The Hungry Hungry Writer

Working on the same story for four days straight really burns me out. I lose perspective. Taking a day off, getting some sleep, and refocusing on something else tends to help.

On Thursday I was thrust into a position where I crammed to write at Barnes & Noble for a while in order to prepare for a development meeting for that night. Things needed to be done by Friday morning and it just wasn’t going to happen. I was burned out by midnight and kept going a little more. We extended the deadline for Monday.

We continued on Friday night – lack of sleep from the night before but the reward - a majority of the writing and story done. Dale, Nhat and I finished around 11:00 PM and yes, I got into bed at a decent hour – but that doesn’t mean I slept. “Battlestar Galactica”, “Friday Night Lights” and “Heroes” waited for me on TiVO. I was asleep around 2:00 AM. And at 5:30 AM… Bella wakes up.

Saturday morning I gathered the kids, Jake and I got allergy shots, we stood in line at Porto’s Bakery for almost 45 minutes, we brought the food home, ate AND THEN… I got some sleep. I nice two hour nap, baby. I followed this with a 4 mile run in the 4:00 PM heat where I almost got killed by someone backing out their car in a driveway. I yelled, he apologized, and I went my way. Then we went to dinner at a Judge’s house. Isn’t that more interesting than saying, we went to dinner at our friend’s parents house? Our friend Cindy is visiting from up North and there was a dinner at her mom’s house: wine, cheese, a damn good BBQ and desert. Yum. I love going there. Good people, good food, good conversation. Its all good.

I fell asleep at 10:30 that night.

Then comes 5:30 AM wakeup call on Sunday morning by Bella. Again. I drag myself out of bed, make some coffee, and write. I get a couple of hours in the morning before heading to Liza’s house for breakfast/brunch. Then on to Jake’s game where I witnessed one of the most disgusting acts a parent can do at a baseball field.

I was so put off by this display of ‘attitude’ that I had a bad taste in my mouth the rest of the day.

There is a young dad on our team. His son is by far one of the best players on the team. There have been a few times where he has gotten on his son for poor play during practice and his son pouts, and walks off and doesn’t want to have anything to do with it. Well, on Sunday the first ball was hit to him. He fumbled with it and lobbed it over to first base: a lackadaisical play. We, as coaches, get on their cases: wake up, make a strong throw, lets stay alert out there! Well, this dad also gets on his son’s case about throwing the ball hard and our head coach tells him “let’s not get on his case right now”. I get it. It was the first inning, no big deal. Lets not rag on them for every little thing they do.

Well, this dad storms out of the dugout spouting off some, ‘fine – have ‘them’ play the way you think they should play’ and this dad goes into the stands, yells at his son and says, “Listen to me! You listen to me!” indicating – ‘don’t listen to the coaches’.

What the fuck?

He then storms off the stands and heads for the outfield where he sits, pouting like, well, like his son - a seven year old child.

Uh… now let me ask… where does his son get it? I’ve seen it from both of them now. Is this dad learning this behavior from his own child? Or is his child learning it from him? Hmmm, what do you think?

Un-fricken believable!

I feel so blessed because I have a son that when I give him an on the field correction like, “Jacob, what are you doing? Throw the ball to first base!” or “Jacob, pick up the ball and throw it right!” command, he takes it and does what I say. And if you hear me saying it its not all nice and stuff… It’s ‘coach-like’! It’s a mix of sarcasm, seriousness and frustration. Its, ‘coach-like!’. That’s what coaches do. I yell at every kid that way. Not just Jake. And I am self conscious about what I do and say, and I have yet to hear a parent complain about it. I think they generally like me. I hope.

Back to Jake…

When I ‘coack-like’ yell at him there’s no crying, no complaining, he knows what he did ‘wrong’ and readjust based on what I yell and scream. The only problem with him is that he has an excuse for every little thing he does. “I did papa, my foot just slipped.” “I almost caught it but I couldn’t reach it.” “I know, papa but the ball is wet.” ‘But this’, ‘but that’. The bottom line, he has an excuse because he knows he did wrong and next time, hopefully, he’ll get to it the way he’s supposed to.

Am I too hard?

Probably.

But I expect him (and the rest of the team) to do things out on the baseball field the way I know they can (on an individual bases that is). And at the end of the day I’ll say, “Good job”. And Jake is the first one to say, “I didn’t do too good today, papa.” And I can only say, “You did fine. At least you tried.”

But back to young dad above.

Here’s the bad part. The worst part.

The young dad is the 1st base coach. We, the team, and each kid that gets a hit relies on him to get them to first base and or have them head for second. Key word here is ‘rely’. We as a team ‘rely’ on him. We RELY ON HIM!

And where is childlike dad? Well, he’s not in the infield that’s for sure.

He’s off pouting about something the coach told him. Something the HEAD coach told him. The head coach that coaches his son’s team. The coach that teaches these kids how to play baseball because he’s been doing it for twenty odd years, damnit!

Let me break it down for you. Young child like dad basically turned his back on his son, the coaches and every single little kid out there playing the game. He TURNED HIS BACK ON EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE TEAM. He turned his back on the parents, the time and effort each family puts into this game and most of all… he disrespected baseball in every way.

Baseball deserves respect. It demands respect. When you walk away from it because a coach tells you something, you just bought yourself a one way ticket out of baseball respect in my book. And its not as simple as just walking away. I have to reiterate this…

HE TURNED HIS BACK ON EVERY MEMBER OF THE TEAM FROM THE CHILD OUT ON THE FIELD TO THE MOMS AND DADS WHO TAKE TIME OUT OF THEIR DAY TO GET THEIR KID TO PRACTICE AND TO THE BASEBALL FIELD EVERY SINGLE WEEK.

Yes, that’s how I absolutely see it.

I teach Jacob every time he doesn’t feel like playing that it his responsibility as a member of a team that relies on you that you should show up and play. It’s HIS responsibility as a member of the team.

Don’t we as parents have MORE responsibility than that when it comes down to our kids playing on a team?

HELL YEAH…

And when you TURN YOUR BACK on them, you turn your back on everyone. Where’s your responsibility to the team?

Fuck it.

I ain’t EVER going to do that to my kid – walk out on him and his team because I was told to ‘keep it down’.

Now I can hear it - “I didn’t walk out on my kid, I walked out on the coach.”

If that’s an excuse, then yeah, you walked out on your kid and all the other kids on the team.

Let me ask, Where the FUCK where you when you’re kid hit the ball… or when my kid hit the ball… or when Susan’s kid hit the ball? Were you there to tell them to run it out and round 1st? You were supposed to? Where were you?

I tell Jake to suck it up all the time. Well, my young immature dad, suck it up yourself.

Hell, I was even scolded from the scorers box for doing something I didn’t know I did. It was embarrassing and I would have rather not shown my face, but I sucked it up and went back to the third base box every inning. Fortunately, the dad who scolded me apologized in the end and that was that. Now that’s where you gain respect from an individual. I find no respect in someone who, and here’s my point… walks out on a whole baseball team – not just his kid, but the whole team because the head coach told him not to get on his kid’s case ‘right now’. Yeah I heard it. The coach has already told me to keep from shouting too many commands and let the kids play. Made me feel inadequate, but heck… that’s what he said, he’s the coach and you DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD TO DO without crying about it like a friggen’ little baby.

Hey… isn’t that what the kids are supposed to do too? DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD TO DO WITHOUT CRYING ABOUT IT LIKE A FRIGGEN LITTLE BABY?

Well, maybe some parents and dads need to learn a little about being a ‘coach-able’.

Hopefully this seven year old will continue to be ‘coach-able’. Because unfortunately, his dad sure isn’t.

‘nuff said about that.

Now back to writing.

Sunday: Whew… it was a long day already. I skipped out on my play date – an 11 mile run with Steve – and focused on writing. I went to Barnes and Nobles after Jake’s game and wrote for an hour, then ate dinner at Liza’s and brought my laptop with me. Squeezing in moments of writing here and there helped me finish what I needed to finish faster.

Dale and Nhat showed up around 8PM and we went over every word, every beat, every scene, every character nuance and finalized a 9 page beat sheet, a character breakdown and a 13 page writing sample. It will be turned in at 2:00 PM today.

I got into bed at 12:30 AM and watched “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”. There wasn’t much sleep once again but I’m okay. I am looking forward to a going away party tonight for Donna as she starts her new job this week.

Looks like I can’t sleep again.

I should re-title this blog, The Sleepy Sleepy Writer.

And that, as they say is… that.