep. Not snacks. I found time for snacks. But the rest of life was kind of a blur. Next time I do this, I’ll work ahead.

#AtoZChallenge | Z is for zigzag 📩

Some days zig when you think they’ll zag.

Tuesday was such a day. If you’d told me I’d cry some of my happiest and saddest tears in the same day – some in the same hour – I’d have, well, been eager to see how. I’d have never guessed. It began with a soccer match, on a senior day.

It ended with tears in silence as I learned all I could about a shooting at my alma mater.

In between, the day’s events intertwined and intersected. This is what I meant by my Y post yesterday. Time spent away from writing is time spent creating the writing through living. I can’t say it was a bad day and I can’t say it was a good one, either.

#AtoZChallenge | W is for What Remains (#gratitudeandshit)

These pockets of in-overbookedness don’t happen often.

Rather than get a jumpstart on 53 things that needed jump-starting, I didn’t jump. And I sure as hell didn’t start. Not right away. A day brimming with a promise to put me ahead in everything where I was behind curtained sharply into a back-to-the-pillow nosedive.

The car got washed, the chicken, cooked (not grilled.)

And it’s 1:21 on Sunday morning, sleep time for another day of possibility, but I’m instead forging ahead to maybe close at least one gap – this A to Z Challenge. W, X, Y, and Z remain. One day remains in this weekend.

#AtoZChallenge: U is for using up all your subs (Go Ask Daddy)

I can’t help it.

When the kids say something about subs at a soccer match, my mind goes to steak and cheese. Or turkey and avocado. It’s just how it is and I can’t change it. But the distraction is mostly temporary.

When I sub a kid into a game, it gives us a bit of a forum to talk that we don’t normally get.

You’re my mom’s favorite coach, but not my dad’s one girl told me. A new player told me how nervous she was to get in. Hayden didn’t spend a lot of time there, but as she waited to go back in after getting her first yellow card, we both tried not to snicker too loud.

#AtoZChallenge: K is for Kickass Kindness (to go with #gratitudeandshit)

This one should be a country music album cover.

I mean …

We do #gratitudeandshit around here. Why not #kickasskindness? Kindness kind of gets a bad rap. Like, me, in middle school, when someone started the rumor that I curled my hair. Psh. It spreads like wildfire. Or negative Yelp! reviews.

Anyway. Kindness.

People equate kind with weak. But that’s not always so. That’s why I like when one of my players trucks another player then helps her up. That’s sweet, right? It’s like, not in my neighborhood, !@#$!, then, you okay, sister?