Last night I played a quick game and a half of the old DOS game, Deathtrack.
The game has 10 races in a season.I happened to win all the races except for the last race, where I ended 2nd. In frustration, I pulled up a save file halfway through the season and reran the last few races…and ended up second on the very last race!
Naturally, I decided that perfection is overrated and went to bed.
I wonder if the 18-1 Patriots or the 73-win Warriors have made a similar peace with their spectacular seasons that fell just short.
Happy 22-2-21
(to be fair, I should have posted about a palindrome, but I don’t have a story from yesterday about symmetry…but happy 2/21/22 to you as well)
I’ve heard several internet-famous characters claim that they had more fun when they were just posting stuff without an audience. While they are always careful to say they are appreciative of their public lives, they nostalgically think of when they were toiling away anonymously.
Hearing such humble brags make me want to retort, “wish I had your problems”.
But Grizzlypear is a hobby (not a job).
So I thank them for the insight. Their warnings have tempered my desire for internet popularity. I have an enjoyable job that pays well. Why should I pursue an extra gig that might be neither?
I enjoy publishing publically on this blog because it encourages me to take the writing touch more seriously. Knowing that I’m not the only reader forces me to refine my thoughts. Then again, the small audience limits the angst to that of a professional email.
I’d say this is a perfect balance for my circumstances. Of course, my ego would gladly accept more acclaim, but I’m always concious of the warning “beware of what you wish for, ’cause you might get it.”
Between writing and publishing this post, I suddenly started a two week (minimum) side project with daily one sentence stories. I had been lightly playing with the idea for a few weeks and just started publishing them on a whim.
I suspect these silly experiments should have been perfect for social media, but that world has developed a darker tone these days, as many centralized systems ultimately become. And so we’re back to blogging on an older version of the web. The audience doesn’t come as easily – but neither does the mob.
Obscurity gives me the invisiblilty allows me to play without much angst. As always thanks for reading!
It took me a few weeks to start making 1 sentence stories after reading about them in Calvino’s Six Memos for the Next Millenium.
The impetus finally came last week at 3:30 AM last Monday when the boy woke us up with a huge nosebleed. While trying to fall back asleep, I decided to finally try my hand at writing some of these stories. This sentence was among the first batch of lines that I tapped into the phone while hazily sliding into slumber.
I wasted last night playing Sid Meier’s original Civilizaation.
To atone for staying up way too late, I wrote a blog post about my love of that game, but I then got replaying Acrtivision’s Deathtrack, my other favorite video game of my childhood. How did thirty years disappear so quickly?
It is super cool to have these old games back available to play on the internet now, but one must exercise some self control in the face of such temptations.
Borges and Bioy Casares put together an anthology of short extraordinary tales (Cuentos breves y estraordinarios, 1955). I would like to edit a collection of tales consisting of one sentence only, or even a single line. But so far I haven’t fond any to match the one by Guatamalan writer Augusto Monterroso: “Cuando despertó, el dinosauro todavía, estaba allí”.
“Quickness”, Six Memos for the Next Millenium, Italo Calvino, 1985
Last year, the kids invented a game. They would crouch behind a half-deflated yoga ball while I tried to land a couple of mini-frisbees on top of their heads from across the room.
The boy calls it 妖怪 游戏 (Yāoguài Yóuxì).
Ghost Game. (More accurately translated “monster” game but we like the English alliteration).
The four-inch frisbees were cheap party favors. One was from Peter Piper Pizza, a birthday party at a pizzeria arcade with one of our first friends in Las Vegas; it’s translucent red with white printed texts. The other was from a birthday party at the skating rink with our daughter’s first friend in kindergarten; it’s black with an NHL logo.
Two plastic mementos from a life before the world was turned upside down. Beyond memories, they also represent the birthday parties that we’ve missed these past two years. Globally speaking a small loss, but it still stings a little.
Fortunately, the kids have grown up to give each other company. Like the sock and buskin, they constantly alternate between laughing and fighting. Time keeps pressing forward, with moments outside replaced by moments inside.
And occasionally, a red and black plastic disc will spontaneously create a strangely named game.
On a brighter note, our daughter just got her second shot the other day. Now it’s the boy’s turn, whenever it becomes available. It has been a long wait, but there is light at the end of this tunnel.
I went to the dermatologist who removed a mole on my leg for a biopsy. It was strange to watch a small piece of myself being slowly detached from my body.
My guy was just a friendly nurse practitioner. But I now understand why a surgeons are stereotyped to have big egos. Cutting into another human must be the most powerful manifestation of god-hood in this modern world. It must be intoxicating to be the one holding the scapel.
I’ve started playing around with one-sentence stories. I’ll push it through the end of the month and reassess from there. Who knows where this experiment might lead (most likely nowhere), but this is what grizzlypear is for.
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The Real
One big perk of this job is the privilege of awarding someone a project. Beyond the personal ego, there is excitement on both sides of the phone call. It’s exciting to create teams and the prospect of a fresh project is intoxicating.
Even more so for the big projects. Technically, I don’t announce the information – that comes from the Administrator when he emails the competing firms who interviewed for the project. But a bloodless email is an inauspicious way to start a journey, so I follow up as quickly as possible with a personal phone call.
This year, I had the privilege of making two calls, one to a contractor who won a fellow PM’s project and to the contractor who won my main project for the next four years.
On the first call, it was exciting to reminisce about what went well on our previous project and wish him all the best with my colleague. And then I followed it up with the next call to discuss the next steps on my own project with the new contractor.
A great way to close out a Friday evening.
Except.
In the middle of the second call, I received a text. One of our administrative staff lost their spouse after a long fight at the hospital, right as their health seemed to turn for the better.
It was a crushing reminder amidst the adrenaline that life is much more than the games we play at work.
The real world always has the final say.
~
A Question
How do you keep rooted?
Hit reply and let’s chat.
~
A Link
Zen Pencils illustrates a great quote by Jack Kirby about learning from the past and then sitting down to do the work.
Thanks for reading the OPM letter! I’d love to have a conversation if you have any feedback. I hope you found some prompts to stretch your craft and relationships as a curious Owner PM. See you soon!
