![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. There's not enough hours in the day for me to write, talk to mother, make dinner, make lunch, make breakfast, commute to work, commute home, work, (do the things I enjoy: read, watch my soap, write creatively and in this blog) relax, meditate and sleep. I find myself doing things while doing other things.
But, I've really no complaints? Mother reminded me of a friend of hers, a tennis pro, who had gone to Cornell, got a law degree, worked in a law firm writing up depositions, lost her job when they wanted to transfer her to Philly and she wanted to stay in Pittsburgh. Then, a few months later, she suffered a severe brain aneurysm. At Cornell, she'd played rugby and rowed. She didn't play Tennis because she was a higher level than most of the students. She graduated high in her class.
When she got the aneurysm - she was forty years of age. Just turned forty.
At the time, she was between jobs, so no health insurance coverage. They needed a stint to drain the blood from her brain. And find ways to cover it. End result? She has severe short term memory loss. And is dependent on her parents. That was over seventeen years ago. She can't play tennis, row, or play rugby - she can't remember the rules. It's tragic.
When I hear these stories, I think, there but for the grace of God, go I. I learned that phrase from my Criminal Procedure Prof in Law School - who I adored. He was Jewish (openly so), played the fiddle and violin, and went to Turkey in an exchange program on prisoner's rights. He was also head of the Kansas Defender Project, and helped me get an internship at a Public Defender's Office. (That was in 1991.)
2. I think the activity app on my smart watch is counting typing on a computer as an activity. If so, this amuses me to no end. It keeps telling me that I've exceeded my goal for the day. I'm thinking - for what? Typing? Twitching? Really?
3. Mother decides to ignore my total international news blockage and inform me of horrible things happening in the world. What good is a news blockage when people insist on ignoring it?
The latest? I should cut, just in case you want to avoid it too. That would be the polite thing to do, wouldn't it? Give you a choice in the matter. You might already know about it?
Mother: Did you hear what happened today in Lebanon?
Me: Uh, no. (And do I want to know?)
Mother: Hazzazelbuh (that's what it sounded like)'s pagers exploded.
Me: What?? Who??
Mother: Hazzazelbuh. Their pagers were rigged to explode and all exploded at the same time.
Me: Oh dear god. Although admittedly clever - yet at the same time insanely disturbing and terrifying. They triggered everyone's pagers in Lebanon to explode?
Mother: No, just the Hazzazelbuh.
Me: Okay I'm lost - who is the Hazzazelabuh?
Mother: Terrorist cell associated with Hamas.
Me: So, they decided to trigger the terrorists associated with Hamas' pagers to explode??? That means...
Mother: Anyone wearing the pager, anyone near them, close to them at the time, will be killed or maimed.
Me: That's...ugh, clever and horrible at the same time. And my god, think of what they had to do to pull that off? Whoa. I'm suitably horrified.
Thank you very much. That's like rigging a cell phone to explode.
Later, while watching my soap.
Mother: Have you heard the latest?
Me: I'm almost afraid to ask? Now what?
Mother: They triggered their walkie talkies to explode.
Me: The walkie talkies? (I didn't know people still used them, apparently they do? You'd think the terrorist cells would be more advanced?)
Mother: Yes, and anyone near them - set to explode.
Me: Ugh.
Mother: And they did it during the funerals.
Me: They exploded the pagers during the funerals?
Mother: No, they exploded the walkie talkies during the pager funerals.
ME: Okay, that's just...immoral, cruel, and inhumane. It's monstrous. I get the fact that they are terrorists - but dear god.
Mother: killed children, etc.
Me: They really want to exterminate Hammas don't they?
Mother: Israel isn't claiming they did it. But Hammas is blaming them for it.
Ugh. Mother lets me go back to my soap. My escapist fare.
Damn the world can be an ugly place. AI terrifies me - not in of itself, but what humans will turn it into. I do not trust my fellow humans.
My god, they are weaponizing pagers and walkie talkies, just think what they will do with AI?
Also think about the ingenuity and coordination involved to do turn pagers and walkie talkies into bombs? And how that ingenuity and coordination could have been used in another, kinder, and I want to say humane way, but I'm not sure that's the right term at the moment?
Sorry, I'm not a believer in an eye for an eye. I am however a believer in Karma, which isn't quite the same thing. It's more creative, and takes longer, and a lot more educational. The harm, hate, pain, and hurt you send out in the world, comes back to you three-fold like a bloody boomerang. And never in the ways you'd expect.
See? This is why I'm on a total international news blockage. I only watch my local news. Which has its issues, but no one to my knowledge is weaponizing pagers and walkie talkies to explode.
4. Came up with another story idea - off of an old story that I hand wrote ages ago. About someone who retreated into a role in fantasy role playing game, to the point in which it was more real than her life. And it was no longer clear which world was real and which wasn't. It was a story within a story, and I wrote it in different colors of ink. It didn't quite work.
Now, I think I figured out how to make it work. I wrote it in the 1990s, before tech took off and when I first moved to NYC. I didn't really have a computer yet, since my computer was at home with my parents and I was in NYC. It was the 1990s. Computers were desktop computers and you couldn't just pack it up on the plane and carry it with you. Laptops were expensive.
(They still are - they were just more expensive then. Especially when you don't have a job and are looking for one. )
The trick is AI and Virtual Reality. Turn it into sci-fi. I've been fine tuning it in my head for a while now.
***
My difficulty with my writing right now - is I have too many ideas and no time or energy to write. Or focus. Also too many distractions. I need to jot them down and organize my thoughts.
I write on the train. Before work, when I'm able. Before bed. On the train ride home. When you are a writer - you will find a way to write, no matter what. It's really a calling. You are either a writer - who is driven to write or not. Being published doesn't matter. Most of the stuff I'm reading right now is self-published or independently published anyhow.
I also write for a living, and edit. Lots of editing of business, technical, engineering, legal, and financial memos, emails, letters, justifications, and scopes of work. I was working on a Contract Staff Summary today, that is written by the Project Team, and I review and fix and edit. I basically gave up and rewrote the whole thing. I talked to my boss about it - who commiserated, because he does the same thing.
But we're both getting self-conscious about it - because the lawyer who has to approve it - is an insane nitpicker, and wants everything in the active voice.
So...instead of "it was decided to go in this direction..." I have to find a way to say "the parties decided to go in this direction" when I'm not sure who the parties are, and when I ask - the stupid project team ignores me.
Seriously? Sometimes the passive tense is helpful. You can tell the difference between a professional writer, and a grammarian aka frustrated English Teacher/Copy-Editor - on that alone.
The grammarians who think the rules need to be enforced no matter what.
Breaking Bad states that not only do we have to be copy editors, we also have to be line editors. I've become an editor of non-fictional engineering, legal and financial documents. I'd give anything to edit a work of fiction at this point.
***
Eh, I need to go to bed. Good night.
But, I've really no complaints? Mother reminded me of a friend of hers, a tennis pro, who had gone to Cornell, got a law degree, worked in a law firm writing up depositions, lost her job when they wanted to transfer her to Philly and she wanted to stay in Pittsburgh. Then, a few months later, she suffered a severe brain aneurysm. At Cornell, she'd played rugby and rowed. She didn't play Tennis because she was a higher level than most of the students. She graduated high in her class.
When she got the aneurysm - she was forty years of age. Just turned forty.
At the time, she was between jobs, so no health insurance coverage. They needed a stint to drain the blood from her brain. And find ways to cover it. End result? She has severe short term memory loss. And is dependent on her parents. That was over seventeen years ago. She can't play tennis, row, or play rugby - she can't remember the rules. It's tragic.
When I hear these stories, I think, there but for the grace of God, go I. I learned that phrase from my Criminal Procedure Prof in Law School - who I adored. He was Jewish (openly so), played the fiddle and violin, and went to Turkey in an exchange program on prisoner's rights. He was also head of the Kansas Defender Project, and helped me get an internship at a Public Defender's Office. (That was in 1991.)
2. I think the activity app on my smart watch is counting typing on a computer as an activity. If so, this amuses me to no end. It keeps telling me that I've exceeded my goal for the day. I'm thinking - for what? Typing? Twitching? Really?
3. Mother decides to ignore my total international news blockage and inform me of horrible things happening in the world. What good is a news blockage when people insist on ignoring it?
The latest? I should cut, just in case you want to avoid it too. That would be the polite thing to do, wouldn't it? Give you a choice in the matter. You might already know about it?
Mother: Did you hear what happened today in Lebanon?
Me: Uh, no. (And do I want to know?)
Mother: Hazzazelbuh (that's what it sounded like)'s pagers exploded.
Me: What?? Who??
Mother: Hazzazelbuh. Their pagers were rigged to explode and all exploded at the same time.
Me: Oh dear god. Although admittedly clever - yet at the same time insanely disturbing and terrifying. They triggered everyone's pagers in Lebanon to explode?
Mother: No, just the Hazzazelbuh.
Me: Okay I'm lost - who is the Hazzazelabuh?
Mother: Terrorist cell associated with Hamas.
Me: So, they decided to trigger the terrorists associated with Hamas' pagers to explode??? That means...
Mother: Anyone wearing the pager, anyone near them, close to them at the time, will be killed or maimed.
Me: That's...ugh, clever and horrible at the same time. And my god, think of what they had to do to pull that off? Whoa. I'm suitably horrified.
Thank you very much. That's like rigging a cell phone to explode.
Later, while watching my soap.
Mother: Have you heard the latest?
Me: I'm almost afraid to ask? Now what?
Mother: They triggered their walkie talkies to explode.
Me: The walkie talkies? (I didn't know people still used them, apparently they do? You'd think the terrorist cells would be more advanced?)
Mother: Yes, and anyone near them - set to explode.
Me: Ugh.
Mother: And they did it during the funerals.
Me: They exploded the pagers during the funerals?
Mother: No, they exploded the walkie talkies during the pager funerals.
ME: Okay, that's just...immoral, cruel, and inhumane. It's monstrous. I get the fact that they are terrorists - but dear god.
Mother: killed children, etc.
Me: They really want to exterminate Hammas don't they?
Mother: Israel isn't claiming they did it. But Hammas is blaming them for it.
Ugh. Mother lets me go back to my soap. My escapist fare.
Damn the world can be an ugly place. AI terrifies me - not in of itself, but what humans will turn it into. I do not trust my fellow humans.
My god, they are weaponizing pagers and walkie talkies, just think what they will do with AI?
Also think about the ingenuity and coordination involved to do turn pagers and walkie talkies into bombs? And how that ingenuity and coordination could have been used in another, kinder, and I want to say humane way, but I'm not sure that's the right term at the moment?
Sorry, I'm not a believer in an eye for an eye. I am however a believer in Karma, which isn't quite the same thing. It's more creative, and takes longer, and a lot more educational. The harm, hate, pain, and hurt you send out in the world, comes back to you three-fold like a bloody boomerang. And never in the ways you'd expect.
See? This is why I'm on a total international news blockage. I only watch my local news. Which has its issues, but no one to my knowledge is weaponizing pagers and walkie talkies to explode.
4. Came up with another story idea - off of an old story that I hand wrote ages ago. About someone who retreated into a role in fantasy role playing game, to the point in which it was more real than her life. And it was no longer clear which world was real and which wasn't. It was a story within a story, and I wrote it in different colors of ink. It didn't quite work.
Now, I think I figured out how to make it work. I wrote it in the 1990s, before tech took off and when I first moved to NYC. I didn't really have a computer yet, since my computer was at home with my parents and I was in NYC. It was the 1990s. Computers were desktop computers and you couldn't just pack it up on the plane and carry it with you. Laptops were expensive.
(They still are - they were just more expensive then. Especially when you don't have a job and are looking for one. )
The trick is AI and Virtual Reality. Turn it into sci-fi. I've been fine tuning it in my head for a while now.
***
My difficulty with my writing right now - is I have too many ideas and no time or energy to write. Or focus. Also too many distractions. I need to jot them down and organize my thoughts.
I write on the train. Before work, when I'm able. Before bed. On the train ride home. When you are a writer - you will find a way to write, no matter what. It's really a calling. You are either a writer - who is driven to write or not. Being published doesn't matter. Most of the stuff I'm reading right now is self-published or independently published anyhow.
I also write for a living, and edit. Lots of editing of business, technical, engineering, legal, and financial memos, emails, letters, justifications, and scopes of work. I was working on a Contract Staff Summary today, that is written by the Project Team, and I review and fix and edit. I basically gave up and rewrote the whole thing. I talked to my boss about it - who commiserated, because he does the same thing.
But we're both getting self-conscious about it - because the lawyer who has to approve it - is an insane nitpicker, and wants everything in the active voice.
So...instead of "it was decided to go in this direction..." I have to find a way to say "the parties decided to go in this direction" when I'm not sure who the parties are, and when I ask - the stupid project team ignores me.
Seriously? Sometimes the passive tense is helpful. You can tell the difference between a professional writer, and a grammarian aka frustrated English Teacher/Copy-Editor - on that alone.
The grammarians who think the rules need to be enforced no matter what.
Breaking Bad states that not only do we have to be copy editors, we also have to be line editors. I've become an editor of non-fictional engineering, legal and financial documents. I'd give anything to edit a work of fiction at this point.
***
Eh, I need to go to bed. Good night.
no subject
Date: 2024-09-20 04:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-09-20 05:04 pm (UTC)