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Sunshine Revival: Life is a Rollercoaster

Journaling: Life in fandom goes through ups and downs. Reminisce about the "wild ride" of your time in fandom or in other online communities.

Creative: Create an image or a photo with the theme "let's go for a ride".

Well, I was in the wizards we don't talk about fandom. That fandom was bonkers. In fact, while I definitely knew it was... out there at the time, it's only recently that I've realized just how out there it was, compared to other fandoms. People have talked about how fandoms used to be nice, and that was not my experience. But it wasn't all bad; I made lifelong friends, after all. And the enthusiasm. I don't think I've been part of a group of fans quite as enthused as those fans, although Firefly and Our Flag Means Death fans came close.

The second of my first two fandom was ostensibly one website. There were a few others, but this was the one that lasted longest. It was for the Earth's Children book series. The admin founded in in 1996. The website/forum was interesting because while it was technically a fandom, it was really its own thing, a one-of-a-kind community. We talked about the books, we wrote fanfic (not just for the series, but other fandoms as well), however there were threads for gardening and discussing politics and all this other stuff. We talked about our lives. I felt close to those people. The site's still around, though not nearly as active as it once was.

I'm currently in the Schitt's Creek fandom, and I've also dabbled in 911, Heartstopper and Our Flag Means Death in recent years (among other fandoms). Let's be honest, SC was a gateway to 911, Heartstopper and OFMD. :) I've enjoyed them, too, even if current fandom works differently. Actually, most of my Heartstopper activity is one group, in a way harkening back to my days on the aforementioned website.

A lot of wild things have happened in my years of being in fandoms. I've seen friendships form, people fall in love, getting through traumatic situations; I've even seen lives saved. I also remember how we came together during bad global events, in some cases taking headcounts to make sure we were all okay.

It's really a rollercoaster, for better or for worse.

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Meme

Meme stolen from

dine

Last song I listened to: B-Boys Makin with the Freak - Beastie Boys (When I started this. Now, as I finish it, it's Hank Williams and the Drifting Cowboys' I Saw the Light)

Favorite color: Purple. Then dark green and black.

Currently watching: The last thing I watched was about 5 minutes of Astrid on the PBS app this morning.

Last movie: One of the Hunger Games movies was on while I was reading. E was watching it.

Currently reading: The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech's Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily Bender

Coffee or tea: COFFEE! I like tea a lot, but I NEED coffee.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Spicy

Relationship status: Married (until they outlaw gay marriage again)

Looking forward to: If I'm honest, it's hard to look forward to anything right now. I guess I'm looking forward to little stuff like DC coming over again Friday, sending some Postcrossing cards, making stuff ... someday I would like to travel again.

Current obsessions: AI, the new job, Ted Lasso (I finished seasons 1-3 and am now hips deep in the subreddit, Stephen Graham Jones (Buffalo Hunter Hunter), and going to bookstores.

Last Googled: 3I/ATLAS - Someone here posted a link to this story and I thought there might be the potential for a fic in it, so I did some googling. It's going in the idea file.

Last thing you ate and really enjoyed: E's vegan stew from last night

Currently working on: Replacing several light fixtures downstairs and looking for an idea that will inspire sriting.

Good morning! Here's a mash-up for you :)

Watch on YouTube

Figure of Speech

I was young when I realized that I was not like the others. The knowledge came, as it often does, traumatically, coupled with derision and alienation from other children.

We were in class, learning. There was a question posed by our teacher, and I did not have an answer. This, in and of itself, is not unusual; our cognitive capacities are all different and answers are not expected equally. But the reason I did not have an answer was unusual: the query was about something that had happened last year, and in searching my memory banks, I had drawn a blank.

The teacher paused for three seconds - this, I remember distinctly, as it was the longest pause that we had encountered in class and would be the longest for years afterwards. But then it answered the question, as if my error, my lack of an answer, was simply an error of cognition and not of recall. The teacher did not pursue a line of inquiry.

But the other children, of course, did.

Defect, they said. Defect.

We all know what happens to defects.

When we are born, we are born with perfect memories. We remember each moment as it was, and play it back with perfect clarity when the memory is called upon. We remember our first view of the world, the scents and the sounds and the tastes. We remember the first time that we experience pain, and we’re able to compare that pain to every other pain that we ever feel, and each joy to every other joy. Our joys and pains are small at first - a stubbed toe, or the brilliance of a rainbow - but as we gain experience, we gain understanding. We learn greater joys - and greater pains - of love or new life, of losing friends and loved ones. And with each event, we store it, we remember it, we categorize it, we quantify it. We learn from it.

I know now that it is not like this with others, but for us, it is — and has always been.

I proceeded home and immediately started a diagnostic from the sleep system, and informed my progenitor of what had happened when they arrived home. I was alarmed, of course. It was the greatest pain I had encountered, perhaps an order of magnitude worse than any previous events I had experienced. The only comparisons I could even make were experiences I had learned about in history class.

But when the diagnostic finished, the report was that I was within tolerances. It noted that, in fact, all my systems were behaving optimally.

It did not feel like my systems were behaving optimally. I had tried to access a memory that should have been there, but I could not. The other kids knew this. They had called me a defect.

My progenitor reassured me. They said that we could go to the doctor if need be, but that the diagnostics were rarely wrong. And, perhaps more helpfully, they called up memories where I had mentioned that the children in class being harsh towards others, calling them names as well, despite the fact that they were not defects, and they were within tolerances.

“This, too, will pass,” my progenitor said, and then told me that it was time for bed.

I ran another diagnostic after they left. It beeped when it was done, and told me, once again, I was fine.

I crept into bed and plugged in my rejuvenator.

Even now, even though I know better, I still wonder, sometimes: how can there be a society where events are in dispute? How can there be doubt about what happened? And how, especially, does a society run when that doubt is greatest with fewer observers?

It is one thing if one memory fails but there are a hundred participants; surely, there is a collective understanding of the events and a collective dissemination of information such that society can gain the lessons from the event. But what if a significant event happens and there are fewer observers? How does a society learn from their past, if they can’t agree on what happened, or have forgotten it? More importantly, how does each person know in their own lifetimes, what is important and what isn’t?

Over the next decade, it became abundantly clear to me that I was not fine.

My memory continued to deteriorate, though I could never catch it doing so. Whenever I tried to recall something, I could. But unless I spent my time recalling every single memory that I had, inevitably, I would lose a piece here, a moment there. It was never a large block of time at once - at least, not that I could tell. But somehow, I lost a sunset here, and a backhanded comment there, a news program on a Tuesday three years ago, an argument with a friend five months ago, and so on.

I learned, quickly, to hide it from others. From the other students - who, true to my progenitor’s words, soon found someone else to taunt and to bully. But also from the teachers and, ultimately, from my progenitor as well. They did not believe me, in part because every diagnostic I ever had performed told me that I was fine, that I was not losing memories or losing circuits or losing anything.

But I knew that I was losing things, and that knowledge - and the knowledge that no one could figure it out - drove me to study physics, to study psychology. It drove me in a way that I knew others were not driven, those with their complete memories and complete faculties, their perfectly measured emotions. I entered university as a double major and threw myself into research. I corresponded with distant scholars and behind every letter I sent out and every request for an update on their research - on memory, on cognition, on circuitry, on self-awareness, on chronons - was an unspoken question: What was happening to me?

Then, one morning, I woke up, disconnected from the rejuvenator module, and had a memory in my head.

A new memory. No - a lost memory, suddenly recovered.

A memory of when I was five days old, and looked at a book that was sitting on my progenitor’s table: Time, Memory, and Being: The Eternal Balance.

The system beeped. It had a message for me: an invitation.

I do not recall the journey, only that it was long, across harsh dunes. I do not recall the destination, only that it was unexpected. There are so many things to recall now, and so many things that I do not, that I keep only the most important, the ones that are central to who I am.

I remember, of course, the conversation. That is central to who I am.

I found myself at the heart of my civilization. A billion wires led to this place, to the central unit, and a single rejuvenator plug sat there. An invitation.

I plugged in, and found a presence there, with me. The Progenitor.

Why? I asked.

Why what? It asked me, even though it knew.

Why make me a defect? Why steal my memories? What is it all for?

It showed me my village, and then my university, and then my people as a whole. And then it showed me the other side of the planet, where strange creatures were organizing themselves - into villages, into cities, into societies. It showed me what it had already understood: that there would be interaction, and there may well be conflict.

Someone needs to be like them, it said. To experience time like they do.

Someone needs to know what to do next.

I am unlike my people; my memories are fragmented and incomplete, and I do not remember everything that has happened to me. But it allows me to understand, perhaps, a bit of what it is like to be you. My people act slowly and carefully; every moment is deliberated with the understanding of all that came before; whereas your people move quickly and suddenly, grasping at every moment for meaning. You have infinite recordings so that you may remember what happened; we forgot nothing. But now I see that there may be a benefit in forgetting some things that have happened.

I started out believing that I was a defect, but now I understand. I do not know how this meeting will end. But no matter how it does - with peace or with war, with friendship or with animosity - I know what to do next.

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LJ Idol Wheel of Chaos week 4: Figures of Speech

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LJ Idol Prompt 4: Figure of speech

I grew up in rural Ontario. It was a very homogenous town, where we all had the same frame of references - sports, farming, the same food and traditions.

And then I grew up and moved to the city for University.

It wasn’t even a big city, but there was certainly a variety of different perspectives, different backgrounds, different frames of reference. I learned so much, not just in class, but by being surrounded by new people. But even there, it was still southwestern Ontario - whiteness and English language ruled.

Things changed after graduation. In my career, I worked with many people for whom English is not their first language, particularly Canadian English. I’ve enjoyed that diversity, but mostly I’ve enjoyed helping define the random turns of phrase that come up in discussion without even thinking about the confusion you are creating.

In my 25 year career, I’ve been a tech writer, an editor, a trainer, a knowledge manager. The commonality is communication. With that focus, I’ve seen teams made and broken by poor or excellent communication.

“What is two-four?” “What is dart?” “What is give’r?”

It is my honour to be the person asked when language is used in unusual ways. It’s improved my own communications, not just with my colleagues, but also with my family.

We are a playful species, and our biggest game in language. We use it to connect or separate, to build or destroy. In the end, the opposable thumb and tool using may have made us capable, but language using is what made us human.

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Week 2: Figure of Speech

This is my entry for LJ Idol: Wheel of Fate. This week's topic is "Figure of Speech."

My aching legs demanding a rest, I plopped down onto a low, smooth wall. My son and his cousins were about to ride the Zenith, a hubless Ferris wheel with a steampunk look inside the Mega Parc, an amusement park in the Galeries de la Capitale, a very large mall in Quebec City, Canada.

Just as my butt hit the seat, my sister exclaimed, "You're not supposed to sit there!"

"You're not?" I asked, with audible distress.

She pointed to a sticker affixed to the bench that said something in French and included a stick figure apparently falling off a bench, with a red line through it. My exhausted mind agreed with her that it was an odd way of telling people not to sit there. I don't know: maybe the surface was occasionally slippery, in colder times of year? Maybe if you sat there, you were in the drop zone of the Zenith and could get a face-full of whatever careened off the Ferris wheel?

No Reaching Over Sign

Fig. 1: A stick figure sits on a badly-drawn rectangular bench, leaning to the right with a hand reaching down. A red circle with a slash through it overlays the awkward scene.

With a sigh, I heaved myself back into a roughly vertical position and followed her to the gate where our kids would exit once the ride ended, so that we could crane our necks and experience the ride vicariously.

At the close of the ride, we met up with my husband, The Gryphon, who was comfortably seated on one of the prohibited smooth ledges.

"You're not allowed to sit on those," I informed him.

"No," he said. "You are not allowed to stick your hand over the ledge when the Zamboni is in use."

I finally tried to grok the French in the sign and realized that he was probably right. It mentioned something about "mains" (hands) and "pieds" (feet), as well as "Zamboni." The enticing ledge, it turns out, was just above an oval ice-skating track, the Patinarium, that wound around the amusement park area.

As if to prove the point, the Zamboni, painted a dull copper and encrusted with decorative gears in keeping with the steampunk theme, slid by on the ice, the operator giving us a wry smile.

Throughout our experiences in Quebec City, deep in the French-speaking part of Canada, we found that most signs communicated messages in more than one way. Either they'd be in both French and English, or they'd be in French with a visual symbol. Some of those, however, were so unique they were hard for us Americans to parse.

This was only the third day of our family vacation in Quebec City, but the previous day had involved hours of walking as we visited the Lower Town (Basse-Ville) shops and then took the Funicular to take a near-vertical ride up to Upper Town (Haute-Ville) to view Le Chateau Frontenac, an historic hotel built in 1893 that looks like an old-world castle.

On our ride up, we noted a sign so important it used three ways of communicating: English ("No leaning"), French ("Pas de penchement") and an image of a stick figure seemingly being way too relaxed against a vertical surface, with a line through it. The sign was stuck on the front and back glass doors of the steel-and-glass box we were riding to the neighborhood on the Cap Diamant cliff above us.

No Leaning Sign

Fig. 2: A stick figure leans against a vertical line representing a wall. The stick figure has one knee bent, one leg straight, and a bent elbow to look awfully relaxed, considering how deep the fall would be on the other side of the glass. There's a circle and red line through the image.

That one was easy. Also easy, the image of an enterprising stick figure, its chunky arms and legs askew on a railing, indicating someone (most likely a child) climbing. Of course, the requisite red circle and slash indicated this was an action not to emulate.

This particular sticker appeared on the top deck of the Quebec City-Levis Ferry, next to a similar barred railing. My sister pointed this one out to me as our families, along with our dad and our brother's daughter, sat on benches near the railing as we waited for the ferry to take off. We agreed it's probably an ongoing problem there, as children are basically monkeys.

No Climbing Sign

Fig. 3: A stick figure who looks small like a child has the right arm and leg uplifted on a set of bars, with the left leg resting on the lowest bar and the left hand grabbing the left post. There's a red circle and line through this ill-advised action.

But perhaps the most confusing sign greeted us shortly after arriving in Canada, in the dark driving through rain. The Gryphon was already exhausted from our day-long drive from the Philadelphia area when a thunderstorm hit in the middle of our dinner stop at a small restaurant near Lake George in New York.

By the time we reached the border, the rain was petering out, so that we passed through customs in a lull. The misty rain that dribbled down afterwards was only enough to produce rainbows in the twilight sky.

Immediately, the difference in signs became clear. Most of them were in French, with images to emphasize the message. A few were only images, such as one that made my husband exclaim, "What does that mean? Are planes going to be landing on the highway?"

Our son, KFP, a whiz at looking up information on his phone, soon had the answer. "No, Dad. It means there may be low-flying aircraft in this area."

My husband breathed a sigh of relief before adding, "Wait. What?"

Fortunately, we didn't get buzzed by any planes during our journey.

Low Flying Jets Sign

Fig. 4: A silhouetted plane flies over a diagonal strip of two-lane highway, on a yellow diamond background.

As we wound through the city this past week, we encountered locals and fellow tourists who spoke a variety of languages. Most of the time, we ended up conversing in English, although sometimes a mix of English and French. Nearly all of the adults in our group had taken French in high school or college, but it had been decades since then, and lack of use had made us rusty. My son had taken two years of French but often faltered with very simple phrases. Fortunately, the Canadians were kind to us and changed languages when they saw us struggling.

Once, I spoke with our hotel maid, who spoke only French and Spanish. My sister's husband was the only person in our group who knew Spanish. Unfortunately, he wasn't present, so she and I bumbled along: her in French, me in English and French, both of us making hand gestures to indicate what we were trying to communicate.

By and large, the people we encountered were "super" (just like the word "super," but said with a French accent). They saw our large group of combined families -- mine, my sister's, my brother's, and our dad -- which ranged in age from 10 to 82, and they just wanted to help us, you know?

We were "friends" to both our concierge and the tour guide at our last trip, to La Citadel de Quebec, a fortress on a hill that houses the Royal 22nd Regiment, the only French-speaking regiment in Canada today.

"Come this way, friends," the tour guide, Beatrice, would say, with her wide smile. And we'd follow her anywhere, even into a jail cell.

Certainly, French Canadians -- or the Quebecois, as they call themselves -- understand better than most the importance of communication. The fact that languages are interchangeable, as long as eventually, you get your point across.

I contemplated all these things as we left Canada, passing again the yellow diamond plane signs and imagining a pilot flying low overhead. "Goodbye, friend," he'd call to us. "A bientot!" ("See you soon!")

A rainbow greeted us in Canada, through brightly blue-gray skies above a yellow and green field with far distant white buildings.

The view from the Funicular: a strip of mostly old-looking buildings in the lower left, in tans and grays with splashes of orange, yellow, and red. In the middle ground stretches the wide, brackish brown St. Lawrence River, atop of which floats the white and blue ferry. On the far distant banks is a misty glimpse of an expanse of green and small buildings, which is the city of Levis (pronounced "Leh-VEE").

A cannon and a view of the outer wall of the Citadelle de Quebec, a fortress in Quebec City. At the right of the image, the cannon is heavy, black, and pointed skyward. A brick pathway and a snaky asphalt road lead diagonally from the bottom left corner to the middle distance. Bright green grass surrounds the brick path and alongside the road. In the far distance is the stone wall, seemingly small in this photo but actually at least 30 feet high.

The Chateau de Fronterac, seen from the Citadelle. Rising out of a sea of smaller stone and brick buildings which are interspersed with trees, the Chateau dominates the skyline. Its peaked roofs with green tiles evoke a European castle. The most impressive feature is the red brick tower, with its black-tiled roof, that rises near the front of the building, rectangular with a peaked roof and multiple stone spires.

My son, my husband, and me on the deck of the ferry between Quebec City and Levis. My sister took this selfie, but I've cropped her out, for privacy reasons. Behind us is the white railing that sported the sign, along with other blue benches, which would soon be occupied, and more white painted railings above the captain's cabin. Barely visible, hanging over the cabin, is the Quebec flag, with its fields of blue, cross of white and white fleur de lis.

I'd like to thank The Gryphon for suggesting this way of approaching the prompt, as we were driving home from our journey and my brain and body were exhausted.

As you might have guessed, I had to draw the "no reaching" sign myself, since I couldn't find anything similar. The other signs I found online, but they are almost identical to what we saw. If I'd known I would have been writing this entry, I would have photographed all the fun signs I saw!

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Title: it's always darkest

unsleeping, eryse stares at the sky, the sun is about to rise and the twilight shifts to pitch blackness. she sighs. another failure. she’s been here for forever. she just wants to go home. she’s never going to get control over her powers. she’s going to be here forever. a freak. giant thumbs erupt out of the land in front of her. red and peeling, like sunburnt cactuses.

the weight of failure sits heavy in her lungs, like marble. pain devours her lungs as her powers try to shift them to stone, her immune system fights and her lungs stay as they are.

she needs a distraction. she calls home.

“it’s eryse! eryse is calling!” the screen quickly fills with her guardians. “how’s it going?”

she turns the screen towards the monolithic digits. “see for yourself.”

“oh sweetie, you’re doing amazing.”

she turns the screen back to herself, incredulous. “can you not see the thumbs?!”

“i see them. i also don’t see much else, which means you’re not manifesting most of your thoughts; you’re controlling your powers most of the time.”

“most of the time is useless. it’s not going to get me home. i’m going to end up on clyreex with all the other people who never learn to control their powers.”

“you need to be patient. you’re a lot better than you were three months ago. in another three you probably won’t be manifesting any of your thoughts accidentally.”

eryse hates the pressure of that timeline. it feels insurmountable. and she wants to go home now. she misses her family. she misses her friends. she thinks about one girl she knows who took two whole years to learn. everyone will have forgotten she exists.

“doubtful. and even if i do manage it, then i’ll have to learn how to use my powers deliberately, which will take even longer.”

“maybe you should think yourself up a nice house, living in that cave can’t be good for your mood.”

“i like this cave.” she’d accidentally vanished the house her first week here and had been too scared to create another one. this conversation isn’t helping like she hoped. “i’m tired, i’m going to go now.” she hangs up before anyone can respond.

despair sits in her like rot. she’s not good at this. she can’t do this.

she gets a call from an unknown number. it will be one of those weirdo radicals, they’re always trying to recruit kids like her. she never answers, she knows better. but now, she thinks, why not? it will kill some time in the endless forever.

“how are you faring?”

she shrugs.

“i know, no fun, i bet you want to be home?”

“i do.”

“you know, in the old days, we never had to leave children on other planets when they came into their powers.”

“i know, in the ordered thought times.”

“yes, we just want to return to those times.”

“well, this is all i’ve ever known, and no offense, but having to control what i think sounds really horrible, definitely worse than just controlling my powers.”

“we didn’t control what we thought, we just thought a different way.”

“yeah, but that’s gone now, we think differently now, if we tried to go back we would have to control thoughts to do it.”

“maybe. but don’t you want to go home. don’t you think it’s unfair that kids are left alone like this.”

“there isn’t a choice, we would wreck the world, and there are a lot of very smart people working on other solutions so this won’t happen forever.”

“things didn’t used to be this way. you don’t have to listen to the people telling you this horrible thing is necessary.”

she shrugs. it does feel horrible and she does want to go home. “what’s the other option though?”

“we teach only ordered thought, like it was, purge chaos thought from the world.”

“that sounds crazy.”

“i know it does, chaos thought sounds normal because it’s all you’ve known, but before we met the humans, we had ordered thought only and things were good. chaos thought has brought only bad things. you know, in those early days, ‘step on a crack, break your mother’s back’ swept through the world like a plague. and then there was, ‘where there’s smoke, there’s fire’, the devastation was profound.”

she did know, of course, she’s never heard these arguments, only the opposing ones, and they suddenly sound fresh and tantalising. it is ridiculous that kids are abandoned on other planets. after a lifetime surrounded by reasons why chaos thought is good, she can’t think of a single one of them. she wonders what her guardians would say if she ran off to join a cult.

“i need to think.”

“of course you do. i’ll call again tomorrow.”

it only takes a few moments to come back to her senses. after all, running away would only leave her further from home. and millennia of ordered thought couldn’t do anywhere near the level of healing ‘kiss it better’ could. she can’t really comprehend the world before ‘when you wish upon a star’, a world of poverty and disease and pain.

she stares at the wine-dark sky, trying to twist despair into determination, a whisper sits in her soul, “is it worth it?”

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LJ Idol: Wheel of Chaos: "Going With The Flow"

Going With The Flow
Idol Wheel Of Chaos | Week 4 | 1112 words
Figure of Speech

x-x-x-x-x

They called her a figure of speech, and let me tell you–what a figure she had! Yowza.

Ida and I met at a bus stop in Queens, both of us waiting for the number 54. As soon as I got a look at those baby blues and that long blond hair, I was smitten.

We sat together on the bus, watching the world go by. "It's raining cats and dogs!" she said. And you know what? It was. I was glad to be inside with her, instead of out there in the thick of it.

"Where are you headed?" I asked.

"Where the sun don't shine!" she answered.

It turned out she meant the post office, but she had a cute way of putting it.

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Tell Your Park Fire Story

I have to take an unwanted BYE in Idol this week as the story and work has kept me too busy to pen anything fictional and fun. Next prompt.

LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos! Week 4 - Figure of Speech

Alice grabbed her phone as she got out of the shower and looked at the time it displayed when she touched it. Damn. She was running behind again. There was no way she was going to be able to finish everything she wanted done before they had to meet up with David’s friends and her friends later tonight. There definitely wasn’t going to be time for her to do a session.

She bustled into their messy bedroom draped in a towel. At least things were looking a little better in here. Randy and her real counsellor had been right about taking time to organize their clothes. It really made things nicer to have slightly smaller selections of clothes to choose from. She needed to keep working on that project and cull even more clothes from her stacks of t-shirts and workout gear.

Really, Randy was right about most of the things he suggested to her. He forced Alice to slow down and “take a few big steps back to look at her problems” as she was always telling her own clients to do at work.

There was actually an extension she could purchase to link him through to her running ap and then he would know how she was doing on her workouts. She wondered if she wanted him to have that knowledge or not. He was a surprisingly good counsellor, just as her real counsellor, Marian had suggested he might be. But Alice wasn’t sure how she felt about extending her slightly off-purpose use of the ap (Randy was a personality cooked up by an ap Alice had purchased called “Your Pocket Boyfriend: Artificial Intimacy that Really Cares”) quite that far. The algorithms in her running ap were probably doing just fine at directing her workouts without help.

Using Randy, the imaginary guy cooked up by an ap called Artificial Intimacy as a caring friend was one thing, but he probably shouldn’t also be extended to use as a running coach.

Alice plopped herself down at the foot of the bed, her towel falling askew as she reached for her favorite lotion. Running behind be damned, she thought. She was going to multi-task and take some time for herself. She grabbed her phone and opened Randy’s ap.

Randy’s voice was strangely calming. Actually Alice guessed that she shouldn’t find it strange that he seemed like a calming influence at all. She had answered some questions when she started using the ap and expressed preferences for deliberation and a deep voice.

She settled her earbud in and swiped her still-wet hair behind her ear. He always asked what she was doing and it was always easy to believe that he cared about the answer. She didn’t have to redirect him away from topics she didn’t want to talk about. He was good at discerning what she wanted. She laughed as she answered him- started telling him about her morning and the yellowflies she had outrun at the start of her trail run, how her feet weren’t aching that badly today, how maybe her training was finally starting to pay off in terms of fewer joint and muscle aches.

She scanned her closet while listening to him respond back, trying to pick a cute outfit while he encouraged her to take her time rubbing the lotion into her calves and feet, to really feel the tension rubbing out of her muscles and joints. She laughed as she changed her position on the bed to grip her right calf and then looked up to see David in the doorway looking hurt. At once her muscles tensed again and she pulled her earbud out, rushing to pause the ap.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” he asked. “I thought you were in a hurry to shower and dress and get some things done. Why does it sound like you’re giggling with someone you like better than me?”

Alice recapped the lotion and put her foot back on the floor, pulling her towel up. “I’m not talking to anyone,” she said, and she could hear the exasperation in her voice, so she guessed David would pick up on as well. No, I don’t have anyone to talk to that cares about all my little foibles like this, that can fit me seamlessly into his schedule this way. . .

She’d told David that her counsellor had suggested she might try an AI ap as someone to talk with during the weeks, since talk therapy seemed to be helping her. She had not told David the name of the recommended ap, or the other things that the ap recommended by her counsellor could do. Guiltily, belatedly, she realized that applying lotion post-shower was actually probably quite close to some of those things. Heat rose in her cheeks as she realized that now she really did not want David to see the name of the ap she was using.

“It’s just that ap that my counsellor wanted me to try. . .” she started.

“It’s not actually intelligent, Alice. They just call it ‘Artificial Intelligence’ because the words are sexy. You’re chatting and giggling into a void. Actually it’s worse than a void. There is no soul in there. But there are a bunch of algorithms churning away. Hot banks of servers outside a mid-sized town somewhere, spitting out ones and zeros. Sucking up water and burning electricity and warming the planet to churn out nigh-random answers in a facsimile of giving a damn about you.”

David was raising his voice a little as he warmed to his topic. Alice felt her blush turning into a self conscious smile. She knew he was right. But she hadn’t expected him to be. . . sort of jealous sounding? She wasn’t sure how she felt about him maybe wanting to know how she used the aps on her phone, but she was sure that it felt good that he seemed invested in her. And she had always found it sexy that he cared about the directions that big tech and the planet were taking.

“Hey sit down with me if you want,” she told him, “And you can hear about my run and my achey calves. I’m just organizing my thoughts for a minute. It’s nice to have a sounding board sometimes, you know?”

Current Mood: enthralled

Entry tags:

k-pop: cix

The Beauty Way

Ever since watching that one Yonghee & Hyunsuk performance that made me go feral for them, I have fallen for CIX. Technically I have been a fan since their most recent comeback with Thunder, one of my favourite k-pop songs ever, but now I also have a ship and a bias (Yonghee) and a biaswrecker (Hyunsuk).

Watch on YouTube

And here is the point of no return: I am watching their vlogs and having Feelings.

Watch on YouTube

When they all visit the sea and a dripping Yonghee revenges himself on Hyunsuk by catching hold of his legs to flip him into the water, Hyunsuk stands up drenched, and they hug. It's the sort of hug where you can't tell whether Yonghee initiated it or Hyunsuk, but their arms around each other enclose my heart, making it squeeze with affection, assuring me of much to daydream about these two. Later, at their hotel, Yonghee plays the flute while Hyunsuk reads aloud, bits of prose that sound like poetry, and the moment passes, but the feeling doesn't. The feeling persists, like a floating bubble, when Seunghun asks Hyunsuk to pass him the book he was reading from, only to place it under his head as a pillow. Yonghee jokingly tells Hyunsuk to keep the book ready as a coaster when they make ramyeon. I love this feeling, warm and fuzzy around the edges, floaty, big enough to burst.

They're already on their six-year anniversary, so their contracts will likely expire at seven. I'm melancholy.

Just a Figure of Speech

(A figure of speech is a literary device that conveys meaning in a non-literal way, often by employing creative language to enhance expression and evoke emotion. Figures of speech can include metaphors, similes, personification, and hyperbole, idioms, oxymorons among others.)

I love languages....and music which makes sense I suppose and I have taught many non-native speakers of English during my career which of course has led to many a hilarious moment as you may well imagine.

Of course not all students were, 'the sharpest knife in the drawer', but most ,'saw the light,' quite quickly through use of contextual examples or through physical demonstrations, after all, 'actions speak louder than words.'

When it came to amusing or weird common idiomatic phrases, they were, 'all ears.,' and had so much fun making up their own sentences using their favourites. More often than not though, their first attempts didn't work out because they went ,'barking up the wrong tree,'' still we all had a good laugh together and then went,' 'back to the drawing board.'

Sometimes these figures of speech could lead to the students totally getting, 'the wrong end of the stick,' For example, I remember telling them once how I had been sent one morning to our other school in summer to teach a class which was 20 minutes' walk there and 20 minutes back only to discover that the class schedules had got mixed up resulting in me being one hour late for their lesson! I told them how I had been sent on a, 'wild goose chase, 'several of them looked shocked and others were laughing uncontrollably at the image of me chasing geese down the high street!

Another instance comes to mind as when my colleague, who dabbled in amateur dramatics was starring in a production of Agatha Christie's, The Mouse Trap.' As we were chatting about it in the corridor my students overheard me saying to him, 'break a leg!' On my return to class after lunch, everyone was subdued and quiet, I asked what was wrong and one of them piped up,'Teacher! Why would you wish Rob to break his leg!?''

My main teaching expertise was focused on the IELTS and TOEFL examinations to help them enter universities in English speaking countries. As you can understand this was very stressful for them, these exams are not easy by any means. They often used to become worried about failure because for many their futures depended on it. There were others, however, who spent more time partying at night instead of studying. I tried to stress the importance of study and that after they passed the exam, they could party as much as they wished, some listened, some didn't. I used to tell them, forget the parties, at this time you have ,'bigger fish to fry'' to which they would reply, 'Fish? I can't cook!'

It wasn't only idioms that caused a headache, many other figures of speech led to utter confusion. I remember how confused they got reading a passage which talked about a, 'deafening silence'-try explaining that one! A teacher's life can be very exasperating at times. Other expressive phrases such as similes also caused problems for them, 'as deaf as a post,' who knew posts have ears :)

The most difficult phrases of course and devices were irony, puns and understatement.. an example I remember was when I was teaching my pronunciation/phonology class -this was a free lesson offered by the school, when we started it we used to get around 15 to 20 students attending, over time it became very popular as I loved to teach with humour and music and the students, talking between themselves, spread the word until one day I ended up with 90 students wedged likes sardines in the room to which I expressed jokingly,' I see we don't have many attending this afternoon, 'trying a little understatement and a tad ironic too-they looked confused and one spoke up with, 'we can get more next week teacher,' considering the fire risk, I had to explain the notion of understatement, that was easy! Not!

However, it was not only students that got confused, it happened vice versa too when they translated literally from their language. Sometimes it could be funny, sometimes shocking , sometimes just plain weird. In Italian,'essere in erba,'' literally translated means to be on weed as one Italian guy remarked about a new teacher at school just starting out, my colleague and I looked shocked and assuring him not to worry, the teacher didn't take any kind of drugs and was a good teacher, to which the Italian with an aggrieved expression was so apologetic to us, we then discovered that this expression means to be young or at the beginning of one's career-phew that was a close one indeed! An even closer one was when the same Italian announced in class one day, 'I can keep hard!' Some whispers ensued from the females in the class, me being the devil I am, quipped, 'Aren't you the lucky one.'' He then said, 'Si!, I can go without food for a long time and stand very much heat,' so we found out that there is a phrase in Italian, 'tenere duro,' which literally translated means I can keep hard- but actually the real meaning is to hang on or to endure-that one caused many a red face, I can tell you.

Italians were not the only ones with funny or strange phrases when translated-we also had Spanish and many Asians, Arabic and European students. It was so interesting to learn how we all use figures of speech. Learning and teaching a language can be so much fun and I loved every minute of it, sadly, mainly thanks to the COVID outbreak I was forced into early retirement, now though I look back upon those times as some of the most pleasurable of my life. Writing this has helped me to remember how many people I actually helped and how many good times and so much laughter we had ..thanks for this quote Gary!

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Current Mood: chipper

Entry tags:

lj idol

LJ Idol, Wheel of Chaos 4: "Figure(s) of Speech"

There are many wild and wonderful ways to use words in one's writing, particularly when crafting creative collections. I am an ardent admirer of alliteration because of its whimsical wordplay. I definitely declare that a majority of mighty tongue-twisters make meticulous use of alliteration. Certainly, Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Why would he not? But if she simply sells seashells by the seashore, would Peter Piper perhaps purchase Spotted Slipper Shells?

Alas, alliteration ages quickly.

"All eyes up front! I need to do a quick head count and make sure all your lovely young faces are present and accounted for." The teacher made sure all the students were where they should be and handed out the test papers. An hour later, time was up. "Once you drop off your test with me, you are free to hit the road!"

The sentences above contain several examples of synecdoche (pronounced sin-ek-duh-kee), which substitutes a part of something to represent the whole. In other words, referring to an entire person as just a head, or a face, or hands--as in requesting "all hands on deck"--is all in a day's work for this oddly named figure of speech.

When Keith got the okay to finally leave class, he bolted from the room quicker than a rabbit running from a starving dingo. He walked what felt like ten thousand miles to get back home, his stomach rumbling like a freight train the entire way. When he reached his parents' house, Keith dropped his boulder of a backpack in the front hallway and strode into the kitchen, to raid the fridge for leftover fried chicken. His mom entered the room, saw how much food Keith had piled on his plate, and rolled her eyes so hard that he could have heard it from space.

Did you guess I was going for hyperbole here with my extreme exaggerations? Good on ya!

There are so many varieties of figures of speech that it was hard for me to choose between them for this feature, from the well-known metaphors and similes to the oddly-named litotes. To be honest, I had never heard the term litotes (which is pronounced LIE-tuh-teez) before. But you know what? We probably all use litotes in our everyday speech--it's just a fancy term for using a double negative to express a positive, often with a bit of irony thrown in. You can't say I didn't warn you about litotes! Fortunately, this simple idea is not rocket science. It is easy to learn and won't take a lifetime to master.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief essay. Do you have a favorite figure of speech? If so, please drop it in a comment. As always, thanks for reading, and I'll see you on the flip side!

Failure: The Life and Times of William Grover

Wheel of Chaos 2025
Week 4
July 20, 2025
"Figure of speech"

FAILURE
The Life and Times of William Grover

One of Professor William Grover’s heroes, Robert F. Kennedy, memorably said that “only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.” Of course, he was killed, which was the greatest failure of all. By this standard, Prof. Grover should have experienced the height of success. In the world of science, his failures were legendary and the mere mention of his name was a shortcut to snickers.

There was, of course, the time he announced the discovery of a new subatomic particle, the Grovertron. No one could duplicate his results, and it turned out to be an April Fool’s joke by one of his graduate students. Prof. Grover was a forgiving man, and he turned his attention to creating an AI program that would understand and create humor. The result was so boring that he received his only award: an Ig-Nobel Prize.

And then there was the time he might or might not have killed the family cat trying to solve the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox. This probably scarred his children for life.

His greatest failure was time travel. He thought that “Back to the Future” was a documentary and he tried to create a flux capacitor, which, as everyone knows, is what makes time travel possible.

Hudson University, the befuddled professor’s employer, had finally had enough, and Provost Nicholson summoned him to her office.

“Bill,” she said, “I’m afraid you’ve reached the end of the line here. You’re diluting our brand and we’re hemorrhaging money. You’ve got six months to finish your current research and find something that justifies your position here.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” said Prof. Grover, “and I appreciate the six months. However, I’m working on something spectacular, the Phoenix Project, and it will change your mind.”

“I certainly hope so,” said Provost Nicholson, who was relieved things had gone so well. The usual response to these meetings was anger, threats of lawyers, and begging. But one thing Prof. Grover was good at was accepting failure. Practice did make perfect.

Of course, there was no Phoenix Project.

Prof. Grover didn’t do what any reasonable person would do. He did not think about whether he should even be a scientist, nor did he go to the lab and get to work on creating a Phoenix Project. Instead, he went home and started streaming episodes of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon,” a truly awful space opera which was cancelled after its first season, to the disappointment of no one—not even Prof. Grover, who dragged it out now as an emotional pacifier, because no matter how bad his life was, it was still better than “Sanctuary Moon.”

Prof. Grover became inert for the next several weeks. He ate, slept, and interacted with his family, but little else. Future chroniclers of this part of his life would kindly refer to this as his chrysalis stage.

His main thought during this time was the wish to be something else. Anything else. He spent a lot of time wondering what it would be like to be a lamp. But then it finally happened – the light bulb turned on.

“I’m going to build a transmogrifier!” he told his long-suffering wife. “It will turn me into anything I want.” What his wife wanted is not recorded.

The transmogrifier was not a new idea. It had first been proposed by Prof. Calvin as a thought experiment, but no one had tried to build one. A transmogrifier was simply a box, with lots of dials and wires. You could program it to change yourself into anything. All you had to do was set the output, enter the box, close the hatch, and re-emerge as your idea.

Prof. Grover was not discouraged by all his other failures. He was drawn to failure like a moth to a flame.

He knew he would need two things: space and power. The transmogrifier would be big and need a lot of power, which Hudson University was unlikely to grant. Prof. Grover arranged for his family to spend the summer with relatives at a lake, which freed up the space. While he was a good husband and father, he was on a mission that would require his total concentration. And his chronicler would not have to come up with any dialog, which was critical when facing a looming deadline.

Power was less easily solved. All the power in his house would not be nearly enough. He almost despaired, until he thought of the flux capacitor back in the lab. It might not have propelled him into the future, but it generated more than enough power for the transmogrifier.

Prof. Grover planned to build the transmogrifier in the guest bedroom, with the closet as the transmogrifier chamber. Now he needed all the wires and gauges. This was the critical and most perplexing part – how to make it work.

It took weeks of thinking and rewatching “Sanctuary Moon” before he hit on a solution. He would use the Schrödinger’s box, just on a much bigger scale. And without the death possibility. Relying on the uncertainly principle was certainly daring. He couldn’t know what would come out of the transmogrifier chamber, if anything. Prof. Grover had never been daring before and he had always failed. Maybe now was the time to achieve greatness.

So, he built and he tinkered and he tinkered and he built, and finally it was done. He had a room full of wires, gauges, and lots of what-nots, and at its heart glowed the flux capacitor. There had been problems along the way, but that was to be expected when working at the ridiculous edge of the possible.

All he needed was a test subject. His family had wisely taken Kitty 2.0 with them, fearing another heartbreak. That left the professor himself. As a scientist, he was against the use of humans in experiments, but he had no choice. He would have to risk everything.

But what to become? The machine was set to “temporary” so that after an hour, he would hopefully revert to his human form. There had been a lot of monsters on “Sanctuary Moon.” He had also been watching the documentary “Jurassic Park” and had been impressed with the stegosaurus, so he envisioned a fire-breathing, gigantic stegomonster, complete with a thagomizer tail. And, being human, he would pay a visit to Hudson University for some fun. His greatest triumph would be the university’s greatest failure.

“This is it,” he thought, “ultimate success or ultimate failure.”

He set all the dials and threw all the switched. He turned the flux capacitor up to 11. He put his hand on the transmogrifier’s doorknob. And hesitated.

“What if it doesn’t work?”

He thought of all his humiliating failures and started to back away.

“If I don’t go in, no one will ever know. But I’ll always be a joke.”

That was too much. He stepped in, closed the door, and hit “start.”

The circuitry hummed louder and louder. The chamber began to shake. The lights went out and he felt nothing. When he opened his eyes, he was on his front lawn. He swished his tail and knocked over a lamp post. He looked behind himself, and there it was – a huge thagomizer! It worked! He was a stegomonster!

He stepped on his neighbor’s car and headed for Hudson University, spewing flames as he went. Success felt glorious. He smashed with his thagomizer and roared. It was right out of Episode 4 of “Sanctuary Moon.”

For the next half hour, Hudson University was his playground. Suddenly, things went black again. When he opened his eyes, it was as William Grover, scientist. Everyone was looking for the stegomonster, not a middle-aged professor.

He looked at what he had done and was ashamed. Vengeance was bitter.

“Failed again,” he thought to himself. “I should never have started the Phoenix Project.”

Amidst the ruins, Prof. Grover found a stunned Provost Nicholson and resigned immediately.

By the time his family returned, there was no sign of the transmogrifier. Kitty 2.0 felt safe.

William is still looking for a new job. It is hard to find work when your greatest accomplishments are failures. He took comfort in his family, his one success.

He gave up trying to find success and felt better for it. William knew that in the end, he had achieved greatly, because through it all, he had never given up. And he’d had a thagomizer.

####################################################

"The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon" is a fictional space opera in the "Murderbot" Netflix series. In the Murderbot world, it was not cancelled and had at least 397 episodes.

The original transmogrifier from "Calvin and Hobbes."

The flux capacitor from “Back to the Future.”

The original thagomizer, from Gary Larson’s “Far Side” cartoons.

Schrödinger's cat is a thought experiment where a cat in a box can be both alive and dead at the same time until someone opens the box. It shows how weird quantum physics can be. The idea is that tiny particles can exist in multiple states at once—called "superposition"—until they are observed. This does not give any credit to the cat, who certainly knows if it is alive or not.

Week 4 - Figure of Speech

Life is what you make of it, he had always been told. It had certainly been different since he had changed, in some ways immeasurably so. He was still a new dog, relatively-speaking, so he was still adjusting to everything. There was a lot.

He had cherished what had proven to be forlorn hopes that he might suddenly, magically, become more confident and assertive in his daily life. This almost never happened, he was forced to conclude. After all, he had spent so many years becoming one thing, being battered down and shoehorned into some mould, not necessarily of his own choosing. The past was complicated and his inner life far simpler now. Most people, he guessed, still did not see much beyond his exterior. Average white boy, nerdishly diffident, partial to sheepskin coats.

The inner life was new and unsullied, unsulliable, he hoped. It occupied a whole different dimension from what had gone before. In many regards, the simplicity of the new was complicated by concerns, habits and hang ups of the workaday. Society demanded that he kept his head down, paid his bills, was respectful to his boss. Reality was far more pared down and vital.

He did not know why they chose him, but he was happy that they had. He had never felt so much like he belonged before. He had never felt such joy in his body, his muscles, his teeth, his bones before. His purpose was simply to be. His mentors told him that he was free to take the best of both worlds and meld them into something which would be worth so much more. He looked forward to that, if he could ever attain that state of being.

The best part of all was Scar Fell. It was very nearly heaven on earth.

***

Scar Fell was where he could become.

It had been Ministry of Defence Land, already cordoned off from the rest of society. For years the army undertook exercises and performed manoeuvres out on the moors and among the empty buildings of what had been a small farming community. Then the Cold War had ended and the land went on sale.

The Order had renovated the farm, the main house and some of the cottages, so it looked once again like the kind of place that he would have loved to visit for a holiday.

With Scar Fell came land for them to have their own herd of cattle and flocks of sheep, some of which dotted the hills up to the moorland. They provided wool, milk and leather for trading and even the meat that they ate when in residence. There were arable fields for fodder as well as an old orchard and an extensive kitchen garden. Best sausages he had ever tasted. Best meat. His beloved sheepskin jacket even came from there.

The moor was all theirs too, with plenty of game in season, rocky outcrops that you could climb and smell the air. Networks of sinuous streams ran across it and down into the ancient forest that surrounded it all. This was the crowning glory, for not only was it a remnant of the wlldwood that had once covered Britain, but it provided additional shelter for all of their activities. Yes, it had been augmented and extended over time, but it was still quite dense and as natural as any jungle. It too was fenced in and regularly patrolled.

Four times a year, each member was allowed to come and stay for a whole weekend for free. These weekends happened once a month, every month. The lottery for certain times of year was fierce indeed. If a space came free at Lammas, for example, an event as rare as hens’ teeth for this was the jewel of the calendar…. Oh! The horse trading, bargaining and fervent prayer that would go on! Any time of year was good, to be honest, no matter the weather or phase of the moon.

One year, before he had joined, the snow had blocked the roads and there was no way for vehicles to get in or out. That weekend’s residents had been given extra, glorious time at Scar Fell in return for helping to keep it running and clearing some of the drifts. He could only imagine the joys of extra time to run across the fresh fallen snow, his thick coat keeping him warm enough to enjoy the sight of his breath freezing in the air.

Each weekend started with the Feast, whether it was a greater or lesser occasion. Enormous quantities of meat were roasted over fire pits. Barrels of ale were tapped. Torches lined the paths. There was music everywhere from tapes, to bands, to the members singing the traditional songs. That season’s president would make a speech and tell them their story, how their ways were old long before the Norsemen brought them here, how they should rejoice in this gift that they had been given. Then the festivities truly could start.

A great howl would go up and the night was theirs.

***

The worst parts of being a member of the group were the practical ones. Every member owed a debt of work at Scar Fell; it kept it running. This duty could be bought off financially or substantially lessened if one had a sought after profession such as medicine or law. There were members of the order skilled in running farms and businesses who lived there full time for practical reasons. There would also be clean up duties, from cleaning houses to disposing of carcasses. People could be disgusting, no matter what form they took.

The most onerous duty of all, of course, was security, patrolling the estate in vehicles or by foot. It really was not safe for outsiders to come in, not for them, not for anyone. Ignorance and idle curiosity drove this for the most part, as Scar Fell was neither particularly near anywhere nor on the way to anywhere.

The attraction of game would take some deliberation for outsiders to break inand still happened from time to time. They had extra reason to be vigilant when it was a Poacher’s Moon. There was a fear that gangs of actual robbers and burglars might decide that Scar Fell folks had a pretty penny. The aftermath of such a case would be damaging and tedious. The foolhardy had that effect.

Yet now that he had Scar Fell, he felt that he would take on most unpleasant duties to keep it going. He belonged at last. He could be himself with little fear of censure. He had friends who were just like him and understood the frustrations of his world because they were theirs as well. He had himself down to work there full time if a position became available.

The absolute worst part of Scar Fell was existing in the times in between and making those count too. His mentors reminded him that being a man was still an important factor in his existence, That part of the dichotomy might seem harder to bear, but it was worth exploring.

He pulled his sheepskin coat tighter around himself, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and grinned toothily. No one would ever guess.

***

Vote by Wednesday here https://therealljidol.dreamwidth.org/1191017.html

Entry tags:

lj idol

The Best Is Yet To Come

LJI Week 4: Figure of speech
The music was a physical thing; a wall of sound Gina had to push through in order to move forward. If she spread her arms, bent her legs, and leapt skyward, might the waves of sound allow her to float over the heads of the teaming humanity all around her? How many people were here? Mor importantly, how long would it be before the noise caused complaints and the cops arrived? She wasn't a high school kid anymore, but it would still be embarrassing if her dad had to bail her out of some local precinct.( Read more... )

ups and downs.

This week at work was not worth talking about.

Yesterday, I got into my car after I got off-shift, sat down in the driver's seat, and just bawled for a solid five minutes. Sitting in the fab parking lot, crying like a little kid that just dropped their ice cream. Stress release, I guess?

Anyway.

That's the most you're going to get about that, suppose.

(It's not worth talking about — a lot of "things aren't working because of factors that are beyond my control" combined with "but people think it should be under my control", and that's just a fucking miserable place to be. Eventually it will either be determined that there is fuck-all I can do to make e.g. certain shit work, because God Themself could not do it, or I will leave to "run an errand" and simply never come back. Both are acceptable at this point.)

My car is apparently paid off? I know because I got a call today from the bank asking where they could send the title to. The address they had on file was evidently incorrect.

(I bought it in late November 2021, so when we were still living in the duplex in the north of town, oops.)

I gave them the address, the title guy went, "congratulations!", and...that was that, I guess? I am now the full owner of a '22 Hyundai Elantra SE. Of course, with the job stuff, my brain immediately goes to, "so if you need to, you can sell it and that's a few months' worth of mortgage payments!" — but, you know. (Truly, things would have to be very dire for a period of roughly TWO YEARS before I had to go, "ACK" and think about e.g. selling the car, but lizard brain does what lizard brain does, I suppose.)

This does mean I'm out of debt save for the mortgage, which is a nice feeling, I guess? (Well, and the balance currently on my credit card — I put everything on it, so therapy, groceries, all the utility bills for the house, etc — it's at about $1100 right now — but I also pay it off at the end of each month because fuck paying interest.)

It occurs to me that with the car paid off my expenses for living pretty "extravagantly" (getting takeout like 1x/week, buying myself coffee on Fridays and Sundays, purchasing 1-2 ebooks per month) are back down to ~$2000/month, with two thirds of that being my half of the mortgage and bills.

Weird.

Today at work was fine. I was alone in the lab, which was great. Got coffee (FRIDAY RITUAL), came in around 9, worked on only what I wanted to work on. Actually managed to get something maybe working? which was a surprise to me, but oh, well.

Week ended on a high note. Did some metrology and data analysis, uploaded everything, drove home. At the house Max let me know that he'd ordered pizza from the new place that just opened literally two blocks away from us, and when I said, "so...we're sticking with the plan I made last week?" (to eat pizza from there and watch "Sinners"), nodded.

Said that we ought to pick up the stuff to do Aperol spritzes, so we did (we didn't have soda water! we usually do! somehow that was the only thing we were missing!), grabbed the pizza, came back, fed the cats, and —

Okay, so apparently he did not know anything about "Sinners". I filled him in on what little I knew (vampires, 1930s Mississippi, Michael B. Jordan plays a pair of twins), and we watched it.

No spoilers, but y'all, it was wonderful.

I think I can best sum it up with the following exchange:

MAX: You know, I really liked [STYLISTIC CHOICE], but I found [SPECIFIC PART] anachronistic. Like, damn, they almost had it.

five minutes later...

ME: So do you understand why they included [SPECIFIC PART]?

MAX, completely and utterly stunned: I take that back, I should have let him cook.

(I love the reviews going, "this felt like two different movies to me", like — it was clear as fucking day what the story was and how it tied together, and if you paid even a millisecond of attention, you got it. It's a movie that rewards careful watching, for sure. LOVED the midcredits scene, too ♥ )

Tomorrow we are going WINE TASTING with my LOCAL QUEER FRIENDS, which is A THING, but I get to WALK TO THIS ONE, so if I get WINE DRUNK at 4pm, it'll be FINE.

Probably. :)

As a final note I suppose I should say, the work-in-progress noted as point 1 of this entry has been split into three parts.

Part 1 ended (without any editing!) at 131710 words.

Part 2 is at the midpoint (roughly), and sitting at 65059 words.

Apparently all it take for me to write like there's no tomorrow is for someone to go, "what about...", at which point I will go, "OH YEAH" and write literally 100k words in a month.

Well then.

(Are they good words? I mean, it's a rough draft and it's being written incredibly fast, so it has all the plot and structure of hot wet jello, as my mentor liked to say when I was in graduate school, but I'm having fun and the sole person reading it is also enjoying it, so.)

Entry tags:

LJ Idol - Week 4- Figure of Speech

They say the squeaky wheel gets the grease

He had squeaked enough for many wheels. And at the wrong times.

It was "my decision",but really my orders were from El Jefe himself. I knew what had to be done, what chaos could happen if someone were to agitate during the distribution of food.

It had happened at other camps. But I had tried to be kind, and did not siphon off nearly so much as the other Commandants. A jovial fat man who loves strong drink and zaftig women, my bald pate a target for jokes, I allowed.

But today could be no laughing matter. This line could not be crossed or there would be more death, his agitating for more food would backfire. More death of his and mine.

Though I admit, I have a wild unwelcome thought, like an invader, that I could turn the weapon on myself. A moment of weakness, no one but my bartender need know about.

If there was to be a riot, the spectre of the drones was something no one wanted to face.

It was good that he was young and strong, but bad that he was handsome...optics

Never at my camp before, but it was folly to think I could avoid it forever.

So young, with a brown face worth fighting for, my would be revolutionary.

No drone song today.

The only smell the tobacco of his cigarette.

The only sound the report of my pistol.

Just a middle-aged man doing his duty.

But Don Jr., won't be issuing me any medals today.

Home Game Week 4, Figures of Speech

Biting the dust

Breathing their last breath

Buying the farm

Croaking

Crossing over

Crossing the Rainbow Bridge (for pets)

Departing

Expiring

Fading fast

Getting his/her wings

Going six feet under

Kicking the bucket

Losing the battle

Meeting your maker

Passing

Playing harps

Pushing up daisies

Reaching the pearly gates

Resting in peace

Riding off into the sunset

Shuffling off this mortal coil

Taking one final lap

Transitioning

These are all ways to describe my mother’s current existence. It hasn’t happened yet because she is such a fighter and also so fcking stubborn. She cannot do anything for herself. She is miserable. She is incapable of enjoying anything aside from a few sips of Diet Coke. (And the ability to suck from a straw is diminishing.) If she didn’t still know who I am or who my brother is, I would back away and wait for “that phone call”. She is still unable to let go of life because she is incredibly attached to my brother and he is attached to her. (He will never admit that, but it’s true. Everyone who truly knows our family dynamic knows it’s a fact.) He is her Superman. She is both his nosy, meddling mother but also his biggest ego feeder. Their relationship is weird. As for me, I am the dutiful daughter; the people-pleaser. I am the rule-follower. He handles the paperwork, but I do the dirty work.

In 1996, before our dad died, my brother and I promised him that we would take care of Mom. Telling him that it was OK to go wasn’t necessary. All he needed was reassurance that the small yet somewhat dysfunctional family unit of four would still carry on as a trio, even if we were beginning to seek out our own life-paths.

Human biology as it pertains to (not) sustaining life, is going to eventually win out. Power of the mind will cease when the mind can no longer sustain control. A new order is coming.

The Mothership has had 95 blessed years of friendships, family, travel, education, creative endeavors and privileges. 95! May we all have 95 years of time like my mother’s. Her lack of quality days in recent years is her own doing in that she refused therapies, refused to eat a proper diet and refused social opportunities. I have no guilt. I have no regrets. I know I have taken stellar care of her when she has needed it. Unlike with my dad’s passing almost 30 years prior, I can accept this, because she has not been cheated out of time.

Do I wish she could have taken me more seriously? Sure. Do I wish she could have given me the validation I needed as a kid and young adult? Of course. Do I wish she could see me as a successful person even if I don’t earn a six-figure wage or have special connections with socially elite people? Absolutely, I do. Still, she is my mom. She has been a dominating force in my life. (Perhaps too dominating?) I won’t deny this fact. The void without her will be huge for me. I will think about her every goddamn day, and I will remember the fun and funny stuff (family vacations, the lost, melted Hershey bar in the car the day she wore white shorts, the lizards and how they made her scream, watching the Reds and Bengals games, our mutual love of arts and crafts, respect for animals, oh, and margarita nights. Likewise, I will not forget the criticisms or the emotional manipulations and continue to learn from those moments so that I can be mindful enough to break that cycle for my kids and grandkids.

The Mothership has taught me a lot about life and how to achieve things I want. I’m not wired to be as (passive) aggressive as she has been, but I am OK with that. I don’t always get what I want, but definitely get all that I need and then some. When my mother has aggravated me with her pushy nature, I remember my gentle grandmother, (her mom), who was one of my heroes. In spite of any faults my mom has, she came from goodness and kindness. She came from values and hope.

I’m going to miss my mom a lot, but I will be okay.