Hi, My Name is Tyler.

So, the Sharks lost tonight. That's the last you're going to hear about hockey here, until and unless they come back from the measly single loss and win the Stanley Cup.

Now, back to the title of this post, which finishes: and I'm an addict.

It's no coincidence that one of my last really coherent posts on this blog was about hockey, though I'm not willing to crucify a single sport as the sole issue of concern. There's also board games to be discussed, and movies, and just plain needing some time to oneself.

Since the beginning of the year, as I've previously stated, time has felt all at once pliable and yet scarce, like I keep chugging my drink and suddenly discovering it's empty. I've done a lot and yet nothing all at once since the year started. I blame, well, myself.

I got on this trip, somewhere near the beginning of the year, that I needed to experience life. I needed to be out more, doing more, seeing more; I needed fuel for the creative fire. Unfortunately, I met that quest with my usual tendency toward obsessing, and utterly disappeared into new boardgames, the bizarre and unique experience of drinking at a sports bar, and San Jose Sharks hockey. I've wired my emotions into these things (especially hockey; that sports are like Diet War is not lost on me, watching it is like a drug), and I've let myself drink them in, and it's valuable in terms of understanding different sides of life, but it doesn't leave me feeling creatively enriched.

This is not to say I haven't been writing; this is to say, however, that it's been very cramped in this skull lately, and not a lot of it is adding to the creative flow. I used to have much quieter, meditative nights, and I used to find myself inspired a lot more. I think I've grown too earthy and too left-brained in my habits lately, such that the process is hurting.

This is not to say that I will not follow the Sharks, all the way to the Cup if I can help it. This is not to say I will never touch dice and cardboard again. But this is to say that it's time to stop, and it seems like the thing that makes me stop is saying it on the Internet. I need to write five nights a week again, and to get the magazine submissions flowing a bit more smoothly...and I need the things I go out to do to be a bit more dynamic. Hockey has its place, but like alcohol it's easy to fall into.

So here's the plan: go back to the writing thing. Really focus in on that. And try to go out to do more stimulating things; San Francisco is literally an hour's train ride away, there's no reason I can't spend more time soaking up the energy the city offers. And there's the Aquarius Theater, the Guild...there's life out there, and that's what I need to soak up. Not the Colorado Avalanche duking it out with the San Jose Sharks. (Though, that too; who knows what my knowledge of the Blackhawks' team colors might do for my writing in the future?)

Now, how does this affect you, you ask? Well, one of the burning bits of guilt I've felt of late has been my neglect for this blog; the total shutdown for days at a time, such that when someone else asked me about it I nearly fell to pieces defending myself. So, one of the next steps here is to spend more time on this blog, and that is going to mean both being willing to share my thoughts here, and being willing to do things that make me think. The new. The weird. The cerebral. And I'm sorry, Sharks; but cerebral ain't you.

But I'm still growing that playoff beard, boys. So go give Colorado hell.