Marcus Alden Meredith
August 16, 2025
Odds and Ends #1
“Just 2 Crappy Pages a Day”
I like listening to several podcasts and one of my favorites is The Daily Stoic done by Ryan Holiday (a fellow Sacramento boy like me). And, of course, he often ends up having guests on who are fellow writers. One of his oft’ stated maxims about writing is, “Just two crappy pages a day.” meaning just do the work, every day, consistently and the rest will materialize from that work… so here I am, at the Jacquelyn (my preferred work space) putting in my 2 pages a day. It’s nice to be back at The Jacquelyn, the week has been taken up with AC refitting and refurbishment so my space in The Library has not really been available until today. But in that time I have been thinking of many things.
Since my last transmission of blog-worthy material, my friend Dean paid me a visit. We’ve known each other for a very long time ( in the decades span of time) and his son is even named after me. It was nice to see him and catch up. He lives down south in the Santa Barbara area but, now that he’s retired, it should be a easier time seeing him and the family. Of course one of the items that came up for discussion was the upcoming 45th H.S. reunion… that number still strikes me in a strange way. In many ways I’m in better shape that I’ve ever been (I went on a regiment of cycling, running, and weight training after I turned a half century in age) but my expectations are pretty limited. I’m mostly going because my other friend of many decades, Francis, wants to go to and so united we stand. I was not a particularly social person in high school. I had my set of friends and that was good enough. So I expect to see a lot of bald, fat men pining to be younger who probably, for the most part, won’t be in nearly as good a shape as I am (my generation of boomers is not well known for their ability to handle the depths of aging and staying healthy), and the women will be old, grey, and wrinkled prattling on about their children and grandchildren…. insert eye rolls here. Now, to be just and in an effort at full disclosure, I am ‘chauve’ myself but when I discovered many decades ago I was going to look like my father, I embraced the condition and now shave my head. But, being that I am an otrovert, I can handle the mindless chit-chat, but it means I have to play at being an extrovert and that is tiring.
The news is something that I think I should be consuming less of since it’s begun creeping into my dreams and THAT is an odd occurrence for me. When one starts to have dreams that border on the apocalyptic and “end of civilization as we know it,” I think it’s time to say, “Thanks, but no.” I have found myself scrolling reals on Facebook, rewatching episodes of Bridgerton (Yup, I got sucked into it… more later), and spending too much time watching documentary entires on YouTube so that other creative enterprises I wish to devote time to have been somewhat neglected. I think it is a subconscious effort to make the world seem more orderly and less chaotic, but it has to cease for now. In the process of dealing with the Universe and the world of humans which I inhabit, I have found myself spending time getting better at chess. I found that the language app Duolingo had a chess section and have just been getting more adept at seeing the whole board and increasing my electronic rating (17 games won out of 23 played at this point in time) so that I’m now at 1150. I hope over the next year I can get even better and get closer to 1800 level so that I’m closer to a Class B/A player rather than a Class E/D player as I am right now. I’m not a raw beginner, but I’m not as good at the strategies yet. So, reading books on chess openings, defenses for playing black, and having purchased a new Square OFF traveling e-chess board should help. I must confess a screw up here, however. I had purchased a full Square OFF e-chessboard that moved the pieces for you and allowed you to play games on line against other players rather than a machine… but I can’t find it after the move. It was expensive. I am really pissed with myself. And, of course, I’ll bet money that the minute the new chess board arrives, I’ll find the old one too… *head slap*
Finally, I’ve become a big fan of the WNBA! My two favorite teams being the Indiana Fever (Caitlin Clark and Sophie Cunningham, of course) and the “local” team which is the new franchise, The Golden State Valkyries! I still remember my favorite game of the season when Caitlin Clark came back from her first injury and was shooting “Logo Threes” like there was no tomorrow against the New York Liberty. I also was really impressed with her (as was Rich Eisen) when they played Connecticut Suns, got eye poked, and got the home town crowed on their feet as Sophie Cunningham took the offending teams player and basically tackled her (found out later the same player had chipped one of her teeth two weeks prior). To say that the women have played with even more intensity than the men is an understatement. If you’re a fan of basketball and you’re not watching “The W,” then you are missing out.
And so ends the first odds and ends blog for me. I’ve always tried to write when I have a theme firmly fixed in my head but, at least for a while, I think I’ll try my had at the “odds and ends” format so that I have more incentive to write my “crappy 2 pages a day.” At the very least, I hope it will make me a better writer and give some entertainment to you, my “Dear Gentle Readers” as Lady Whistledown might have written it. Peace to you all.
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