My Discussion Regarding the Milwaukee Bucks and Their Series Loss to the Indiana Pacers

Folks, I have neglected my blog lately. I am sorry about that. I’ve been running out of hours in the day, and writing, whether it’s blogging or some fiction or whatever else, is taking a big backseat to Life (TM) these days. But as I am a fan of the Milwaukee Bucks, and as they were in the playoffs, I made sure to either listen or watch every single game this past week. (Considering I try to listen or watch every game during the regular season as well, that’s not too surprising.) And I have some thoughts.

Here we go.

I was fortunate enough to watch the Bucks play the Pacers in their last two playoff games (I listened to the others). I was seriously impressed by how hard the Bucks played despite their overall series loss to the Pacers (more on this in a bit). They were brilliant in Milwaukee in Game Five, which they needed to be in order to force Game Six in Indiana. One of their two big stars, Damian Lillard, played in Game Six after having to sit out the two previous playoff games, and did rather well, especially considering he was dealing with a strained Achilles tendon. He led all scorers, in fact…but despite good defense from nearly every Bucks player (including Lillard, and his forte is definitely not defense), the Bucks ran out of gas. They lost, 120-98, and the Pacers now advance to the next round.

Mind you, the game was not quite as lopsided as the score says. The Bucks coach, Doc Rivers, took most of his players — the starters, the main bench people, etc. — out of the game starting at around the four-minute mark. I believe the Bucks were down by sixteen at that point, and while that’s potentially doable if someone like Lillard hit a bunch of three-point shots and the extremely tired and gassed defense was able to get four or five stops in a row, it would’ve been a very long shot. I think Rivers did the right thing in pulling out guys like Lillard, Bobby Portis, Khris Middleton (who had a brilliant series of his own, especially in Games Four and Five), Patrick Beverley (aka “PatBev”), and Brook Lopez. Those guys should all hold their heads up, as they did the best they could all the way around.

Why do I say this? Because the biggest star on the Bucks, Giannis Antetokounmpo, was not able to play at all. He averaged something like forty points a game against Indiana, even though the Bucks as a whole had not done all that well against them. So, if you count him, and you see all these other players doing what they just did in stepping their games way up (or in Middleton’s case, reminding everyone why he was an All-Star a few years ago), I think at minimum the Bucks would’ve forced Game Seven in Milwaukee. At maximum, they would’ve won.

One stat for Game Five tells pretty much the whole story. There had never before been a playoff team, without its top two scorers (in the Bucks case, those were Lillard and Giannis), that had actually won a playoff game before. But the 2023-4 Bucks did just that. Middleton and Bobby Portis (a Sixth Man of the Year candidate; he finished third for the second year in a row) both scored twenty-nine points, and had twelve and ten rebounds, respectively. In addition, PatBev played the point position and passed the ball around — something he usually is not called upon to do — and scored thirteen points with twelve assists. Center Brook Lopez also scored twelve points. The Bucks played outstanding defense, held the Pacers to just 92 points in Game Five, and beat them 115-92.

In other words, without Giannis and Lillard, they were more like the “little team that could” (except for how tall they are, of course). They believed in themselves, and it showed. It was good that they got one more win at home and got to hear the love from the Milwaukee fans, because they really did pour it all out onto the floor.

So, the Bucks should hold their heads high despite losing the series to the Pacers. They did their best. Lillard came back in Game Six, and, while obviously not healthy, scored twenty-eight points and played far better defense than I’d expected. Portis had twenty points and fifteen rebounds. (The Indiana crowd hates Portis, so this was I hope some small amount of solace for Portis going into the offseason.) Lopez played one of his best games of the year, scoring twenty points and pulling down five rebounds. PatBev, while obviously tired and injured — he’d been playing despite an oblique injury for the past several weeks — again pulled down five assists and scored six points. (Remember, he’s not usually called upon to do either one. He was used primarily as a defensive “energy” guy, which makes sense: Beverley has been a member of the NBA All-Defensive Team three separate times.)

I was — am — happy with my favorite team. I wanted them to win Game Six just as much as they did…well, maybe not quite as much, but certainly I wanted them to win.

They didn’t win, no. But they did their level best. I can’t get angry with any of them.

For other sad Bucks fans out there: You need to remember that in any playoff scenario, a good team is going to go home in round one. Maybe several good teams will go home in round one. It doesn’t matter if it’s the NCAA Basketball Tourney, or the major league baseball playoffs, or the wildcard games in football…a good team or two always ends up going home sooner than expected. Oftentimes, it’s because key players were injured and/or were not able to play up to full capacity.

And we both know who wasn’t able to play at all, while several others couldn’t play up to their full capacity (but did their best and came darned close to it).

What I saw from my favorite team, the Bucks, was perseverance, grit, teamwork, and a never-say-die attitude. I hope most of the players will be back next year (I think it’s a lock that Lillard and Giannis aren’t going anywhere, and I’d be stunned if Middleton went anywhere either), as I think if folks like PatBev (a midseason acquisition) had played with everyone all year long, it’s possible this team would’ve forced Game Seven even without Giannis (a former two-time MVP of the NBA, a past multiple winner of the all-defensive team, and, like Lillard, a member of the all-NBA 75th anniversary team).

What I will take away from this loss is this: You can hold head up high when you do your level best. You may not win all the time. You may not be able to meet your own goals (PatBev said right away he wanted to win the NBA Championship just as soon as the Bucks traded for him; he also had some negative history with Damian Lillard, and said he had to “get right with Dame”). But you will still impress people if you give it your best shot, and most especially if you go outside of your comfort zone and do things completely unexpected of you. (That would hold true for the vast majority of the 2023-4 Milwaukee Bucks.)

Grief, and Nothing More’s Song “Fade In, Fade Out”

Folks, most of you know if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time that I am grieving my father’s passing last October at the age of eighty-six. Because of that, and because I am a musician anyway (always will be), I have been listening to songs differently.

One such song is Nothing More’s “Fade In, Fade Out.” (Link to main YouTube video is here.) It discusses, explicitly, the link between fathers and sons, so it’s not too much of a stretch to consider this dialogue from a father to a daughter as well.

“But why this song,” you ask? “And who is Nothing More?”

First, I’ll answer the second question. Nothing More is a rock group from the American Southwest. They skew more toward metal than anything, but they have various influences on their music. Their lead singer, Jonny Hawkins, started as their drummer/percussionist, but realized he needed to front the band instead. Their music has a lot of life, and speaks to many different emotions and states of being.

As to why this particular song? Because of some of the lyrics, combined with the power of the music, just speak to me in a way that I can’t quite understand, except by listening to this song, crying somewhat, and then listening to it again.

The song starts out with a grown son realizing his father has grown old. They speak, almost as if it’s their final conversation; the son listens as his father says (from lyrics):

Son, I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
I have watched you fade in
You will watch me fade out
When the grip leaves my hand
I know you won’t let me down

The father continues, telling his son to follow his heart, to never settle, to hold his head up, and to never run away from change. (If you look at the lyrics, which I found here, you’ll realize I’m telling this out of order. That’s OK. This is how it speaks to me.)

These next lyrics are essential to understanding “Fade In, Fade Out,” as far as I’m concerned:

(From a bit later in song)

When the morning comes and takes me
I promise I have taught you everything that you need
In the night you’ll dream of so many things
But find the ones that bring you life and you’ll find me

That’s where you’ll find me (repeated several times until the end)

The song ends on a huge crescendo, as another child is born, this to the son.**

To my mind, though, what matters most is the line about “find the (things) that bring you life, and you’ll find me.” The reason this matters so much to me is, the passions I, myself, have, are partly because of the passions my parents had. Dad loved music; so does my mother. Both of my parents were inveterate readers (and Mom still is); so am I, though I read some different things than they did (and Mom still does). The learning I took in, regarding morality and ethics and what’s truly important in life, I also took in from family influences.

So, the things that bring me life are music, words, and important relationships with friends and family. (My friends are my family, too. Just in a slightly different way. But I digress.)

Anyway, symbolically in this song, the son ends up with a child. I have no children, unless you count the workings of my mind and heart, as Michael and I were not blessed with any. (He was worth everything, though, and still is. You’ll know this if you read my blog for any length of time.) But overall, the point still matters: the oldest among us die, to make way for the new, but there is continuity between one generation and another.

In that sense, my father’s mother (who died when he was only eleven) has lived on, through him. In that sense, my maternal grandfather, who died when I was seven, has lived on, too (among others). Even though they couldn’t teach us directly, they did teach and impart values and such to my father and mother, who passed them on to me and my sibs.

So, in the parlance of “Fade in, Fade Out,” Dad watched me as I grew older (thus, faded in). He grew old and passed away (thus, faded out). But I haven’t forgotten what he taught me, the good, the bad, and the indifferent…and I never will.

What songs have mattered to you most, especially when you’ve been grieving? (All of us grieve something, mind you. That’s the parable Gautama Buddha gave, in a perhaps apocryphal story, when he sent a woman looking for someone without grief around the world. She couldn’t find anyone.) Tell me about ’em in the comments…and hey, if there are any other Nothing More fans out there, chime in, too. (That group deserves wider fame, methinks.)

———

**There’s an acoustic version of “Fade In, Fade Out” available here that’s also well worth listening to…then again, anything Nothing More does is worth it, and I can say that about very few bands. (Disturbed, Nothing More, Linkin Park…that’s about it. I’d add a few earlier bands and singers to that, such as Phil Collins with and without Genesis, and Styx with Dennis DeYoung.)

Discussing Other, Alternate Timelines

Folks, the last several weeks have been extremely challenging. I am unable to say why, as what’s going on mostly does not pertain to me…let’s just say it’s a family health crisis and be done with it.

Anyway, I knew I should write a blog, but about what?

I could write about sports — the Milwaukee Bucks made a coaching change, mid-season, which is quite unusual — but that didn’t seem right.

I could write about politics — some of what I’m seeing from people like Rep. Elise Stefanik of NY (R) is extremely disquieting. (Rep. Stefanik seems to have the attitude of “Vice President or Bust” and is doing her best to ingratiate herself with former POTUS Donald Trump despite her past voting record, which shows at one point she was a moderate.) But again, that didn’t seem right…though I do admire Nikki Haley’s pluck in refusing to get out of the Republican primary, mind you. (She’s right that only two states have spoken. There are 48 states and a number of US territories, plus the US emigres abroad, that have yet to vote and thus indicate a preference.) While Haley is almost certainly not going to win the Republican nomination, any more than Bernie Sanders was going to win the Democratic nomination in 2016, Haley can highlight important issues to voters and ultimately make a positive policy difference (if nothing else).

And while that was a long digression about politics, that’s not what I want to talk about today. I am a SF&F writer, no matter how little-known, and thus I think about a lot of stuff most other folks don’t. I’ve done this for a long time, mind you; my Elfy books, which feature alternate universes (where the Elfs lived — don’t call ’em “Elves” as that’s a swear word to them– and the Elfys were created, among other races), were not the first time I’ve ever thought about alternate universes. I may have thought about them even sooner than age fourteen, which is when I read Philip K. Dick’s classic MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE, which features an alternate universe where the Nazis and the Japanese won World War II.

I’m not the only one to think about this, of course. There are other writers who’ve discussed this in various ways, such as Doris Lessing and the more recent book THE FUTURE OF ANOTHER TIMELINE by Annalee Newitz. But my own ruminations lead me to how my own, personal timeline could’ve been changed by the following events:

2004: Instead of dying after four heart attacks, Michael has one heart attack and survives with brain and body intact. He does cardiac rehab, which I fully support him doing, and we get another ten-twenty years together rather than two. More books of different types result, and at least some of Michael’s artwork survives. (In this timeline, I have one piece of Michael’s artwork. That’s it. It was a brief drawing of what the uniforms looked like in his Atlantean Union universe.)

But even if Michael had still died in 2004, I had another possible better timeline with which to work, as follows:

2011: Instead of dying of a massive stroke, my good friend Jeff Wilson lives despite the heart virus that nearly killed him. He does cardiac rehab and anything else they suggest; after six or eight months of treatment, he’s allowed to leave the rehab hospital (really a nursing home). During this time, we start to date, long-distance…maybe I even manage to visit him in Fort Collins while he’s in the hospital, as it’s under the threshold of altitude that I can tolerate. (Jeff knew I get high-altitude sickness at about 7000 feet and it gets worse the higher up I go.) Books and stories follow, and whether we ever progressed beyond a very solid friendship or not, things would’ve been much better all the way around for both of us.

And even if Jeff had still died in 2011, I had yet another possible, better timeline to work with, as follows:

2014: A good friend, someone I had no idea that was interested in me, makes a play and I respond. (This happened in real life, though not in 2014.) Things progress. Books and stories follow. The relationship is serious enough to perhaps lead to marriage, and despite some major difficulties, we manage to overcome them and forge a life together.

Of course, that timeline didn’t happen either. So how about this one?

2020: Covid-19 does not happen. Millions of people do not die. (If this was lab-grown in China or anywhere else, it does not escape the lab.) People are not shut in for weeks, months, or years; there is no such thing as public-shaming over mask-wearing (I believe masks can help, especially if you, yourself, are ill and don’t know it; you won’t give it to someone else that way. But shaming people is wrong.) There’s no such thing as kicking people off public trails because of fears that they might get Covid…one of the dumbest things I ever heard, yet it happened to a good friend of mine in 2020. (I wish that hadn’t happened to him, too. As we found out later, Covid is not likely to spread outside with the same frequency as it’s going to spread inside with the greater density of people to work with.)

And as we all know, unfortunately that timeline didn’t happen either.

I’ve avoided some of the obvious ones, mind you. (Some folks may be asking, “Why not go back to 2000 and have Gore win instead of W.? Why not go back to 2016 and have your choice, Hillary Clinton, win instead of Trump?” Or even this: “Why didn’t you eliminate the war in Ukraine?”) I think many others have gone over those possibilities, and I wanted to make you think more about smaller, more personal decisions rather than stuff like that. (Well, with the exception of Covid, of course, though Covid caused more small-scale upheaval than just about anything in the past fifty years in my own not-so-humble opinion.)

So, what other timelines could you have had? What other timelines do you wish you would’ve had? (I know I wish Michael would’ve lived. Everyone who’s ever read this blog or known me in any way whatsoever should know that’s been my most fervent wish.) And is it still possible to create a better timeline in the future than the one we fear may happen? (I hope so, otherwise I’d not do anything, much less write this blog.)

Looking for Optimism in 2024

Folks, 2023 was a difficult, frustrating, and disempowering year for me. A whole lot I wanted to get done didn’t happen. A whole lot that I never wanted to occur did.

So, how can I look for optimism in 2024?

It seems like every time I turn on the news, something else awful has happened. There’s a tornado in Alabama. There’s a documentary about a young woman, Gypsy Rose Blanchard (now happily married, married name Anderson), who was mistreated horribly by her mother and who served several years in prison for conspiring to kill her mother. (If you saw what her mother did to Gypsy Rose Blanchard, you might be like me and say, “Small loss.” Especially after Ms. Blanchard tried hard to get away from her mother, and how no one understood the horrific stuff her mother had put her through.) Blanchard’s story sent ice straight down my spine, as her late and (to my mind) unlamented mother kept her looking ill and much frailer than she ever should’ve been due to Blanchard’s mother’s significant mental illness. (The diagnosis for Blanchard’s mother, who I’m not naming as I feel she was among the world’s worst villains of the last thirty years, was Munchausen’s Syndrome by proxy, meaning Blanchard’s mother put Gypsy Rose through all sorts of crap by making her appear sick — as a cancer patient, as needing various surgeries Gypsy Rose never required, etc.)

Then, of course, there are the usual problems. Snow. Ice. Wind. Man against nature.

So, it’s a dark and rather depressing opening to 2024 for me. It’s cold, there’s not a lot of light at the end of the tunnel, and I’m frustrated overall because I’ve tried very hard for the last nineteen years-plus since my late husband Michael died (yes, I know to the hour, but I won’t be that anal-retentive today) to live the best life I can. Maybe I’ve done that, but my creativity has not been where I wish it to be; I didn’t achieve my goals in 2023 of getting some new stories out under my own name due to my father’s passing in October (partly, anyway; I was already behind that expectation due to the earlier cellulitis of the face I suffered in February and March before he died); work lagged, and I was having to play catch-up even before I caught Covid-19 in early December.

When looked at all as a piece, it seems much worse than what it was when I lived through it. And it’s of course not a patch on what Gypsy Rose Blanchard lived through for years until her mother was killed by Gypsy Rose’s then-boyfriend. (Don’t judge that young woman until you’ve seen what her mother put her through.) But pain is pain, and Michael always told me that it’s invalidating to try to compare your pain to others’ pain.

I think that’s good advice.

In my case, stuff builds up inside. I have no way to express it safely, or at least it seems like there isn’t one. This feeds depression, this feeds illness, this feeds lack of creativity and this also feeds despair, hopelessness, and as my friend Karl Ernst put it in his book Rocking Change, stuckness.

That doesn’t mean I’d not have been ill with Covid-19 if my problems magically went away. (Plus, life seems to be all about how to navigate problems. We always have some, somewhere.) That doesn’t mean everything would be lightness, creativity, brightness, and happiness, either.

What it does mean is that the real issues I’ve got: grief, again, this time due to the loss of my father; iffy health (that I continue to work on to get at least slightly better); loneliness; frustration; anger; hopelessness; well, they all get stuffed together in a maelstrom of despair.

That said, I think there are some reasons for optimism here.

First, I am aware of these problems. They aren’t just sitting there, unremarked and misunderstood.

Second, I have managed to write over 36K words in the last year into a new story I can’t tell you much about yet (it’s in a friend of mine’s universe and will eventually go out co-branded with his name), which is the highest word count I’ve managed in the last three years. This means the prospective novel is about one-third completed. (Yay!)

Third, I have good friends I trust, along with family, that have known me for many years. That has to help.

Fourth, while 2024 is already shaping up to be a year of change for me in many senses, I believe there is room for me to take a new role upon the stage somehow. (As life is but a stage, and we are merely players according to both Shakespeare and the rock group Rush, this needed to be said.)

Or as my father used to put it, “There’s always another season.” He was talking about sports, but I think that’s applicable to life as well.

So, what I’m going to do is this. Write. Edit. Compose music. Talk to other people as best I can. Continue on my path, as I know exactly what it is, and do whatever I can and whatever it takes to make my life happier, more stable, and far more satisfying.

See, I can’t control the future. I can’t control what other people think about me. I can’t control all the vicissitudes of life.

But I can control how I react to it.

That’s my overarching reason for optimism in 2024. (What’s yours? Tell me in the comments!)

A Nonmaterialist’s Approach to the Holidays

Folks, as I write this it’s five days until Christmas Day. The holidays are likely to be a subdued affair at Chez Caffrey due to my father’s recent passing, and as I’ve said many times before at this blog, they’ve been less than stellar for quite a few years now.

That said, I try to keep the holiday spirit in mind. I can’t ever promise to be “happy happy, joy joy” because that’s just not me. But I can try to help people as I’m able, and I also can do my best to pay attention. Sometimes just being able to do these things, or give a kind word to someone who needs one, is enough to make someone else’s day.

Supposedly, there are different types of ways to say “I love you” besides just saying the words. I’m more of a “do stuff for others” type than saying the words, and I think my whole family (which includes my good friends) knows this. That’s how I try to give presents, as I don’t have a lot of cash and again, everyone in my life knows this.

I’m guessing there are a lot of people in my boat this year, in that finances are tight, lots of stuff has gone wrong, and perhaps the holiday spirit is in short supply. So for those of you who need it, remember that the best present you can give anyone else is your presence and your time. Try not to worry if you can’t give someone a monetary gift even though you would if you could…just keep doing your best for as long as you are able, and try to let those in your life know that you appreciate them.

Also, I am a firm believer in miracles, in that I’ve seen two genuine miracles happen in my life thus far. (No, I won’t tell you what they are. But most of you will probably guess one of them correctly. Just sayin’.) I think there’s nothing wrong with asking the Deity for something, anything to go right, and I have to admit that I have indeed asked this before and will probably ask it again.

Finally, remember that we all have disagreements with people. We don’t have to be disagreeable about it, mind, which of course is a tough thing when emotions are high and tempers are already frayed (as holidays can bring out the worst in people). But we can remember that most of the time when other people act badly, it’s not personal. It’s just that they have nothing else left to give, and are basically saying, “I can’t handle any more!”

So, happy holidays to you all, and may your 2024 be filled with blessings.

Details from the Covid-verse

I just read that generative AI (chatbots, roughly) tend to write better headlines than human beings, which is why you are getting the above-mentioned headline. (And no, I did not use AI to come up with it.) Enjoy at your peril…or something.

Last week, I tested positive for Covid-19. The symptoms were not what I had expected. I still had some sense of taste/smell; what I had mostly was bronchitis, followed by a ton of sinus involvement and general “icky feeling” along with body aches, muscle weakness, and more of a type of malaise. (No, “icky feeling” isn’t exactly the same as malaise, at least not in my book.)

Because of this, when I went in, I thought I had RSV. (For those who haven’t heard of that, it’s a different type of respiratory virus that can cause many of the same symptoms.) All I knew was, I was sick, I felt lousy, I had almost no energy, and I wasn’t the only one in the family with these symptoms. (Two out of three tested positive is all I’ll say about that.)

So, they did an overnight test for Covid, both flu strains, and RSV. Covid came back positive.

As most long-term readers of this blog surely know, I never wanted to get Covid. I have asthma. I knew that if I got Covid, it was likely going to be a bad case of the sucker, and that I would not be able to do much of anything for several weeks…which has unfortunately proven to be the case. (I’d wanted to write this blog for the last ten days, for example. It didn’t get done until now.)

For me, Covid mostly was a case of “bad cold/bad flu” with a ton of coughing, high temps, body aches, etc. As it came on the heels of my father’s recent passing, I was already at a low ebb, energy-wise, so perhaps it hit me harder than it strictly needed to do, for all I know.

What I found out, when I tried to find out how much Covid was in this area of Wisconsin, is that the state now tracks Covid through wastewater (i.e., how much Covid is in the, um, effluvia when we flush our toilets). To no surprise, Racine County, Kenosha County, and the part of Milwaukee County that’s closest to me are all in the “very high” range (nothing is higher than that on the scale, either). But it’s nearly impossible to find out how Covid’s doing, elsewise, unless you want to see how many people are put in the hospital.

Mind you, anything that keeps you out of the hospital, no matter how nasty it is and no matter how much it gets in the way of your normal life, is now considered a “mild case” of Covid. So, despite how sick I’ve been, and despite how sick other family members have been, far and near, with Covid (a few of my cousins have had it in recent months, too), we all apparently have “mild” cases.

Hmph. (Or better yet, harrumph.)

I’ve had all of the various booster shots (read: vaccinations) but one, mind you. This last one, I’d meant to get before Dad died. It didn’t happen. It makes me wonder if things would’ve been better if I’d managed it…anyway, as soon as they let me, I will get the next booster shot, because I really don’t want this to hit me this hard (or worse) again if I can help it.

I know that ultimately, life is a crapshoot. We have no idea when we go out anywhere if other people are sick, much less with what. Sometimes they don’t know yet that they are ill, for that matter; there are folks who get Covid (much less other illnesses) who have no symptoms at all, so they’d have no reason to test themselves, but they can still pass Covid on to other people. You can get Covid in the grocery store, in the pharmacy, at a restaurant (if you go in; I still don’t), literally anywhere.

That said, I’ve tried hard to avoid it. (Much good that did me, but still.)

All I can ask you, readers of my blog, is this: If you are ill, don’t be afraid to get tested. It’s better to know than not. And it’s a lot better to stay home if you’re ill rather than get a bunch of people sick like Typhoid Mary did, way back when (if you don’t know the story, Mary was a kindly soul who tried to help others, but she was a carrier of Typhoid. Even after knowing she had it, she still tried to nurse the sick, and caused people to stay sick and/or die a lot sooner because of her being a Typhoid carrier with few or no symptoms).

I know it’s awful to be sick. I do.

I wish I weren’t sick now (though I am well enough to at least type this out). But all I can do now is warn you to please keep getting your booster shots, try to remain socially distant if you can in crowds (this isn’t always possible, granted), and wear masks when out unless it’s impossible for you to do so. (There are some folks who can’t wear masks due to past trauma and/or other reasons.) I have tried to wear masks whenever possible — with my asthma, sometimes it just hasn’t been possible! — and I do my best.

You do your best, too, eh?

Quick Update, December 2023 Edition

Folks, I just wanted to write a quick blog to let you all know I am still alive.

I have been feeling run-down and ill, in addition to grieving my father’s passing of course. The holidays are never easy for me, mind you, and when we have big temperature swings (over twenty degrees last week, I think), I tend to get sick.

Now, does that mean I’m down for a long time? I hope not. But for now, I’m at the forcing fluids stage, reminding myself to eat as nothing seems appealing (I can taste it just fine, so that’s good at least), and the “reading a lot of favorite books” stage to help me feel better mentally.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll discuss some more of my favorite books (including one that just came out, Chris Nuttall’s QUEENMAKER, that I edited). But for tonight, I am just going to rest, and hope that my throat will feel less sore in the a.m.

So, in the interim, tell me: what are you reading? What do you like about it? (Or what can’t you stand about it, if there’s a book that really ticked you off in some way?) Book discussions are fun, and we haven’t had one here at my blog home on the web in quite some time.

Saying Goodbye to Dad

Folks, I know I didn’t blog last week at all. Mostly I was trying to save up my energy for what proved to be a two-part effort: Dad’s funeral/memorial service on Saturday, and Dad’s burial on Monday. I figured I’d talk about that, along with the difficulties of saying goodbye when you weren’t ready at all to do so, today.

My father was almost 87 when he passed away. (Had he made it through another month, that is.) As he told everyone (including grocery store cashiers), Dad lived a good life. He was satisfied because he had three good kids, he’d been a successful letter carrier, he’d bought a house (and died in his house, something he’d told me and my sibs often was his wish), he’d enjoyed outings with his own sibs (when they were healthy enough), he’d done some traveling (mostly to and from other family members’ homes), and he’d enjoyed watching and listening to the Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers, and Milwaukee Bucks games over the course of his lifetime. He’d also played in what was then the Racine Municipal Band for twenty years in the percussion section. (Dad did not consider himself to be a percussionist, because he didn’t read notes; he only read rhythms. That said, he played the snare drum, the field drum, the bass drum, the castanets, the cymbals, the maracas, and anything else that didn’t require note-reading.) Dad also enjoyed watching old movies, as I said before, and played lots of cards (mostly cribbage and smear — smear is kind of like sheepshead, I guess; I don’t know how to explain it any better).

In short, Dad had the life he’d hoped to have.

The thing is, even though I know all that, it’s still hard to say goodbye. My relationship with my father wasn’t always an easy one. I wasn’t what he’d expected, at all. I’d been expected to make a big noise as a classically trained musician, but my hands failed; then, after I finally found the love of my life in my mid-30s, I lost him due to four heart attacks (as I’ve discussed multitudinously at this blog) and ended up back with my family again.

See, I’d hoped my entire life to make it as a musician. My whole life was oriented toward that. I used to practice up to eight hours a day, then wrote music for another hour or two (I can still do that, at least, when motivated and my mind isn’t all over the place as it is now), often while working a part-time or full-time job on the side.

But as I said, my hands failed. I have something akin to carpal tunnel syndrome, though it isn’t that; it’s bilateral tendinitis in both hands and wrists. I can have spasms in my wrists or hands at any time, and there’s no apparent reason for this. (The tendinitis could happen to anyone; I could’ve worked around that. The spasms were much harder to work around, and it’s why I’d stopped playing except in the Racine Concert Band and the UW-Parkside Community Band.)

When I met Michael, I was only reluctantly ready to concede that I would not be a professional musician. But I’d discovered I was good at writing; really good. With Michael’s help — as he was an excellent editor and a good writer, too — I finished up my novel, Elfy (later split into two parts as An Elfy on the Loose and A Little Elfy in Big Trouble), and was working on a prequel called Keisha’s Vow (I’ve mentioned this before, here at my blog) when the unthinkable happened: Michael died.

So, I was bereft, incredibly upset, grieving, very unhappy, and though I didn’t know it at the time, also very depressed when I came back to live with my father. (I did spend a good amount of time with my mother, too, and still do.) I wasn’t at all what I’d been. I didn’t recognize myself in the mirror, I was so very upset.

At first, my parents (neither one) knew what to say to me. As I’d been previously married, their thoughts were probably along the lines of, “Well, she won’t be here long. She’ll find someone else.”

Um, no.

Anyway, Dad is the subject of this blog, so I’d better explain what he did. Mostly, he pointed out there are seasons to life, just as there are to baseball, basketball, etc. There may still be another season in my life that could be good, even though I couldn’t see it…I had to have hope, and faith, that someday I’d understand why Michael had died young and why my hands had given me so much trouble.

Over time, I slowly got better. I went through physical and occupational therapy for my hands in 2010 and again in early 2011; this brought back quite a bit of movement and flexibility to my hands and wrists, so I was able to play my saxophone and clarinet again. (If I had someone to make reeds for me, I could’ve played my oboe as well. But my hands will never be good enough for me to make reeds ever again. That’s just a fact.) I rejoined the Parkside Community Band not long before my friend Jeff Wilson died in 2011, and if I recall correctly, most of my family was there for the first concert I’d played in over ten years. (Dad wasn’t. But my sister was, my Mom was, I think my niece was…and my Aunt Laurice, who lived in Racine also, was there, too.) I played a solo in a piece called “Roma,” and thought about Michael and Jeff as if they were in the front row, just invisible to everyone else except me.

Note that my Mom also believed I would play again. I don’t mean to slight her in this. But fortunately for me, she is still here now, and I can continue to do whatever I can to help her whenever I am able to do it…while Dad, who never wanted anyone to do anything for him except talk to him now and again, is on the Other Side.

So, Dad and I continued to talk about sports. We sometimes talked about politics; he was disgusted by many of the goings-on, and one of his final thoughts was that it was disgraceful that there was no Speaker in the U.S. House of Representatives. (I agreed with him, too. That was a big mess.) He often pointed out that if the able refused to serve, or were unable to serve, we only ended up with idiots. (He didn’t use that term. He was far kinder in some ways than I am.) He pointed out that Samuel Gompers had said, in essence, that it’s better to be party to a principle than a principal to a party, and that anyone who let dogma rule them when there were practical problems that needed solutions and compromise wasn’t worthy of his or her seat in Washington, DC.

At any rate, Dad was a person who believed talk was cheap and results were what mattered. He also believed that kindness was essential — though harder to do than to say — and if you remember the blog I wrote years ago about how people treat cashiers says a lot about them? Well, Dad was almost unfailingly kind to cashiers, even if they made mistakes in his order. (He’d just go up to the service desk and straighten it out, that’s all.)

Was Dad a saint? No. Not at all. But he meant to be a good man, and in his way, I think he was. But he wasn’t always easy to live with (neither am I); some days he could be downright ornery, and he also took pride in being cantankerous. (He figured once you got over eighty, they’d call you that anyway, so why not live up to it?)

Anyway, on Saturday I gave some sort of eulogy, as did my siblings and my niece, Jenni. (I think they did better jobs than I did. I don’t really remember much of what I said, to be honest.) Then my Mom and I and everyone else went to a local restaurant, and we did our best to celebrate life and remember my father.

This past Monday, Dad was buried out in Union Grove at the vets’ cemetery. My sibs, my niece, and one of my cousins was there. (A good friend of mine tried to come, too, but she got lost. It’s OK. I got lost, too, and only barely made it to the cemetery in time even though I started out almost an hour beforehand. It’s only a fifteen-minute drive, if that, to Union Grove from where I started…ah, well.) They gave Dad the military honors he deserved, as he’d been a member of the U.S. Navy in his youth (he loved to say “I was a member of the man’s navy”), and that was that.

Except it’s not.

I wish I could explain it better than that, but I can’t. I do know I’m glad Dad didn’t suffer. (I found him, so I know he didn’t.) I also hope that he’s with his mother (who died when he was only eleven), father, stepmother Gertie, my Aunt Laurice and Uncle Carl, and everyone else who predeceased him. (Maybe Michael’s up there and is talking sports with Dad right now. I like to think so.)

Here, though, on Earth, I struggle. And I think it’s going to be like this for a while…that said, I will keep doing whatever I can to be of use and service to others, and hope that, creativity, and whatever shreds of faith I have left will be enough to sustain me.

Dad Died Yesterday, Aged 86

Folks, this is a very tough blog to write. But I think I should. So here we are.

My father Roger was 86 and a bit — he would’ve been 87 in November on his next birthday — and was a huge sports fan his entire life. He loved the Milwaukee Brewers, the Milwaukee Bucks, and the Green Bay Packers, and going to the 1982 World Series with us kids between the Brewers and the St. Louis Cardinals at old Milwaukee County Stadium was a highlight he’d talked about for years. (One kid would go with one parent for each home game, so all three of us got to see a World Series game in person when we were young. I think Mom went to two home games and Dad one; it was a long time ago, but Dad insisted he’d gone and he usually was right about such things.)

I had to start off with that, because unless you understood at least some of my father’s passions, you didn’t know him at all.

Dad also played the drums. He did not consider himself a percussionist because he didn’t read music so much as read rhythms. He did play cymbals, bass drum, snare drum, field drum, castanets, maracas, and anything that was needed when he was a member of the Racine Concert Band. (Yes, my family has had a strong interest in the RCB for a very long time, and Dad was a member for over ten years in the percussion section.) He loved music of all sorts, but was most partial to musicals, Doris Day, Kristen Chenoweth, big band jazz from the 1930s, 1940s, and a bit into the 1950s (bebop was taking over from the older big band style; think the difference between Benny Goodman and his orchestra and/or Duke Ellington and his orchestra versus Charlie Parker and/or Dizzy Gillespie.)

Another of Dad’s passions was old movies. His favorite movie of all time was “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town,” a story about an unlikely man who inherits a fortune, the newspaperwoman who writes about him (incognito), and about the efforts to strip his fortune by unscrupulous members of his family. Why did they try? Well, Mr. Deeds was an eccentric. He played the tuba, he liked to dance down the street and sing a bit (Mr. Deeds didn’t have much of a voice, I’m afraid; his tuba, however, did), and he was a nonconformist for the times. That was enough to get a hearing before a judge, to prove competency or the lack of it.

Anyway, Dad loved that movie, and I know I watched with him several times over the last few years because it’s a highly entertaining movie (what with the tuba playing and all). Jean Arthur was the female lead, and Dad admired her for Arthur’s beauty and brains and grace under pressure, as he saw Arthur in several other movies (including one of Dad’s other favorite movies, “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”). He loved comedies like “Easter Parade” and “Calamity Jane” and “State Fair,” and of course he knew all the words to favorite musicals such as “The Music Man” and “The Sound of Music.”

Dad also was a man of principle. One of his favorite sayings was that government doesn’t work if the able don’t serve. He also pointed out what Samuel Gompers said, about how it’s better to be party to a principle rather than a principal to a party, though the actual quote is more like this according to a quick Google search: “It is not the party for whom we vote that counts, but our loyalty to the principles for which that party stands.”

Anyway, my father lived a good long life. He believed in family and cared about others, but couldn’t always show it as he was a guy from a time where men were admired if they were the strong, silent type. (Dad would admit he wasn’t that type, sometimes, but the Stoic nature of it all certainly was something he admired.) Dad was a member of the Lutheran Church, believed firmly in Heaven and in God (to him, God was most definitely male, though he’d not had a problem with me seeing the Deity in other ways as far as I could tell), and was mentally alert pretty much until the hour of his death.

In our last conversation, which was mostly about sports, Dad told me he didn’t think Jordan Love is the answer for the Green Bay Packers and that he wished Aaron Rodgers had stayed in Green Bay as Rodgers probably wouldn’t have been injured here (as the Achilles’ tear Rodgers suffered was worse due to happening on artificial turf). He was looking forward to the Milwaukee Bucks basketball season (starting tonight), though he didn’t like the trade of Jrue Holliday for Damian Lillard; he liked Lillard, but he’d rather have had Holliday and Lillard, and if he could only have one, he’d have kept Holliday. (That this apparently caused Giannis Antetokounmpo to sign a maximum-amount three-year extension didn’t really please my father. He liked to say that the Bucks needed five people on the team, not just one guy, and that compared to Wilt Chamberlain or even Michael Jordan, two guys who could and did win games practically single-handedly, Giannis wasn’t in that league. Of course, he also admitted that Giannis had come a long way and would certainly make the basketball hall of fame some day, too.) And he worried that the Milwaukee Brewers would trade their ace, Corbin Burnes, over the winter; while he didn’t think Burnes was as good this year as last (or the Cy Young year before that), he still felt Burnes was an ace-level pitcher and was needed, desperately, for the Brewers to be a competitive team next year.

So, on Sunday night, we had that good conversation. I didn’t see him Monday except once; he was not well, and I asked him if he wanted to be taken to the ER or if he wanted me to call the rescue squad. He said he didn’t want that. I abided by his wishes, went to bed, got up on Tuesday to go to a doctor appointment, and when I got back home, Dad had passed away.

Dad always wanted to die at home. I know that. But I still feel terrible about it anyway.

I also have to say this: Dad wanted everyone to know that he wasn’t a saint, just a man; he hated the idea of everyone being lauded as the most wonderful person who’d ever lived after they died (if you already thought that before the person’s death, that was another story entirely), and would rather that we remember his humanity along with the good times, the bad times, and the in-between times.

At any rate, I thought that I’d be prepared for this day, when it came, and I’m not.

Funeral arrangements are pending.

What Motivates You? (Hint: Your Characters Will Show It…)

Folks, I’ve thought long and hard about this topic (the topic being motivation, as the title says), as I think what motivates you as a writer is likely to be what motivates your characters, too.

Now, you might be shaking your head here. Your characters probably range from awful people to good ones; from those who keep fighting to stay afloat, and those who sink like a stone; from those who do, to those who wait. They would seemingly all have different motivations driving them, right?

And all of it — all — comes from you.

Your motivations are important. They infuse everything you write and everything you do. Whether you believe in miracles, believe in hard work, or a combination of the two, much less your not-so-good characters believing in expediency and “going along to get along,” why you do things can’t help but shine through.

This is why people talk about “what is your brand.” I wish we’d come up with a better way to put that, as I don’t like codifying people in the same way as we codify objects. However, as this is the term we’ve got, I’m going to run with it.

My “brand,” so to speak, is this: Out of desperation and tragedy comes hope, safety, and romance. A better life awaits my characters, if they can just get through the morass they’re in right now.

Now, that’s not exactly a great “tag-line,” another concept I’m not entirely keen on. How can you sum up yourself and your writing with one, simple sentence? If you could do that, why would you write at all? You’d have your one sentence, and you’d be done.

Yet I’ve been compelled to write all sorts of things. Books. Stories. Novellas. Blog posts. Opinion pieces. Sports articles. Poems.

What’s the one, common denominator in all of those disparate things? Me.

So, what you bring to the table — or the internet cafe, or the workroom, or whatever — is absolutely crucial. Everything you are, everything you have done, everything you have observed, gets into your writing, much less the entirety of yourself.

That’s just a fact. But what you do with that fact is up to you.

What do you think about motivation? What drives you and/or your characters? Tell me about it in the comments!