a. I’m vexed that it came without a shaker top. And it’s—um—wet. Looks like wet sand.
b. So I’m after spreading it wherever our nightly deaf raccoon uses as his pond-approach. [Deaf: he seems the only raccoon able to ignore the sonic deterrent. And he likes to go swimming, while there’s a perfectly good river a mile away.
c. so I climb up on the berm—and trip on one of the new irrigation lines. I managed to catch myself short of falling in with a full canister of coyote urine. And not to knock a big heavy rock into the pond. And not to rip out the irrigation.
d. Thanks to the open top, I find I have deposited half the fairly spending container under the red Japanese maple. Well, it is an area that needs coverage.
e. I get myself back on my feet and go around the pond bestowing coyote-ness wherever there’s a good raccoon approach to the water.
f. Full circuit. I’m out of coyote love-potion and figure I’d better lid that can, though it’s empty, before throwing it in the kitchen garbage.
g. I locate the missing shaker top, stuck inside the discarded lid.
Oh, well.
The story of shepherds being looked down on by educators just reinforces my belief that there is no one kind of intelligence. “book larning” is only one kind. I have no patience with “standardized tests” and that whole teach the test thing. One of the things they don’t seem to be teaching much these days is the ability to reason and draw conclusions, to think independently, and problem solve on the fly.
One can use the powers of the mind in so many different ways.
@WOL, GreenWyvern. It’s making me wonder about motivations, what makes a person take a job teaching children he despises? It’s not something anyone would do because they enjoy it, thinking their work is wasted.
And the kids won’t learn as much from anyone with an attitude like that.
So why did those kids get stuck with someone who was such a bad teacher for them?
Was he such a bad teacher in general that he couldn’t get a job anywhere else? And if so, why did this school board hire him?
Or was he very much a city person but one of those students that get a lot of their student loans canceled if they teach for ten years in a poor and underserved district, so he starts out there with no knowledge of the area or the people but a lot of resentment about having to put his life on hold for ten years ‘in the back of beyond’ in his eyes, before he can go back to the city where he wants to be?
Whatever the motivation for the teacher, it’s a horrible thing to do to those children; but if it’s a result of something systemic that needs to be addressed.
@BCS, to foster the chance of making an acquaintance, you could make a habit of taking out the trash around the time the other guy went to feed the cats.
Then talk to him before you do anything with them, as he may both feel a bit responsible for them (and thus, upset if they suddenly disappear) and know what has already been tried.
I’ve been watching TinyKittens on YouTube for a while now, since Jane’s sister got me started, and they regularly take care of homeless cats, including pregnant and new mamas and kittens, whether or not they can be socialized. Something like that probably exists in your area as well, so after discussing it with their caretaker I’d start by calling one of these.
If the other homeless cats cannot be socialised (and maybe also if they can, you’d have to read a bit more on their sites to see if they do the socializing), I found three different TNR (trap-neuter-return) sites for Houston on the internet by searching for “cat shelter houston usa tnr”:
1) http://www.cap4pets.org/programs/feral-cats
2) https://www.homelesspets.net/feral-cats/
3) gave me an error message, maybe because I’m in the wrong country: https://houstontx.gov/barc/trap_neuter_return.html
I cannot contain my curiosity any longer. If there is a container of c-urine, does that mean that someone has the job of actually getting one or more coyotes to donate to producing the product!?!?!?!?! and then processing it and packaging it?
Yes, yes, they do. And people buy canisters of the stuff.
Consider filing this away in your brain along with the manure, etc., used for flower bed fertilizer.
Mind-boggling if you think about it a moment too long, isn’t it? LOL!
I suppose its a conversation starter / stopper
I haven’t been out again yet to look for the cats, but I will keep looking, and ideally, I may run into the neighbor again, and if so, introduce myself and discuss the cats.
One of my local friends is supposed to pick up packages for me today. — Why haven’t we just set up a monthly or biweekly regular thing to do this? I don’t know; I think I’m not the only one using his head for a hat rack. (Old expression.)
I went to regular public schools like anyone else. I had mostly good teachers and a few who were outstanding, and oh, my parents were motivated, which helped. I had very few bad teachers or school counselors, but there were a few. The bad ones, I think either had burnt out and were still hanging on, or their tempers were shot, perhaps permanently, or else they didn’t belong in teaching and didn’t have the skills and temperament to teach 25 to 35 students per class. Kids sense things like attitude, temper, or lying, or fear. And heck, I went to suburban, edge-of-the-city schools in a good school district.
I don’t get the attitude either, of why someone who’d look down on kids would be a teacher. I know from experience, kids are not little angels. But most are not bad, and if given a chance, they can be very good. Going into it, looking down on kids because of where they’re from, how they talk or act, what their parents are like, those are not fair judgments of kids. — I think of how my dad and his brother and sisters must have been like as children and teens, skinny, tall, with local accents that just didn’t quit, just like every other kid in their school, likely. Or my mom, who had a city version of a Texas accent, which showed up more strongly in her attempts at Italian and German in college. (She said her Italian prof had been nice in saying she spoke Italian “with the most charming Southern accent,” haha. I know this from her tries at Spanish words too. She needed to learn how to do the vowels right, in particular, but no one had worked with her enough to show her how to reshape them to do them correctly. The prof was, yes, being critical while sounding nice, which she did understand. But she knew she had an accent and took the criticism as fair. Interesting woman, my mom. However, she learned enough in one semester of each to do a little, at least from part of one essay I saw from her Italian class, saved in notes with a workbook.) (I wish I still had that, good, legible penmanship in the fountain pens they used in the 1950’s, really nice example of cursive handwriting.) (I also wish I had one pen she’d saved. It disappeared in one more or another. But they still make similar pens. They’re not perfect, prone to leaking at inopportune times, but they’re a marvel of pen craftsmanship, just before the invention of the ballpoint pen.)
—–
Last night, after another false start that produced a wandering prologue which may or may not get used — I finally got a good start on the story that made better sense, practically and dramatically, and the characterization is better. The last portion of that may have gotten sidetracked, so I may delete that and rewrite from there. But I’m happy enough with it to go on from there. So I have a chapter or two, and can begin the next.
It still needs a full plot, but I’ve added notes on a few things which need to happen or need to be dealt with in the story, to cover the mess they’re in and work out how to get out of it, or if they’re stuck with it. (It could be interesting if they are stuck with it and have to solve it in the future, if they can.) But first there has to be one completed story before there can be two. Maybe there’s enough material in it for one novel, or maybe just a short story. I’m still too new at this to tell how long a story should be, from the feel of it at the start of the idea.
I have a better idea of the main character and a few other major characters, but not much idea of the cat yet, except he’s an odd cat. 😉 — My other main story-universe keeps wanting to intrude into this. I may need to go with that, or I may need to rewrite to alter the tone and details of it, since I don’t think it’s really the same story-universe; different operating rules, since they’d end up in the situation they’re in. But for now, it’s a good start, and after a read-through of this draft, I think I should know what needs tweaking in an edit and rewrite, to get it in better shape. — Still undecided about the last portion with the character who popped up. Not sure I want that in this story, but it felt like a character should be there, and that one popped up. Another could be needed instead, story-wise. — At least now I feel like it’s shaping up with a good start. That prologue may not go in. It started OK, but then rambled, and as a story intro, it’s probably not what a reader wants to sit through, teen or busy adult. So maybe it’s exposition to go elsewhere in the story. Or maybe it was just writing practice, which is what I’m leaning toward, to help firm up in my mind what the story-universe is.
I’ve been reading and watching science fiction all my life. I’ve been writing and drawing bits and chapters of stories and world-building since at least high school, and pretending stories since I was a kid. I did have literature classes in English and French in college. I’ve edited amateur stories online and copyedited and ghost-written materials for customers (mostly business stuff) professionally, and proofread more than I could count. I am supposed to know a thing or two about story structure from classes and experience. I’ve written chapters and bits and pieces all along. I have little stuff on my site. So why don’t I have finished short stories or novellas or novels, and why am I struggling with the start of what is another promising idea, along with others sitting unfinished on my hard drive? And why do I still feel like a total newbie writer? And for goodness sakes, why can I never be concise and brief in conversational writing? Heh.
OK, font work needs doing. Making progress there, slowly, but it’s progress and I’m happy with the latest several drafts I have going. Story-writing tonight. I need to make time to study, too, Python and PHP, maybe brush up on what I used to know of C and Javascript; and some time with my nose in my Spanish and French and now Dutch books. — I want to record something in Spanish and French. The French recording will be something from my college survey course, two semesters. Not sure if it’ll be Descartes’ essay on how he came up with Cartesian coordinates, from watching a fly on the ceiling, or maybe Voltaire or Rousseau or something more modern. (Jules Verne? St. Exupéry? Ugh, how long has it been since I reread any of the 20th century stuff, and would I have a better impression of them now? I hope so. Do I even remember anything from a couple of the playwrights and novelists I should still remember, from the 1800’s? Sigh. Some French student I am.
I got as far as Spanish II in high school before switching to French. I had a semester as a refresher in college and did fine with it, of course. I’m both better and yet more rusty than I think, given how I’ve done in attempts to talk with people here, maintenance workers, neighbors, or friends. I don’t think I’m back to the level of fluency I had, good enough between Spanish and French to read most of the text of displays at the Museo Antropológico in Mexico City as a high school grad with it all still fresh in my mind. — Cathy’s grandson is probably more fluent than I am now. I haven’t read novels in Spanish, for instance, and it’s been a long while since I’ve read anything much in French, aside from essay or short length, and those, with a dictionary in hand to check myself, which I was trying to wean myself off of in college. In college, I was fluent enough to write French in my class notes, not always realizing it, and to think and dream snippets in French with English. — Judging from how I’ve been doing here, with mostly Spanish-Speaking neighbors, I can see that if I were immersed in French or Spanish, oh, I’dbe going around with a dictionary constantly, and missing some portion of it, and getting other portions. But I think I’d manage at least half the time.
(This should also tell you, I have not been reviewing as diligently as I want to, nor as often.)
I’m going to make a schedule and try to get back into a routine, study habits and review. I’m 53, the ol’ brain is still good, but I have to shake off the rust, and I need to refresh and expand old skills and pick up some new ones.
Dutch, for instance. When I’ve listened to native speakers on YouTube, kids and random stuf,f travel, etc., because YouTube has started giving me those, I keep feeling like I can almost understand it, but I’m not nearly fluent enough or accustomed to hearing it, nor reading it, to get there yet. There’s a certain level you need, a mass of data, before your brain kicks in to begin fluency or thinking in the language. For someone with language skills, I think that builds up with exposure without you knowing it, especially given a cousin-language like Dutch or German or any of the Romance languages, since I have a basis there. (Spoken Portugues baffles me in spite of Spanish. Written, I can make better sense of. Italian, I can get a fair idea of. Don’t know if I’d have any luck with Romanian. I haven’t seen enough Catalan to know how I’d do, but I get the sense it’d be readable to me, partially. Latin is like Old English: I feel I ought to be able to get the sense of that, it’s almost there, but it’s different enough from what I know, that I get a partial idea without knowing for sure. Yet I feel like it’s just within reach, if I could get enough of it.)
That’s also how I feel about Dutch so far, with not enough time dedicated to really learning it. It feels like it’s…like overhearing a conversation in the next room. You feel like you should be able to get all of it, but it’s just out of reach for now, without knowing a little more. I can pick up words here and there in speech. In writing, I can pick up more, despite the spelling system being so different. (Double and triple vowels all over the place!) It’s like hearing English, German, and French blended together, with something very Dutch predominating. But it feels like with enough practice, I should begin picking up the patterns of sound changes and picking up vocabulary from cognates, to build more of a base for fluency. It also feels like looking at and hearing what English might have been without the Norman Conquest, but with French bordering them, which the Dutch have. And English had Viking / Danish inclusions from heavy colonization and raiding and settlements, which may not have gotten to the Netherlands as much.
I am not yet to the point to try writing in Dutch, and I’m unsure of my accent, still. But I need to devote time to studying subjects again and get serious about this instead of talking about it and staying stagnant, while spending time on other things that do need doing and have some priority for good reasons. — But I should still be good enough to study too. I did it in two rounds of college, after all. And these are things I want to learn, for fun and for good usage.
…Heaven help me, how long is this? Ugh, I’m writing as if I have all day to talk to all of you in person.
Obviously, I’m frustrated and stressed and juggling things I want to do. I miss these things I want to do. I need to learn that drawing program, and my eyesight’s not making that easy, but I need more than just my font editing programs, and I used to be skilled at Macromedia Freehand. — I never would’ve imagined I’d be like this, or my life would be like this, when I was starting college. I feel like I’ve come full circle, almost like starting there again. But now I’m distracted and have real-world stuff to do, besides just studying or having fun with my own projects. So…schedule. Make a new daily, weekly routine. — Those two rounds of college and a lifetime of work and caregiving have got to be worth something. — I am still picking myself up and rebuilding my life. It feels more like real progress lately. I am still fighting depression and negatives, but I’m doing better, for months now, and more motivated. How much I’m healing, I don’t really know. Not having the support of friends, family, roommates, someone special, locally, is not helping, but I am getting here, bit by bit, on better days.
And…if I can write this much, just trying to carry on a long-distance, time-delayed conversation with online friends — I should be able to write a complete story. When I’m going well, I can get out several pages a day of rough draft, which I’m told is about how real writers do it.
Fonts. Writing. Studying. — And I hope my friend does come by today like he said. I wish I didn’t have the nuisance of that when it doesn’t happen as promised. I also wish deliveries were consistent and to my door securely, instead of most arriving fine while others, big or small, go randomly elsewhere or to the office, delayed.”
I want to be able to save money and afford my own place again, dang it all.
Back to work. — I’m a mess, but my social life has to get better. It’s at a zero point. It can only go up from there, heh.
Hanneke, I don’t think the teachers despised the children.
From their point of view they were doing their best to help children who were ‘hopeless cases’. It’s simply that the worldview of the teachers and the pupils was completely different. It was a very rough and tough school, because the children who showed any kind of intellectual ability went elsewhere at 12 years old.
Rebanks and his friends hated school, didn’t want to be there, failed deliberately, played stupid, were rude, aggressive, and undisciplined, and refused to learn anything. They must have seemed to the teachers like children from their worst nightmares.
The question is why they were like that, and the fundamental misunderstandings, not only of the education system, but of the modern world in general. That’s one of the things James Rebanks sets out to address in his book.
You can read the first few chapters in the Amazon ‘Look Inside’, here. He talks a bit about his school life at the beginning of the book. There is more later, along with the story of his family, and his own story growing up. Everything is mixed together with stories of work on the farm, but it all comes together and makes a coherent whole.
Isn’t that just a variation of the same old, class-based, religious-based, city-versus-country based biases? Isn’t it also a mutual misunderstanding of who and what the other fellow or the other group are like?
But my comments about kids sensing what a teacher is like and rebelling touch on the kids’ side of that; though maybe I didn’t make my points clearly enough toward that.
For what I presume is his generation, or my generation, or kids today, there can be those kinds of biases, and an ignorance of the psychological and formative factors that make kids, kids, and in a certain mindset or behavioral structure. (Hmm, I’m acting like I know this subject when I don’t, probably, know enough.) But teachers get caught up in the now, in the setting of, they’re the adult in a room full of children or adolescents, and their (the teachers’) instincts tend to act in the moment and forget all that training they are supposed to have had about child/adolescent behavior and thinking, emotional and physical and mental maturation, and so on, and just…act like they, as the adults / teachers, know better. While there can be an argument for handling things by (good, experienced, practiced) instincts, there’s also a need to step back and remember the larger issues, one of which is that each one of those students is an individual in his/her formative years, not yet finished by half, immature, but with some degree of emotional and intellectual maturity going for them, beyond what’s showing on the immediate surface.
Oh, all right, I suspect if you threw me into a room with 25 to 35 kids of whatever ages, I could be pretty easily swamped at first too. At least until or unless I got my sea legs under me or got myself motivated enough to, uh, fight back. Well, not fight, exactly. (One hopes not, but then, one also has former friends/acquaintances who teach in city schools, and one’s one high school now has metal detectors, school uniforms, and occasional alarming reports of what some kid has done, and I went to a pretty good public high school, junior high, and elementary school.) — I think I mixed my metaphors like nobody’s business there. — I guess I’m just defending one or two points of view for the sake of…doing so?
Good grief, where did my theme and assertions go? I am supposed to be better at this than this. Ahem.
—–
I see there is a companion book, “From a Shepherd’s View: Photographs from a Modern….” at the same cost as the book Hanneke and GreenWyvern are discussing, better than I’m managing.
—–
I wrote a bit more and now see, I need to step back and do a bit more planning and world-building. I had the characters moving through the ship, and then realized, duh, I hadn’t thought out the layout, beyond want another starship was supposed to be like.
That new character and the two I had to start with are getting clearer, though. The main character is a little sassy and headstrong, quick to jump in without thinking things through, but smart and with his heart in the right place. And not quite like me, which is refreshing, to see I can write “inside” that character and not get too much back into myself.
So I am still figuring things out, but I like how it’s going now.
I’m doing better about thinking through motivations and consequences and their mental makeups. This feels like I might be about to break through a plateau I didn’t know I was at. But I need to have a breakthrough on plotting stories too.
Writing on it and the discussion here has had me thinking on the nature of being an adolescent, preteen and teen, and by necessity, aboard a starship, everyone needs to contribute to get by. I am sure I am trying to work out some of my own issues from then and now .his feels like it’s going right, at least for now. Not sure of the current draft since that later section, but it feels better than it was so I’m going with it, and with the idea that an edit and rewrite will be needed anyway, to fix problem spots and polish what’s good.
Since the premise is, the cat jumping on the controls sends the ship somewhere else, this also has me thinking of the nature of reality, the dreamworld, alternate realities, and how I’d approach the tropes that are both fun and challenging, but also often not really explored in video, maybe more so in text, in books.
I didn’t know what what to make of the 20th century French writers, Transcendentalism, Existentialism, American and British writers either, much of the time, and my second courses in those were rushed to catch up, because the profs lagged a little. (And probably we students, a lot, mystified, haha.)
But if I’m going to tackle this in a story, I think I need to put some thought into the questions and how to answer them story-wise; and oh, please, showing and not telling and not going into some plot-stalling philosophical expository digression.
Whew, did I swallow a textbook recently, or am I just back in that mode? Haha, apologies, all.
My thanks to the salads here who encouraged / challenged me to write the story from that idea. So far, this is finding real story depth and the characters seem to be building naturally. I think I’ve got so much going on and so little experience crafting a story that this will be somewhere between an approachable and light-hearted YA story, and a more, hmm, complicated adult story. Hopefully one people will actually want to read, teen or adult.
Also, I’m trying hard to keep them acting believably, and to keep the adolescent and kid characters (if the kids show up) acting their age, not impossible mini-adults. I’ve wanted to show people in space as believable, living real lives, doing real work, including the kids; and not the way that certain “kids in space” characters have been badly done in much of video sci=fi. (A few do better at this, and writers, CJ included, tend to handle it better.) But there are things I’ve always wanted to see in SF stories, video or text, that we rarely get to see, or done well, or in realistic, believable detail.
(Also, I would love to see CJ’s books in video the way they’ve done recent quality science fiction. I am not sure how you could successfully translate some of what’s in her books to the screen, but it feels like there should be a way to get it across. There’s so much there in all of them that would make for great film drama and visuals.)
My friend was a no-show today. I’ll have to call and remind (nag?) him tomorrow.
Concerning CJ on the big screen. Some of her works would work. I think that Chanur would make very good anime. Rimrunner and Merchant’s Luck would work as sci-fi movies.
I think you could even do Cyteen and Cyteen 2 but these tend to be more cerebral.
More power to the pissing coyotes.
Jonathan up here in way overheated New Hampshire.
The Chanur Saga, yeah, I think it would need full 3D realistic graphics, the entire thing, with talented actors / voice actors, to do the Compact aliens justice. I’ve always imagined them as having believable but alien, non-human voices, so effects on the voices, per species, would probably do it best. I would think combining the sort of purring undertone lions, tigers, leopards have to their breathing and voices, might work there. The kid seem rodent-like, but with something else in there, quite alien and unearthly, and I think it was two sets of teeth, with that long snout, would give their voices an odd quality, maybe add in a “garden hose” echo tube effect? The stash seem like they’d have more breathy, ethereal voices, but there ought to be an underlying strength there. (Cows and bulls, moose, elephants, maybe, as sources for effects?) The mahendo’sat are very simian and anthropoid, and yet there’s a little something else in there, probably. — I could also see a more realistic or at least semi-realistic style 2D or 3D anime treatment. (I don’t think the usual “anime” style that’s become typical, big-eyed, stylized, would quite do it, given the need for a feeling of realism and oomph, weight, emotional and physical, to the characters and plot lines.) — I would love to see this, but also, I want it given a really good treatment, so we get the story, the characters, and the richness of the world-building done right, without someone coming and meddling with what’s there, trying to redefine it. — Recent multi-episode miniseries or seasons have shown TV and film are up to the task of solid quality SF&F now. (Not always perfect, but some really great stuff lately.)
When I first read Downbelow Station and the Chanur books, I got vivid images in my head of the ships, the characters, and voices, it was so believable and realistic and full-fledged. This follows through with all of her books. And I’ve always liked her strong, punch, less-filler prose style. I remember one reviewer saying her books felt and sounded like real people worked in them, the day-to-day toughness of real living. (I don’t remember the exact description, but I think it was in one of the quoted reviews to get readers to buy the book, for Heavy Time or Rimrunners or Tripping, around that time period…and I believe the back cover was in ITC Kabel, haha. Yes, this is how my memory works. Visuals, sounds, text, feelings.
Yay. My friend was a no-show yesterday and the day before on calls to please pick up packages from the office. But today, without a 3rd call, thank goodness, he stopped by and picked them up. Yet another new person at the apt. offices, and I don’t know if the previous two or three are still there. (Sigh.) So they hadn’t met him, so they had to have me call back independently to verify and give permission for him to pick things up for me, which I did. The cat’s food and litter for the month are therefore in, plus a couple of videos, a pair of shorts, and a shirt. Heh. — One book I ordered might be in my mailbox, or else didn’t get to my door. I’ll have to check further, so I may have to reorder it.
I’m going to wait until next week for a grocery order, though I think the milk’s gone on the blink by now, and I’m out of a couple of other things, minor.
Tonight, I intend to do some Spanish review and may get to some Dutch (new) and some French review. I’m currently irritated again that my Spanish isn’t back up to former fluency, so I need to devote some time to it and French review. That would sure feel better.When I get enough Dutch built up to feel like I know anything and I’m not stumbling, crawling, with something that looks and sounds like it should be so familiar and easy, I’ll like that. (I keep seeing things that insist Dutch has a blurry g/gh sound like the Spanish and Greek g are between (hard) vowels. But in spoken Dutch, I hardly hear this, and instead I hear a kh sound like in Buch, Bach, Loch, reloj, jalapeño. (Spanish jota is, in the older, more formal variety, more of a kh than an hh.) I am still puzzled by the various books’ attempts to explain Dutch vowels. Wiki explains the system as much more simplified in modern times than from the Enlightenment and just prior, with modern dialectal variation, especially in cities and younger speakers, adding in some new oddities besides. — I personally hear ij as either ah-ee like Continental ai, or eh-ee, like Continental éi or èi, depending. But I get the impression it can be midway between those, sort of a Cockney-like ae like in cat, followed by ee, ae-ee, or some other a-vowel closer to an e-vowel, with the ee after it. But every time I get into it, I see so much that’s almost like English, just a little bit different. The spoken video and audio still puzzles me. it’s similar but different enough that the two are clashing with my knowledge of English, current and studied bits from Chaucer and Beowulf and medieval Middle English poems. Once I’ve absorbed enough, been around it enough, that should solve itself.
Hearing Spanish more has me more conscious of when I do and don’t kick in with thinking in Spanish and recognizing the spoken forms as much as possible. This shows me how rusty I still am and what I did and didn’t know before. — Haha, attempts at conversation and comprehension are still hit-and-miss: I know some things just fine, and others, I don’t know yet at all. And I keep running into words I think I should know, or that I feel silly for not realizing I don’t have in my vocabulary, or when I can’t recognize something I feel like I ought to be able to figure out. But that’s OK; the times I’ve tried conversations (typically with maintenance workers), they have liked that I’d try to talk to them in Spanish and get amused and sympathetic with my fumbling attempts to get things across and understand them. Because often, their English is not nearly as fluent as my Spanish. — I know I am still not near where I was after two years of Spanish plus my French, which had me pretty well close to, but not yet at, reading short stories and longer prose, and deeper, full-fledged study of verb tenses and idioms and prepositions, plus acquiring the large amount of vocabulary an everyday speaker has, or a college-level speaker has. (Cathy’s grandson can probably outdo me right now. If he’s comprehending most of what he’s reading in Spanish-language novels, without too much dictionary and verb-book lookups, then he’s more fluent with the written forms, and probably with spoken/hearing comprehension.) One major plus: Spanish and French grammar are as cloys as, say, English and Dutch and German. Spanish and French verb systems are broadly similar, once you get past the different approaches French took versus Spanish, where Spanish is more regular.
Oh boy, am I geeking out again. Haha.
@BCS, regarding the soft or hard pronounciation of the g (and ch), both are correct, depending on whether you live north or south of the rive Rhine.
North is standard Dutch (known as ABN, “algemeen beschaafd Nederlands”, meaning generally civilised Dutch) and uses a hard g; but if that hurts your throat just go with the soft G and go for a YouTube/audio teacher from the southern provinces of Noord-Brabant or Limburg (or even the Flanders (Dutch-speaking) part of Belgium, though they use some more local words too).
Ah, OK, I think I’ve got that, then. I can do both the blurry-g gh and the blurry-k / very strong hh kh sounds. They’re the same thing, pairs contrasted by “voicing,” vibrating the vocal cords, kh/gh and palatal versions.
—–
No signs of the two felines or the human this morning. Heavy rain a couple of nights ago, someone using a grinder wheel last night.
The cat litter didn’t arrive at the office either. The shipper says it was delivered Sunday with the rest of the order. Good thing I’m not out of it! But gee.
Heh, Goober is glad I came back. Gee, kitty, I was gone all of 10 to 15 minutes. Separation anxiety, buddy? That’s OK, it’s nice somebody’s glad to see me.
Time for a quick costume change. There may be too much detail for these small images, but it’s appropriate for this month, in a way.
A Roman centurion?
Oh, for emperor Augustus!
😉 Indeed.
Since the names of all the months are the Roman names, perhaps you should keep it all year.
“I bought myself a pair of combination underwear.
They would not rip and they would not tear!
I wore them six months without exaggeration,
I couldn’t take them off, I forgot the combination!”
There is an interesting article in National Geographic (online at least) on how climate change is likely to advance raccoons migrating north into the boreal forests. There is serious concern about these “trash pandas” and the threat they pose to the environment.
I was surprised they are such a pest in not only the U.S. and Europe but also Japan where people imported them by the thousands because of some beloved cartoon character then found they made terrible pets and set them loose in the wild.
I live in the forest and have only had one on my deck a few years ago that never returned nor do I hear complaints about them from around the area – just warnings that they can bite and scratch, carry rabies and to stay away from them even though they look cute.
They have become a problem in many cities and I am sorry you have one or more to deal with. I will be interested to see if the coyote urine works. Unfortunately the article did not give ways to get rid of them other than trapping and removing.
At least in North America, the density of the raccoon population is much, much higher in urban and semi-urban areas than in rural areas (from memory, something like 10/square mile in urban vs. 4/square mile in rural). I suspect it has to do with abundance of food (urban trash) sources.
And yes, coon skin coats and hats (I had a very warm one when I was a kid living in Montreal) are a great idea!
I’d suggest taking that article with a grain of salt. You live in a forest, so you’re more aware of the daily balance of nature than most people. City-folks, who tend to be the source of the worries and warnings about such things as raccoons, tend to forget something, because city-folks tend to be so disconnected from nature. Even in cities, and certainly outside them, nature is connected. Or to oversimplify it, raccoons are raccoons. They’re part of nature. Humans are the only species whose (slightly higher but not smart enough) intelligence and use of tool-making skills, have made such changes to their environment that they can affect the outcome, and can also think/feel they are outside of or beyond affecting nature or nature affecting them.
The dang raccoons will just do what raccoons do, what they’re tailor-made to do. They’re omnivorous, clever scavenger predators and opportunists, and again, clever. Sure, if there’s any kind of foothold, they’ll take advantage and expand into it, and go right on being raccoons, doing what they do. And sure, they’re not pets, they’re wild animals. But hey, that’s fine, that’s what they’re supposed to be and do, right? Possibly, we humans are a little jealous of the raccoons stealing our turn and taking our gig, outdoing us at our own game? Heh, maybe so. Are they a nuisance? Yes, often. so are stray dogs and cats and the citified squirrels and possums and monkeys, where they are, and oh yeah, all those excess people running about, stray or in homes. (Witness how very full the apartment complex dumpsters get every few days, you know?)
I’m just being contrarian, I guess, but I tend to think raccoons, like any wild animals, are just doing their thing, and people getting all upset that they would do that are kinda missing the point of what’s the nature (pun intended) of those animals, and of how nature works, because the people too worried about it are city-folks who think they’re somehow better than nature, who think they somehow know better. But manifestly, human beings as a species do not know better, and are just overgrown critters who are not sas smart as they think they are, also doing what (human) critters do.
Er, and I hope my tone comes across as talking with you rather than argumentative or dismissive or being crabby. — I grew up on the edge of the city limits, with our property bordering on fields and a small woods, with parents who’s parents were farmers (see above defense of rural folks) and so — I tend to have some sympathy for, and a little more understanding of, that natural world. (Or I hope I’m better about it, anyway.)
Note: I once had a couple of raccoons partying in the attic at my parents’ old house, after my parents were gone and before I’d moved things out and sold it. Oh, real exciting to wake up in the middle of the night and wonder, hey, is that animals or humans, and are they on the roof, in the attic, or in the house itself and about to get me? Heheheh. (Both funny and scary at the time, lemme tell ya.) And lo, I did my very best impression of a crazy human, yelling and fussing and making noise, to convince them to leave. I also did tell them, you know, keep it down, maybe not damage anything, and if they’d pay me rent, we could consider a deal…. LOL. Too bad it didn’t work, right? Somehow, they did not want to pay rent and wanted to continue partying, fighting, or mating, or whatever it is that raccoons like to do, making all that racket, running around in an attic. Heh. — So yeah, I do have some sympathy and understanding for the “dang varmints are a blamed nuisance, get rid of ’em!” camp. — Those raccoons did decide I was maybe not acting that hard, acting crazy and yelling and making noise, and did leave. — And oh yeah, I did wonder if they’d realize they could call my bluff and rush me, etc. But I guess they thought they were getting a pretty good deal, living the life, rent-free, crashing that party pad. — I dunno, maybe if they’d invited me, we could’ve worked something out after all? Hahaha.
I suspect if they are pushing into northern forests, colonizing due to warmer weather, doing their usual scavenging and hunting, well, that’s just what raccoons and all other animals, plants, fungi, micro life, are won’t to do, so they’ll go right on and do it. I’d also suspect that in warming and cooling periods, they’ve always done that, ever since there were raccoons and humans.
Maybe the lesson is not for folks to get all uppity and fussy about the raccoons, but to consider, hey, wait a minute, maybe if we humans were doing less to throw the global climate into an uproar, those raccoons might not be advancing northward into the boreal forests. (Advancing raccoons — had me thinking they were super-evolving, one of those rapid evolutionary bursts. And the “boreal forests” bit sounds so fantastically in need of a good story setting with heroes and questing. 🙂 No objection whatsoever to words like boreal, though. Perfectly wonderful word. Hyperboreal’s a good word too. — Oh nuts, now I can’t recall if the other is “antiboreal” or “austral” or some such. My bad. Arctic and antarctic, for northern and not-northern, southern, I get. And I recall that “arctos” is a word for bears somehow too. Heh, my head is filled with weird word-trivia like that. If only I’d get paid for it. Heheh.
It’s 12:10am and I am awake again because my body-clock never cares what time the rest of the world is, much. So I am about to do my thing again, fonts, some writing, and whatever else I get up too. Trying to stay positive and productive, with that goal in mind of completing projects so I can improve my situation.
Woke back up, did something loosely called writing fiction. Got about 14 more half-pages of rough draft with some margin notes to check back in there to make sure of continuity. All told, I have 48 half-pages, one of which is a cover page. It’s in a regular font rather than Courier, to give me a rough idea of how much I might have in a novel-sized book.
I have a separate file of notes on world-building and details, and need to add and check from what I’ve written new in the story.
This is not the most I’ve ever written towards a story, but it’s getting closer.
Heh, of the starting problem, only one character is halfway taken care of for introductions, and two others still need to have their initial parts done past introduction, before we get to the problem premise that launched the story.
I am guessing I have something that should be novella or novel length, with three rough draft chapters so far.
It needs to grow to something like twice this, to surpass my previous largest, most complete attempts, and then pass that and become a finished story in rough draft, before I’ll know if it’ll see the light of day.
But this is a start. I also think I may need to rewrite sections, as I’m not entirely sure about the character I’d just spent time on. The others, I’m more sure of. So I think this could change quite a bit before it’s past rough and further drafts into a final draft. But hey, it’s a start.
It keeps trying to be a more serious story than the premise seems to be. I’m not sure if the more serious side is right for this story.
It’s not an octopus, it’s more of a blob right now. But it’s going, and that’s good.
I like the main few characters, and I think I may have eased up on one too soon, so that might need to get tweaked too. Not yet sure of the supporting characters.
It’s a start, though.
Should I be worried that the stray cat is still loose aboard the starship? Oh, probably, but it’s only been a few hours, maybe, depending on which chapter and character we’re with. So…hmm…this may be productive, story-wise, after all.
Whew, that’s about six hours writing and staring at the screen. Gotta take a break and maybe nap. It’s after 6:00am or so here. Yeah, I am rarely in synch with the rest of the world, but today, I’m in another of those nocturnal out-of-synch with the daytime world phases.
I’d thought the main character would be the one chasing down and finding the cat, but the cat had to go get himself loose aboard ship. Heh. So resolving those two for the starting problem is next up. The cat and the boy are not out of trouble for that yet, and have not yet gotten themselves into trouble by the cat jumping on the controls, yet. — So that’s up ahead. Someone’s going to be in big, big trouble after that! 😀 Except the whole ship will be in bigger trouble. … Which the author still has to think up a way through to resolution, along with whatever else they get up to along the way.
(I’m also enjoying the fact that the main character (the boy rather than the cat, that is) is not like me in personality or temperament. At least, not mostly. I’m enjoying having him be someone I’m not and wasn’t as a kid. The cat, I think, will write himself.)
@BCS, as I’ve never done any creative writing myself, you can ignore the unsolicited advice I’m going to be giving you next, if it doesn’t resonate with you. I’m still going to write it down, just this once, as I think you tend to get stuck on the same things repeatedly.
From what you’ve said I get the impression you tend to get stuck on rewriting the start of your stories, tweaking and working out the characters.
Maybe this time you might try not to do that, so as not to get the editor-part of your brain involved, as I hear that editor-brain often tends to stifle or block the creative first-draft brain.
Maybe just try to go on with the story, making notes for yourself when you get good ideas to put back in the start, or ideas about the characters that might need to be retroactively changed in the earlier chapters.
That way you might be able to work through to some idea of where the story is going, and get a rough draft of a story with a beginning, middle and end.
Then for the second pass you can look at all your notes and put in the missing bits and change the things you had second thoughts about.
Patricia Wrede’s blog about writing tells me every writer, and every story, has their own process that works best for them, so this might not work for you, but there are many different ways to try if one method doesn’t work for you with this story.
From the examples she gives, this can vary from writers who’se prose gets ‘set in concrete’ (if they don’t do the continuous editing they can’t think of changing the text later), to someone who wrote all the different elements in separate passes (e g. first draft is just ‘what happens’, second adds the dialogue, third adds descriptions, fourth adds feeling and internal thoughts…), so definitely not ‘one size fits all’ (which never works anyway, for anything).
One thing they all agree on however is that it is important to learn to finish a story from beginning to end, before you get to work on refining your craft further.
If halfway through the story you suddenly decide it’s better to make the boy the son of the ship’s cook rather than the captain, so he has the run of the kitchen and stores but not the bridge; or the cat turns from an inquisitive adolescent into a momcat anxious to get back to her kittens hidden in the pantry – make a note to yourself, don’t go back to rewriting those first chapters where you introduced them, but write on as if those new elements have been incorporated from the first.
Last bit of unsolicited advice: I think you get stuck in a rut on working out your characters’ emotions and interactions, which turns the stories dark and less YA and more similar to what you’ve already tried writing, because you get stuck on working out your own emotional bagage through your writings.
It might help to try and write the first draft without explicitely working out the emotions inside the story – just put in little notes like “A & B quarrel”, “A & B have a tearful reconciliation, much explanation ensues”, “B goes off alone in a huff/pout/funk” and go on with where the story goes from there.
Then on the second pass, when you know where the story is going and know your protagonists better, you might decide that a tearful reunion so doesn’t fit these people, they’re just going to have a sensible phone conversation – the point of that scene in the story-action was the exchange of information which resulted in subsequent actions, but how they came to that exchange can be tweaked to showcase the characters, once you know them better.
The same with the “going off alone” – whether the reason was anger, fear, curiosity or an emotional angsty funk does not impact the fact of his being alone (which was relevant to the subsequent action, maybe because that meant he could be kidnapped, or had no witnesses to seeing the alien pick up his cat and take it out through the wall, and what is going on here???).
The point here is that if you try to put the emotions into your characters before you really get to know them well, too much of what you put into them comes from yourself. Letting them develop throughout the whole adventure, without having to think up a whole backstory to a complete personality from the first, gives you a chance to get to know them, see what they might do and how they might react to the situations they encounter, before you weigh them down with preconceived notions.
Then once the first draft is finished and you’ve seen how they have turned out to react to things, you go back and start to color in the plot/action-sketch with the emotional shading necessary to show their personalities.
Some things about their personalities you’ll know before you start: the boy is attached to the cat (knowing why is not necessary at this point) and won’t let it come to harm; the boy will not endanger the ship on purpose (but might do so tgrough ignorance) – a few such basics, but try not to dive into the deeper motivations and emotions before you get the story going well, as I get the strong impression that that is where you get bogged down.
That, and maybe not being able to think of a way out of the doldrums in the middle, or the trouble you’ve got your protagonists into – but for the last, if you can reduce the problem they’re stuck in to basics, you could pose it as a puzzle to talk about here (or elsewhere) the many clever minds here might be able to figure a way out.
Hi, Hanneke, and thank you. Some of that helps and some is at an angle from how I seem to do things or think about storytelling, enough that it may spark some movement.
For this particular story, rewriting the start to get it right was important, but is a little unusual to my process. — And yes, this is a work-habits or personality-approach problem that goes throughout how I do a lot of things. (Not all, of course.) — I tend to get a big idea / a few of them, and I may or may not see yet how they interrelate. Excited to get the new idea down and create something, hah, I get a lot done at the start and towards the middle. But somewhere in there, if I don’t have a story-ending or a full plot worked out, I get bogged down and can get discouraged. Sometimes an idea just seems to peter out. Other times, I get going on something else. — This tends to happen in different ways in other work I do too. And something I noticed clearly back when I was a college student in my early sophomore-level programming classes: Instead of mapping out, outlining, top-down what needed to be there, I would too often dive down, and just…write from start to finish, at the fine detail level, when I knew that was too soon in the programming process. How that applies to the fiction-writing process, I’m not sure, but I think I have somewhat the same issue there. I think it varies for me from project to project, or depending on the type of work. (Writing fiction versus non-fiction versus poetry, drawing fonts, packing/unpacking, designing program code, are all very different things. Cooking’s different, in scale and timespan and approach, and somehow in the mental and emotional and cognitive processes I use, so it doesn’t seem to be affected much. — When I was out in the professional work world, that was always a stream of several projects going at once, though smaller and higher-priority ones would get handled first, and longer-term or larger projects typically got done in chunks, work sessions. I did mosty fine in studying in school and college. In the work world, there was also always a high-pressure deadline on both larger and smaller work. And my mom was bad about pushing too hard, which didn’t help. (Yes, my mom was my boss until she became too ill and later passed away.) But overall, I think I did fine, work-wise. — That type of work is also typically smaller stuff or manageable chunks, and well-defined.
In story-writing, I typically have a pretty good idea of the emotional makeup of a character, though occasionally, they’ll surprise me. Sometimes a character simply shows up when you’re writing something. Sometimes that character can take over! It’s very odd but fun. — Usually, I start because I get an idea, a scene at the start or the middle around the climax, something with some oomph or meaning to it. That typically has one or a few fairly well-defined characters, the action of the scene and the problem therein which they’re in dramatic conflict over. But not always, maybe rarely, do I get an ending in mind, and sometimes not the climax, so that a plot line / arc isn’t there, and that’s a problem. Or I may “wander around and get lost” in the story. (Is it too big or just too nebulous where I haven’t figured it out yet?) Or I can lose steam or get discourage, or occasionally, the idea just seems to lose its fizz or disappear entirely. (I’ve heard other writers say similar things, and they don’t know why this is either.) The inspiration and excitement are important to keep the creative process going. Yes, sometimes, I’ll get stuck: How the heck do I get them out of the problem I just wrote them into? — And I’ve noticed something funny: I can sometimes see other people’s issues, or story-character’s issues better than my own, to know how to deal with them. Something about the difference between living real life in my own head, versus seeing other people dealing with things, or stories, is different. I always feel more muddled and less sure in my own life situations and decisions. But when things are going well, when I’m in the zone, creatively, oh, that’s fantastic, and I just whizz right along.
I didn’t used to get bogged down with my own issues, past, emotions, etc. intruding into stories. Even when I was in college the first time and struggling with being gay and not coming out, I didn’t seem to have a problem with my own issues intruding, edging into, my fiction writing attempts. (I outlined a few story ideas more extensively, but again, too detailed.) I seem determined to jump in and write, but planning is needed. — It was only during and after my mom’s and dad’s passing and when I was then truly on my own, beginning to take care of my grandmother, and swamped with everything, plus then starting to deal with things that had been pushed aside too long (being gay, mainly), that I started seeing things intrude a little from my own life into my writing. It reached a severe point, the last few years, and it might be easing off a bit over the past few months, but it hasn’t resolved itself yet. — And having my own hangups and history intrude into writing situations and characters just is not always good for story-writing or one’s own feelings of emotional well-being, health. But yes, it’s a clear sign I’m needing to work things out, and writing is one way that happens.
I’ve taken it as a good sign that this story is progressing the way it is, with characters, who aren’t much like myself, necessarily. I want to keep that separate and have a story that’s free from that.
Note: Shortly after I came out, I went to a counselor (psych) who was recommended to me. I went for a little over a year, and felt I was spending a lot of money I couldn’t afford, with too little results. But I was early on in the process and right in the middle of some of the worst of my grandmother’s illness. It’s maybe no wonder I wasn’t making much progress. And how much of my various personal nonsense would work itself out more easily than I think, with the right chances, situations, people, well, I don’t know. But I wish it would. I’m very frustrated and I’m doing my best to keep going and work through things. But the lack of enough support from friends or loves is not helping that. (And I am blocked and resisting in some ways, I am sure, but some of it is blockage that I don’t know how to unblock, in part because I don’t know what the real block is.) (And I have never been physically abused, by the way. There also wasn’t any intentional or conscious emotional abuse / neglect at home, but I’ve recognized there were factors there in how my parents raised me and how we interacted when I was an adult that enter into it. I think my parents didn’t see some things in their own behavior, and thought they were doing right, or that there wasn’t a problem. — They were just human, not perfect. But as with most families or relationships, there were a few things that we’re dysfunctional. — I think I socialized pretty well, and I was in regular classes in school. But this had both good and bad effects on me growing up. Plus, oh, I have a big perfectionist and stubborn streak, and I grew up in a moderate to conservative family in both religious and secular terms. My parents were in their mid-30’s when they had me; and having a handicapped child as your first and only child has its own problems for parents and for the child growing up.) Well, so I grew up and didn’t do too badly, I think. But yes, the baggage bothers me.
When writing, at least for me, it’s all of a piece, it happens organically. The characters and the scenes unfold as if you’re in them, participating or watching.
At least for me, fiction writing is like an extended form of “Let’s Pretend” where the make-believe gets written down as you go. But instead of being in the spur of the moment, pretending, acting, playing, the way we do when we’re kids, when it’s in writing (and in plays, I think) it’s a more fully realized thing. As you get older, into the teen years and adulthood, your emotional and mental landscape expands and changes, so those pretend sessions become more like full worlds inside your head, and for people who write those down, or probably for actors, who act those out on stage, you…document the process of living through those let’s-pretend scenarios. Where you might have had a sketchy idea of pretend characters you and your friends were playing, or those imaginary friends, once you get further along in life, those become more fully realized. (And I think some kids can have more fully realized characters too, but I think also that’s dependent on which character it is.)
Somehow, that process gives us great literature and plays, which, you know, is a healthy thing. (I am very glad, though, that I do know where my reality and imagination begin and end. But that’s needed if you have a story-minded bent.)
There are times when the story and characters morph during the process. Or those characters who just show up and become more than you thought they were. But I suppose that is natural to the process. It’s just hard to pin it down when you’re new to it as a structured art form, trying to craft a story into a finished, full work.
It’s still going well. Tonight was doing up a web page design as a start to what this will look like when done. My old design skills insist a book or manga or whatever it might be also has a look and a style to it. Heh.
So, progress of a sort.
Oh, and yes, my editor-brain too often wants to intrude too early, and I am still newbie enough that I have bouts of, “Oh, but that section there is ‘perfect,’ I can’t change that!” Um, it may or many not be perfect and need to stay as-is. It might need to be removed or rewritten or written around if it’s where a problem is. But that editor-brain and the perfectionist bent are way too prone to think something’s ntot quite right, not good enough. Darn Protestant work ethic and guilt, anyway, LOL.)
Tomorrow is likely to be font work and some more draft writing, plus fiddling with the web page mockup. — I need to get myself on a schedule to study one or two books on EPUB2 and EPUB3, which I have been putting off for (mumble, mumble) amount of time, but which I really want/need to master, so I can do ebook conversions.
Then too, we could always bring back the raccoon coat.
Hahaha — “There are, of course, different schools of thought on the subject.” — Malcolm Reynolds. — LOL, thanks, NosenDove. Good rejoinder.
Or the “Davey Crockett” coonskin hat.
Somewhere in the mists of time I acquired a black velvet muff. (A muff, as well as being a hand warmer, is actually a purse) One side is smocked, the other side is fur, which is obviously raccoon. The whole thing is beautiful and warm but the climate here is too warm and damp to get much use out of it.
Ethical issues aside, people who are shoddy housekeepers like myself could/should never own fur coats. Moths yanno.
Just now, I was reminded of a book or two, but I’m not sure of the author or titles. These were 1980’s Star Trek novels, and the author might have been Diane Duane, but my memory thinks it may have been someone else. These were inspired by the Hornblower and Aubrey/Maturin novels, and by her own experience learning to sail, and then on tall ships. I don’t recall if she’d had real naval experience. The central character for the two books was a young woman, an ensign or lt. jr. grade, thrown into a command situation during an emergency, a surprise attack, and then her progress dealing with this once she was transferred to the Enterprise. I think there was a sequel, but I don’t recall as much about that. I think she had a couple of scenes where the ensign / lieutenant was aboard a tall ship or a sail boat. At the time, I had never read the Forrester or O’Brien books. I remember these as being good reads. — I’m going to look under Diane Duane’s name, but I think this may have been someone else. Oh, maybe Barbara Hambly? Nuts, I don’t remember. If anyone else knows, please let me know, thanks.
Aha! Think I found it. — Dreadnoughts! (#29) and Battlestations! (#31) by Diane Carey. The customer reviews talk about sailing jargon and give mostly good and a few negative reviews. I recall these as being good reads, back when I was a teen.
This also took me whizzing past Diane Duane, Barbara Hambly, and A.C. (Anne) Crispin and some great books I recall, and oh my, many I haven’t read by them. I didn’t stop to look over what else Anne Crispin had. Vonda McIntyre’s books also turned up while searching.
I haven’t read (yet) Diane Duane’s Young Wizards books, but besides the oh-so-intriguing A Wizard of Mars title, one jumped out at me: Interim Errantry, also in the series, but it may be three shorts/novellas as standalones. Also, The Book of Night With Moon, which cover looks almost familiar, but which I don’t think I’ve red. I think some of her backlist books are available in ebook somewhere, a personal or group site. I will go looking for that, as the price for any new/used-condition paperback was :cough: prohibitive.
And — A whole slew of books by Barbara Hambly I had no idea of, SF&F mystery, historical mystery, dragons, vampires, a black freeman or freedman as a main character in a historical mystery series, and so on. And dang, the lady has a knack for some of the most eye-catching, intriguing titles I’ve seen. I must be in the right mood. (OK, I’m a terribly easy sell on books.) — I will have to check out some of those later. Looked good just from those titles. Man.
Besides a few Star Trek titles, A.C. Crispin wrote the novelization for the V (Visitors) miniseries in the 1980’s and a sequel. I haven’t looked to see what else she has written.
I’m realizing I’ve read a lot more women SF&F authors than I’d thought. 🙂
I rather enjoyed the two books. The main characters seemed to be building along the same lines as the OS characters, a Next Gen approach that, sadly, didn’t catch on. There were, among others, an engineer from Tennessee (shades of Trip Tucker!) and a Vulcan security officer who was ostracized because of his weapons proficiency among peace-loving Vulcans. Like many series written by multiple authors, the Star Trek novels are uneven in quality, characterization, pacing, and a lot of detail; some are very good, and some — not so much.
Rachel Neumeier was talking about the best Star Trek tie-in novels, and the two you were looking for are in that list.
Might give you some more ideas for good books in that series to try.
Looking at that. I wonder how many I’ve read and whose titles I recognize. In the 80’s, I read several Star Trek novels along with other SF&F.
I haven’t been reading the last couple of nights. I got some writing and background world-building done, but not reading or studying.
This reminds me, I’d bought Yvgenie, Rusalka, and I think Chernevog, by CJ, and haven’t read them. I want to read them. I also need to read the two Rider books and reread Tripoint and the Cyteen trilogy/omnibus. My To-Read pile would have fallen over if it weren’t virtual, ebooks. Heh.
Students today can’t do simple mental arithmetic because of calculators. Now there’s a phone app that lets you point your phone at an equation (either printed in a book or written by hand), and it not only solves it, but shows you all the steps.
Apparently it does:
* Basic Math/Pre-Algebra: arithmetic, integers, fractions, decimal numbers, powers, roots, factors
* Algebra: linear equations/inequalities, quadratic equations, systems of equations, logarithms, functions, matrices, graphing, polynomials
* Trigonometry/Precalculus: identities, conic sections, vectors, matrices, complex numbers, sequences and series, logarithmic functions
* Calculus: limits, derivatives, integrals, curve sketching
* Statistics: combinations, factorials
So much for math homework!
I was never as fast at basic arithmetic in my head, even though I grew up when calculators were not allowed until you reached calculus and trigonometry in college. Over the years, my mental arithmetic has gotten a bit better with practice, but I doubt it’s as good as those who do so by nature. — Once I got the central concept of what and why calculus does what it does, oh, that was amazing, and I _liked_ higher math. There’s a beauty and art and perfection to it, in a way. — I was lucky to have some good teachers who got through to the simplicity and beauty/art of math, the logic and usefulness to it.
Good grief, pointing a phone app at an equation and having it solve it and show the steps? Just from a phone camera click and scan? Eegad. — LOL! Better hope it doesn’t misread the writing or printing when it does it, or you’ll still get GIGO results (garbage in, garbage out).
However, oh, do I wish my Data Structures grad student instructor could have given us printed, typed notes instead of…. We’d go in, she’d spew forth the entire room-length chalkboard full of notes, writing and talking as fast as she could, and we’d frantically copy it all down in our notebooks as fast as we could while trying to listen and think up questions. This was like a Xerox machine gone horribly wrong. She’d erase from the first, left side as soon as she’d filled the last column board, and we’d continue the entire time, with rare exceptions to go over anything. Written notes would have saved everyone a lot of nonsense work. I can guarantee that doing this at as high-speed as I could did nothing to help me absorb the lessons in my brain or by sheer muscle memory. Heh. — Dry-erase whiteboards were only starting to get put in on campus or in junior colleges or basic (1-ary, 2-ary) education. Computer presentations were not yet a thing. By the time I went back for my second go-round through college, it had all changed. But they didn’t yet have the fancy and enviable “smart whiteboards” (or whatever they call them) which have h/v scanners or surface scanners / touchscreens fitted to them, to record notes as written and drawn on the board, to save for class notes / presentations. Those things are expensive, but boy, are they impressive.
Gah, point-and-click higher math, advanced calculus at the press of a button?! Wow.
(I remember reading 50’s era SF stories from some of the greats, where the redoubtable square-jawed, crewcut hero would climb the ladders with his slide rule clutched in his teeth, ready to do the complex calculations required for the emergency jump to hyperspace… with the massive ship’s computer, where, of course, he’d enter his own calculations by hand… and the computer, big and powerful as it was… was not used for any of this, apparently. — Of course, he also tended to have a pistol with real bullets or a ray-gun of some kind, and maybe a big piratical knife, to fight off the villains, who were from, ah, either fascist or some other group from the Cold War era, bent on the hero’s destruction. Or perhaps evil space pirates. Or bug-eyed monsters. — Or more occasionally, well-thought-out villains or aliens. (I’m being unkind there, and yes, I loved those stories. And whew, by today’s standards… It was a remarkable thing if (1) there were any women aboard, and (2) they were intelligent, had minds of their own, were officers, and, yeah. They also were nearly always Caucasians, Americans, sometimes Europeans, rarely from anywhere else. (And never mind if humans had been in space for centuries and they were from other planets, former colonies.) … Oh, nuts, I am doing a disservice there to formative sci-fi pulp literature. They were also inspiring, could rise above the usual tropes and mindsets of the time, and paved the way for later works.)
But that heroic scientist / poet / soldier with his trusty slide-rule and relying on doing the hyperspace calculations in his head in realtime would have fainted and blessed the stars above if he’d known he could program the computer to do it, or if he could point his wristwatch phone (Dick Tracy style) at a page full of handwritten higher math and have it solve it for him, with steps shown, just like you’re supposed to in class (and in written reports, tech papers). He’d be crying in his beer / tomato juice / whatever that stuff is he’s drinking.
He never thought to ask the telepathic mutant cat, either. 😀 (I can’t claim that, that’s from a female writer of the same era, bless her wonderful heart.) (I like both authors, but I’ll admit the one author no longer holds up quite as well as he once did.)
Story Progress: I got a bit more written and some world-building and web page fiddling done on the side. I wrote a few more pages, not much more yet, but I have a little to go before I’m back to (ahem) needing that overall story plan. You know, a full plot outline and character arcs. Though I think something’s percolating, with one or two alternatives that are complete opposites for turnouts, dénouements.
I have a better idea of where this can go in the middle, which could be fun and creative and exploratory, existential/transcendental, slightly psychedelic or dream-world? (And I am not of that mindset generally, but this seems to call for it.) I am getting a better idea of who’s who and why, including a bit more about that cat, who’s still a mystery, and the other kid who showed up, also a mystery. The central character, a boy, makes some better sense, and another character I thought would be in this…hasn’t shown up at all and his place is taken by another one. Heh. I guess the rest of the ship’s crew are off doing desk work or in the other cargo hold or something. 😀
One supporting character hasn’t shown up yet, and I haven’t figured out if there are any cats, dogs, other Earth critters, or alien critters on the ship.
So this is shaping up OK, still going well, and has a better chance as of last night than it did of becoming a finished story. Not there yet.
Side Note: I came across an interesting little coincidence, and I don’t know if it’s a borrowing across language-families or a coincidence, or what.
Amat is Latin for “he, she, it loves,” present tense. Amatus is the past particle (or maybe past gerund?) form, modern-day Amato or Amado or Aimé (no second E, that’d be for a girl or woman.) Amatus means, “Loved One (Male), Beloved (Male).” More generally, without the reflexive or other direct object, it means simply, “Loved,” the same way English has the past participle in, “has loved, had loved.”
Amit in Sanskrit, means “immeasurable, infinite,” which I think the atevi and the mahendo’sat might find very intriguing. If you squint very hard, scrunch up your nose just right, you can perhaps see, once you know it’s cognate, “a-” plus “-mit-” are similar to “an-, in-/im-, un-” and “measure, mensur-, -meter-” from Western European distant-cousin-languages. There might be a Germanic cognate, but I’m not thinking of one right off. Anyway, this was interesting, but gives a quite different (and handy) alternative for a name, Amit, rather than Amat. (I wouldn’t be surprised at all if “amit-” in Sanskrit has other forms like “amat-” or “amut-” depending on tense and number, verb versus noun versus modifier word (adj./adv.) and so on. Indo-European languages tend to do that with their vowels to show changes in meaning.
But then I found the one that surprised me because it’s cognate when it shouldn’t be.
Amit in Hebrew, according to the name site I used, means, “Friend.” But Hebrew and Latin, or Hebrew and Sanskrit either, are not related languages. Amat and Amatus and Amantus/Amandus in Latin can’t be cognate to Hebrew Amit. Unless one of two things have happened.
One is that Hebrew could have borrowed the term from Latin. But if so, it would’ve likely borrowed Amicus, Amica, the Latin noun for friend, rather than Amat or Amatus or Amandus (-ing verbal form) or Amantis (?) which might be the adjectival form if I’m guessing right. — Hebrew did possibly borrow other words, like Adonai (Lord) from Greek. So it’s possible, but not so likely. I’d expect “friend” would be highly specific to the language itself, and tend to have staying power from the native source, rather than replacement by a word from an entirely other language-family.
English. “friend” is probably a borrowing or a native word. Dutch has vriende and German has Freund, and the Middle English forms were friende, friande, frionde, friaunde. (Pardon me, the browser spellchecker wants to argue over respelling all those into Modern English.)
But English used to have Wynn / Wine, including as a suffix used in names. (Godwin meant either, “friend of God, God’s friend” or “good friend.” (God, in the Judeo-Christian God sense, and good, are from the same Old English and Common Germanic roots.)
So in other words, a language can replace even a very important and commonly used word with another one, for whatever reasons. (They liked it better that way.)
The other way Amit in Hebrew might be cognate is — -am- or -ma- is a baby-talk syllable common throughout most of human languages, for Mama, (or Ama, Amam, etc.) and for the concept of love, in general or in the nurturing motherly way. And it gets extended to love in general, to liking, to friendship, to more amorous love (see, right there), and so on. (nana and ana, papa/aba/avo and taa/dada/atta/ada are other baby-talk words for mommy and daddy/papa, aunt and uncle, or grandma and grandpa, that crop up often). But ma- / -ama- / -am- seems to be the one that sticks most. It’s natural that that little baby-talk word might stick around through much of human history, migration, mergers and splits, as the word for mama, and therefore related to loving and liking and friendliness, because that first connection to kinship and family and group, tribe, troop, is so deep down in our biology and our cultural history. — Whoever Adam and Eve were, whoever those first few talkers were who used language as more than just emotional sounds, they might have said Ama or Mama for mother and maybe by extension for loving and friendly relationships.
And on the third hand (what?!) (other foot?) maybe Hebrew has a very good reason completely unrelated, for just happening to have a word that looks cognate but isn’t really. — I don’t know enough about Hebrew to guess properly. (IIRC, one’s grandma and grandpa are Bubbe and Dudde, or something like that, in Hebrew. Now I’ve got to go loo that up too. Heh.)
I thought the Amit / Amat, Latin, Sanskrit, Hebrew connection was at least of interest to folks here. “Immeasureable, Infinite” has a resonance too, along with friendship or love.
The story characters are running around with names like Boy1 and Ens1 and Cat1, because they haven’t named themselves yet. I ascribe to that theory that cats name themselves, and so I tend to think characters should also. It’s that, or they keep getting the same few hundred popular names or a random pick that doesn’t sound quite right.
Tyce, short for Tyson or as an English spelling for Thijs, short for Matthijs, the Dutch version of Matthias or Matthew, may get used in this or another story. I have never seen “Tyce” as a name, but it fits.
I have no idea why, but lately, I keep thinking of names that turn out to be Irish or Scots Gaelic, Celtic sources.
I would love to know if Rhodas or Rhodês was/is an actual Greek male name. I know of the female versions Rhoda and Rhonda and the old nickname / altered dialectal Aunt Rhodie from the old English song about the old grey goose. But I wonder about Rhodas and Rhodês as male names, and I haven’t turned up anything yet. (This is from an old childhood memory which I think my mom misinterpreted, misheard, when she and I were out walking one winter day, down a…road. I don’t remember the other “name” I said, but I’m curious if this one could be a male Greek name.)
And — I don’t know and can’t yet find something to tell me if a male might be named “Red Horse” in Greek as Eryhtrohippos” or “Rhodohippos” or some other word for red/rust/rec-ochre/blood-red, by analogy with names like Xanthippus and Leucippes. (I run across things when I look up other things, and sometimes something sticks in my mind, without recalling the rest.) — I wonder what a blue or grey horse name would be, or for the human rider / owner of the horse. Idhippus? Iodohippus? I think there’s another word for blue in Greek, and then cyano-.
There is not enough room in my brain to hold all the words I run into. I need additional storage in my noggin. Heheh.
https://www.jweekly.com/2010/01/22/to-bubbe-or-not-to-bubbe-that-is-the-question/
So I went looking to see if Bubbe and Dudde are the Hebrew or Yiddish words for grandma and grandpa. And then I fell down a multi-cultural historical and secular rabbit-hole. (I will refrain from making that into a rabbit / rabbi pun. It doesn’t seem appropriate. This is the closest I’ll get to noting it occurred to me after I’d written, rabbit-hole, and noted the possible bad pun.)
I found an article that went over Saba and Savta, for grandfather and grandmother, and then went into a little rabbinical and medieval history and a detour between Hebrew and Aramaic used historically or borrowed currently. Huh, OK, neat. (I forgot to grab the link or the site name, sorry. Ask Google for how to say Hebrew grandmother and grandfather and you’ll get the link among the first couple of pages of results.)
That article had the helpful info that avi aviv is the term for “father’s father” and… I think it was im imo means “mother’s mother,” only I think I’ve gotten the vowels (grammatical forms) wrong. Brain’s too full. This is the traditional way to refer to these terms, so kinship gets specific in Hebrew, as to whose side of the family it is.
I also picked up that (some? all?) Hebrew nouns, particularly the words for mother and father, grandmother and grandfather, can’t be used in isolation, but require the speaker to say whose parent or grandparent it is. “My father” and “his father” take different forms, avi and avo, and “my mother” and “his mother” are “imi” and “imo.” (I think I’ve still got that right.) This may get into that “father’s father, mother’s mother, father’s mother, mother’s father” specifics too. So Hebrew likes to pair pronouns and possession and direct-objects (at least) in a system like grammatical case of nouns, to tell who’s who in all this. That’s handy at times, not so handy in others. (English has trouble with “him” and “her” and “them” and “you” and “us”, when there may be several people interacting. Which “him” or “her” was that, this one or that one?)
Saba and Savta are borrowed from Aramaic. But wait, there are a few other ways you can say grandpa and grandma in Hebrew. Take your pick! — Bubbe and Zayde, it turns out, are traditional Yiddish words for grandma and grandpa. (Where did I get Dudde from? Oh well. I do recall one book had a Tata or Atta who was the family’s grandpa.) — And these days, Bubbe and Zayde sound very Old-World to (American) Jewish folks, at least the younger generations, apparently. (So says the article I cited.)
The other page also said a word, zein- with an ending, so zeini or zeinin, I think, was a medieval Jewish or Hebrew word used for grandfather, literally meaning, “elder.” OK, I can see that being important.
I was curious about the link asking how to say Husband in Hebrew, so I clicked there. Oh, wow, lots of historical baggage and modern reformist objections. It seems the historical, Biblical, Torah, Talmudic words refer to the husband with the word still used, but this word is ba’al, unless I misread it, which looks like another word for a non-Jewish Middle Eastern god, Baal, who got a very, very bad reputation in the Bible for some very bad things his followers liked to do; and which we’d still find wrong today. And as someone brought up with (Christian) Bible readings before bed as a little child, mom and dad and I together before they went to bed, I’m having a little difficulty with the word for husband being so…very cognate. The Hebrew old/modern word, ba’al, translates to “master” in that lordly, ownership master sense, yes. Probably where the name of the other god gets its meaning as a master too. And I do know that some Hebrew words and personal names have -bel- as part of the word, from the same source. But I hadn’t know the word was that basic, so that the word used for the non-Jewish god, one of many gods back then among other people in the Middle East, got its form, as a master, an owner, a lord, as in lord of the manor, feudal lord, patriarch. The word for wife shows the same attitude: It means, woman. As in, his woman. But then, in English, man and wife, man is interchangeable in an old-fashioned, archaic sense, with husband, as well as with a human being in general, or an adult male generally. So Hebrew isn’t the only language that gets possessive and objectifying, about men and women as lovers or marriage partners. But hmm, where’s that “helpmate” stuff I remember reading about how the husband and wife were supposed to be? Oh yeah, that was mostly later on. But Abraham and others, with multiple wives and with ancient law and custom allowing concubines or a few other options besides, which modern Jews and most Christians would not view as right (and others might disagree as to being entirely wrong or bad)… Abraham definitely would have viewed it as master and his women. (Sorry, but that’s clear right in the text and their attitudes; not just Abraham, but also Sarah and Hagar and others.) About the one thing we can say is that, well, people of faith have made some progress in human rights over the millennia, and yet not in other ways. And we could also say, well, people throughout history have had differing views on whether it was OK for such relationships to exist. Some people would say a relationship with more than one husband or wife could work fine for them. But that’s a whole ‘other sociological or moral debate topic.
The article went on to say that some modern Jewish people, either in Israel or other parts of the world (mainly Europe and America) have tried different words for husband and wife, less grabby, more equal. These were things like “man” and “woman” (he’s my man, she’s my woman) or words (ben zug and bat zug) that are male, partner, and female, partner, depending on how you look at them for translation. (The article gives male/female, then partner.) To me at least, “he’s my man, she’s my woman,” sounds still somewhat grabby and caveman/cavewoman and maybe too temporary. But that’s me. Male partner and female partner sound better, but then, I have been tripped up in English, wondering if two people were business partners or love/romance/sex partners, either opposite or same sex, when I didn’t know and the context was ambiguous.
But this showed me that in modern Judaism, men’s and women’s liberation, and ideas about the nature of a marriage partnership, are still in flux, being debated, new ways tried out, to see what works. — And well, I grew up with the idea (rather humanist and modern) that (as Protestant Christians or as people of faith or in general, daily life) that study and discussion and debate, literary and historical context and criticism, trying to work out together in a group or on your own personally, these were how you should go about trying to better yourself as a believer and as a personal, moral and ethical, in daily secular life. I also grew up with the idea that your faith and religion should be so deep and permeating in all you do, to work to better yourself and understand more and be better to others, to make a difference, to contribute and make the world better, that these meant you should make it all a part of everyday life, no separation. — I grew up with the good and the bad of that outlook on life and faith. I also grew up with that allowing religious belief and modern science to coexist, that it was basic to learning, education, science, too. And if that was similar to humanism in any noticeable way, I was somehow supposed to ignore that, because humanism and Judeo-Christian faith were supposed to be in opposition, somehow. Humanism was supposed to be worldly and to think humans were perfectible, which in the religious terms I grew up with, wasn’t quite so. But yet we were supposed to strive for it anyway. So I had trouble (still do) seeing why one should draw a distinction and say then that humanism’s bad and religion is good.
Of note, I developed lots of questions with my religious background, without always clear answers. I still have that somewhere at my core. I still pray. but I also still struggle with the questions and doubts. (The idea that “Israel” means, “he struggles with God,” and people like Samuel and David and Job, Thomas and Simon Peter and Paul, all had crises of faith, doubts, serious personal mistakes with lifelong consequences, is, however, comforting.)
So a simple question about how to say grandma and grandpa, or wife and husband, led to a whole micro-course on Jewish thought over about 6 millennia of recorded history, and related musings from being a Protestant Christian with his own other issues, in today’s world. Plus a bit of linguistic gymnastics into the mix, because I would, of course.
—–
When I was college-age and struggling, and not talking about it because I didn’t think I could, to my parents or others important and loved in my life, friends, church-family, whoever — my mom and dad did know something was bothering me. My mom’s solution at one point was to have a trusted family friend, a woman who’d converted to Judaism to marry her husband, and who took her new faith (Reformed Jew) seriously, was invited over to our house. They sat me down, college young man (didn’t want to be termed a boy) in the study (office), even closed the door (no one else home, really no need) and me nervous… and asked me what was wrong, and said I could tell them. — Awk! Eek! Yikes! I was still too naive and in my most strict and upright and uptight religious phase. I was busy trying to pray the gay away, be the perfect Christian boy and school boy, and if I were only faithful and true enough, God would answer my prayers, and I’d be a straight boy. I’d like girls and have a wife and kids, give my parents and grandparents grandkids, the white picket fence and car and cat and dog, the American family dream. What every Christian and Jewish family wants, right? Er, to be clear, I also wanted this, and wasn’t happy with the idea that I might not get to be a husband, have kids, pass on my family name and history, all that. I was proud of those and wanted to be a dad. I’d had good parents, mostly. — And of course, I could not be perfect. There were still thoughts and feelings, and if I did manage somehow not to have those when awake…oh, that was the crux of it. I discovered I couldn’t avoid that in my dreams, from subtle and innocent to, well, above the PG rating, let’s say. This shook me up. I had discoed that as a young adult male, just like as a preteen and teen male, that, well, my body and mind and emotions and spirit, all had their own ideas about it, and those did not necessarily agree with what I’d been brought up to believe was right (in faith, in morality, in ethics, in secular life, you name it). (Boys at school and girls at school, out in the neighborhood, at the mall, in the media, everywhere, and at home and at church.)
But my feelings, body and emotions both, couldn’t keep from liking guys, males. I’d found I could be attracted to some college guy across the cafeteria in line, whom I’d never seen before. I’d had crushes on two friends in junior high and high school. So by then, I knew. I’d gone to a teacher because one friend was being threatened seriously by other students, and it was getting worse. So I knew by then, I was gay, and I was not dealing with it well at all. I had no idea who among any friends I could talk to. I had even less idea if any guy I knew might like that, with me, and zero idea how to go about starting anything. (I had stumbled around anything related to the subject before, a few times, with a few friends, and…nada, zippo, nothing. Or discovering no, that was off-limits, as unthinkable or unspeakable as it was at home. As far as I knew.)
The good family friend, a lady about my mom’s age, maybe a bit younger, a practicing Jewish lady, who had converted from a non-practicing or non-religious background before, to marry her husband, sat down with my mom, and with me on the other side of the desk, to ask what was wrong, what was bothering me. It’s OK, you can talk to us.
Er, but no I couldn’t. I’d never felt I could talk to my mom or dad (or grandmother) about this. A boy who likes boys, wants to (do things) with another boy, and who wants, importantly, a loving, friendly, lasting, emotional relationship with another boy, also, uh, physical affection of a very intimate, private kind? — I didn’t know how to say all that to my family, and wasn’t sure how to say so to my friends, thought I’d edged around it with guys I’d liked, hoping to have a friend to talk to or try things with, or in those few cases, I’d liked them, hoping for more than friends.
I knew my mom was an English major, and by then, I knew she must have read books about, or written by, gay or lesbian people. She had to be aware of history too. I had smart parents, even if my dad’s accent and spelling and grammar were not textbook quality. Understand, though, they both were elders or deacon/deaconess in church. And nothing I had ever enoountered up to that point or for years afterward, had any possibility that Christian or Jewish folks and being gay / not straight, could be acceptable, could co-exist. Er, except, there I was.
This meant — I had no idea that my Jewish grandmother friend might be understanding of the Christian boy she’d known since I was an early teen or so, maybe 6 to 8 years by then, if she found out said boy liked boys. I had no idea if my mom would accept this either, and less idea if my dad could. — I felt much more sure that my mom and dad couldn’t, in fact. — Er, and I had never said there’d been one fumbling bit with a friend from class as a preteen. I was downright scared of saying that.
So…I didn’t talk to them about it. I said I couldn’t talk about it, I think. Oh, I could admit something was bothering me and I was having trouble already, early in college. (I think I was a sophomore when my mom and friend sat me down. The end of my freshman year or start of my sophomore year was when I knew for sure I was gay and couldn’t avoid admitting it to myself, despite all clues from my preteens on. It was getting steadily worse at college. My study habits and internal thinking went into an infinite loop, basically, and I was getting seriously, clinically depressed and at risk, and it got worse until my GPA went so low that the university asked me not to return unless I got my GPA back within a year, somewhere else, not there.
I couldn’t bring myself to talk to my family friend and my mom, because I had no idea that anyone Jewish or Christian might accept this, and these were two women I loved and trusted. — I don’t know how they would’ve reacted if I had come out to them.
Before my mom and died passed away (two years apart), that family friend and her husband moved away, and after my mom died, I don’t know if my family friend tried to contact me. I was grieving badly and didn’t always answer the door or phone. I miss her still. Their names are so common, there’d be hundreds of results in any lookup. The same with the friends at school.)
Years later, when I did come out, after my parents were gone, I would find out a couple of things. If I could have found the desperation or accident or whatever might have gotten me, unwillingly or so desperate I didn’t care, to come out — A few family friends might have had some support for me. They were at least more open than I had thought. and of he people I did come out to, well, no one was too surprised or took it badly. They’d either guessed or figured it out long before, apparently. Or were nice enough not to act surprised. I don’t know for sure if anyone would have taken me in if need be, but possibly any of those friends might have. I could never have imagined that, from church friends or other family friends, as a teen or young adult in college.
Our world has grown somewhat better about this. I can be out online and in person, and almost anyone who knows me, knows I’m gay. (Any family or friends I haven’t seen in years who don’t know, it’s because they haven’t been in contact with me, or they just plain didn’t want to see it, or they were honestly not sure. Or maybe, just maybe, it was never an issue for them.) I didn’t go around telling all my extended relatives, because I didn’t want to do that long-distance at the time, I thought it should be in person. I know for certain one aunt would never accept it, and one great-aunt on the other side was saddened, disappointed, heartsick that one of her grandsons was gay. If any of my family or old friends are surprised, well, I’m sorry, but as far as I can tell, I’ve been this way all my life, and it’s been more or less obvious, even when I was a little kid.
You are probably getting the idea that my religious life and personal moral code have always had trouble with the growing discovery I had feelings for guys. My emotional and physical sides both say that’s what feels good and right to me, to like guys. But my upbringing and my personality have grown up with the idea all around me, including among other boys my age, that being gay was not right or acceptable, and that if I or anyone was, it was wrong, bad, sinful, and so on. I am still (obviously) torn between this. My later looking into this, trying to understand and educate myself (and cope) (and resolve the opposing views) is still ongoing. I still struggle with this.
Somehow, thinking about the friend who used to bring us Challa bread just because, around the holidays or in general, often with a loaf with jalapeños, explaining those were kosher! (haha) because my mom loved peppers — the articles reminded me of her and her husband. We were invited to her grandson’s bar mitzvah. I was deep in studying French, and was surprised at how many Hebrew words I could understand, because the Torah passages were referenced in the bulletin for the service. With enough reading during the service, I could guess at other words. But that’s not magical fluency. It’s just natural (God-given) talent and exposure, doing their thing, If it had been ordinary conversation, I doubt I could have recognized as much. He did well. My mom and dad and I and another Christian couple had been invited by his grandmother to attend. Aside from a few unsure or not-quite-approving looks and whispered conversations from older Jewish ladies also attending (yes, church ladies, er, synagogue ladies, haha, are a universal) we were welcomed guests. — It was my first and only visit to a synagogue service. I knew enough, but not nearly as much as a Jewish guy would, to have understood a little of the significance of being asked, as a young man, to wear a yarmulke and shawl because it was a religious service. Er, at the time, I had forgotten that’s for all guests, believers or other faiths. The rabbi was kind enough not to put it that way, but to ask that I wear it, which I did understand. The connection between my own Protestant Christian faith and Reformed Jewish faith that night made a big impression on me at the time. … Including to wonder what God really thought about a Christian young man who was gay, attending a bar mitzvah to acknowledge the new manhood of a Jewish boy, now a young man, initiated into adult religious life and Jewish law and custom, thereby. (It didn’t bother me that, technically, being vision-impaired, legally blind, under the old law, I could not have entered the temple or a synagogue. It didn’t occur to me because I hadn’t recalled it at the time, because in Christian belief, and in modern Jewish belief, at least for Reformed Jews as I understand it) being handicapped is not seen as a blemish / ritual uncleanness barring one from entering what’s considered God’s house.
Uh, I hope I’ve not bothered any of the Jewish visitors to the blog. My personal struggles with faith and my own opinions or beliefs, are not meant to dishonor or negate yours. On the contrary, I’m trying to say, I respect those and … I am still trying to figure out how to live this life and be a decent person. I am still trying to understand this part of myself or others. Other people and other parts of myself. I know that other Christians and Jews would disagree with things I’ve said in this post, and some would be pro and some would be con, and all would have some opinion and debate the points. Because, well, that’s a thing about those faiths, when they’re done right.
I got completely sidetracked on this, from the original start of this post. I am going to post it, with apologies. I would like to think that even with all my wandering around, I am still OK and headed in the right direction without knowing it. I wish I could deal better with this part of my life and go on to a better life, especially in this area. For anyone who’s kept reading, thank for putting up with me.\\I would also like to think the answer’s there and I know it and I just don’t know it’s right there and I’m OK with it and know it, if that makes sense. I would ike to think that if and when the time ever comes, that I’d be fine and it would resolve itself and just melt away into thin air, no longer bothering me.
So far, I haven’t had that. I don’t know what my life would’ve been like if I had as a teen, say high school or college that first go-round. My life would’ve been so different than it has been. So here I am instead, still wandering through life.
The Buddhists would probably say we all walk the path toward enlightenment and virtue. I think that’s just another way of stating it, and not in conflict with the religious background I come from. One of my old ministers, a man who had an extensive background, a doctorate in theology, and could read Biblical Greek, possibly Hebrew, would occasionally throw in that the Golden Rule was not only a Christian and Jewish concept, that the Buddhists had the same idea. He’d usually follow this with the quote saying all wisdom was profitable for knowledge, the idea that we should be open to and tolerant of other people and other beliefs, and anything we might pick up and learn from them, to exchange ideas, was a good thing, and not against our own faith. I come from an ecumenical background anyway.
So…well, I’m still trying to figure out all this living stuff, and a few questions in particular, like that bit about me wanting a guy instead of a girl. So far, the right guy hasn’t shown up.
I hope each of you has a good life with some special people, loves and friends and family. I did not expect to do a rambling philosophical post. — Odd, this is maybe the closest I’ve seen to the good side of my religious life in a long, long time.
My cat is untroubled by any such things, and he doesn’t care if I’m gay or straight, he loves me anyway. That one answer is a very comforting thing. Maybe the rest of it is all man-made nonsense.I guess like most people, I’m so caught up in human nonsense, I can’t ever quit seem to let it go and let the other be, long enough for it to soak in good.
I am going to take a break and read or write or watch a show. My brain needs to rest a little. Overthinking.
Apollo’s 50th Anniversary and Me
I graduated from college with and because of a degree in Chemistry in 1967. In those days Liberal Arts majors didn’t graduate, by and large, such was Selective Service.
In 1968 I joined my father working for North American Aviation at its Space Division in Downey, California, where the Apollo Command module was built.
First of all, how do you think manned spacecraft structures were made? Yes, some metal, mostly aluminum, but that comes with various heat- treatments, e.g. annealing, that affect its properties. But most structural pieces are formed with materials like carbon fiber composites. How are they attached? For the most part, it’s NOT with screws, bolts, and rivets! They’re too heavy. Most of the structure is put together with advanced adhesives. Besides being lighter, they can make joined pieces air-tight–very important in manned spacecraft.
Initially, I worked in a Materials and Processes Specifications group. We analyzed the results of testing the materials available to the project, the ways they are made, how they are used. For example, their strength at various temperatures given the process for applying and curing adhesives, or the strength and strength to weight ratios of different numbers of multiple layers of different carbon fiber “cloths” and different resins in composites “laid up” and then cured in different ways. Then we were responsible for writing appropriate specifications for how they are to be used in manufacturing, and what characteristics engineers can depend upon in design.
The year before I was employed at Space Division, NASA experienced the fatal Apollo 1 fire. Over the next 22 months all the command modules had all flammable material, e.g. couches, even wiring insulation, identified, ripped out, and replaced with non-flammable alternatives approved according to the specifications. Of course this means that they had all already been manufactured–they’re not the sort of thing one makes to order!
Our group was supporting the R&D for future manned space missions that were expected, but as we now know, there was to ne no followup to Apollo. For a while NASA and North American Aviation Space Division tried to keep some of the team together. Because I’d had drafting and mechanical drawing classes in high school, for a while I was placed on a team that went through all the Command Module drawings’ “Engineering Change Orders”, ECOs, encoding all the non-metallic materials that had supposedly been replaced, to be put on “punchcards” and run through a verification program. Just making sure.
Even that came to an end, and there were no further NASA contracts at Space Division. I was laid-off and found work at North American Aviation’s Los Angeles Division, working on a bid proposal to build the F-15 fighter aircraft, which was won by McDonnell-Douglas and called “Eagle”. Ten years later I was also employed by McDonnel-Douglas Automation Company, working at their Long Beach plant, when American Airlines DC-10 Flight 191 crashed at O’Hare International in Chicago.
Interesting, Paul!
I never thought about shaping, layering and glueing thin carbonfible “cloth” as a way to make lighter spacecraft – I’d always just assumed they were aluminum or some composite metal and quite sturdy. I was shocked to read recently that the metal fuel tanks on those big rockets are so thin that when empty, without the pressure from the inside of the fuel filling them, they can buckle or even crumple from the weight of the rocket itself.
I was told the aluminum skin on the LEM’s crew quarters was no thicker than several sheets of heavy weight, “baking”, aluminum foil. The crew was suited at all times.
Paul — very interesting. I also did not realize carbon fiber was used in Apollo. It must have been one of the very first applications. As to fire, we’re the resins used in the CF flammable?
Honestly, I can’t remember. It was 50 years ago, and I came to work there “late” in the program; Apollo 7 flew “not long” after I was employed. I don’t remember exactly what the materials were; we were analyzing their properties. I know we were concerned with composites and adhesives. I spent less time using my Chemistry background than using the computer skills I taught myself in my senior year, too often cutting German class. (In 1967 very few colleges recognized there even was a “computer science”. Long Beach State just had an “open-shop” IBM-1620–now shockingly primitive!) But I don’t recall the resins were the issue, it was more like the fabrics used as fabric, couch coverings and padding, velcro pads and straps, ditty bags, that sort of thing. Remember, it was a “flash fire”, so what burned wasn’t attached to a heat-sink.
I think one of the lasting impacts of Apollo was that before then computers were multitudes of large boxy things in air-conditioned rooms behind glass walls so the corporation’s technology could be proudly shown-off to visitors. Nobody before then thought anybody needed a computer that could GO anywhere!
Paul, that’s impressive. I remember hearing that the computers used in the Apollo modules, the moon lander, at least, were all of 2K of RAM or so. I heard this around high school age, when the Apple II+ and Apple IIe were the thing, along with the first IBM-PC compatibles, not yet to the 286 and 386. Heh. I’m not sure if the early Commodore computers or the TRS-80’s were out yet, but those soon would be.
Punch cards — You know, as old as those and the punched paper tape are, those weren’t too bad a system. — Now that I think about it, I wonder: What if they’d adapted Braille (extended it) and had smaller holes? Imagine if they could’ve fit human-readable text and computer-readable dot-code (some kind of modified Braille) for a pageful of typed text onto one card. It might have been useful technology longer and gained wider use. — Hmm, that’s still an interesting, useful idea. — Oh, if NASA could have had SSD cards or USB flash drives back then! Those still amaze me.
When I was a kid in the 70’s and a teen in the 80’s, the public could still take tours over much of Mission Control outside of Houston. A classmate nearly delayed our elementary school field trip return home because he’d convinced some kind tech there to print out a CAD drawing of the Star Trek USS Enterprise. This was, I think, before or right around when the Enterprise test shuttle was first making news. Heh, he got in trouble for this with the teachers chaperoning us; the NASA tech scientist / engineer was happy to be nice to a kid, and I was envious I didn’t have the printout, which my friend and classmate did get. Haha. — Yes, this means they’d give school kids tours and we could see and talk to the mysterious, smart technicians working for NASA, using whatever desk computers those were back then. (I don’t think they were even early mainframe terminals, and this was before the DEC-VAXes that were at my university.)
In the 90’s, when I went along with my dad and friends and a bunch of kids from the church youth group, the Johnson Space Center had been transformed into that “space experience” by, I think it was people connected with Disney’s “Dream Team” for theme parks like Epcot. — It was pretty good, but very strictly separated from the actual Mission Control and techs, and by then, security was an issue. (Sigh.) It was still pretty cool, though, and plenty of real info and real examples for the kids and adults to check out.
I remember doing an elementary school library research book report on the early orbital missions, Alan Shepherd and John Glenn, Mercury and Gemini, I think. This was so far back there that I’ve forgotten. It was a big deal for a pretty young kid, and that sense of wonder was checked by the fact that there actually were people exploring space! Earth-orbit, the Moon landings from Apollo, and so on. — Apollo-Soyuz impressed me as a kid in the 70’s. (Gee, back when we could put aside the Cold War for long enough to cooperate with each other instead of try to undermine each other.) By the time I was 10, 11, and 12, hey, there was the shuttle program. … And in college, the Challenger disaster happened. The Columbia disaster was when I was taking care of my grandmother as a young adult, after my folks were gone.
When I was in college for my second go-round, I read an article in a local newspaper, while on lunch break outside, about the dubious fate of the shuttle program and after. (This was years past Challenger and Columbia was years in the future. It was during the 90’s, and my parents were still living.) I read the article and muttered to myself how important the manned space program was and how we should still be up there, that it dishonored the Challenger crew and others, not to still be up there and going to Mars. — I didn’t know it, but I later learned from one of my profs there, that a passer-by had heard me, and was a family member of one of the Challenger crew. Oh. Oh my gosh. And she had been impressed and thankful that someone still remembered and cared. But such is the reach of the space program in Houston, that as huge as the city is, even in a town a commuter’s distance from the city, that there are still people running around connected with the space program itself and the R&D support contractors indirectly connected. Or at least, before the recent cutbacks. I was humbled that that family member had liked what I’d said, when I had no idea anyone heard me, and I was (uncharacteristically) er, talking to myself, reading that article. But my prof said the lady had liked that, which still makes me feel good. That matters.
As someone who grew up with the excitement and promise of this, space exploration, with my city connected to space exploration, computers, the oil and gas industry, and world trade (seaport and airport) — It baffles me that here we are in 2019, and we are lagging behind. The world’s major space programs only somewhat cooperate on standards and sharing data, and mostly, they compete due to political ideologies and fear and greed. If we could set that aside long enough to cooperate and get out into space, just maybe it would give everyone a stake, a vested interest, in not blowing each other up or conquering the other guys, who are, sure, ideologically in disagreement (putting that mildly by far) but who are also — human beings with families, friends, aspirations in life toward something better; even something as far-fetched and grandiose and wild and brave, as space exploration and colonization — which just might save us all from blowing ourselves up or poisoning this little blue-green oasis in the star-desert, before some big rock from space comes along and smashes us with no way to stop it, because we were too busy squabbling like kids on a playground, instead of finding the ways to make a jump into space that could save us from ourselves.
….Man, I am curmudgeon-y and opinionated this week….
I guess I needed to unload, a couple of nights ago, posting here. Folks, I’m embarrassed. I’m also too aware this is one of too few social outlets for me to let off steam and connect with others.
There’s still so much that’s important to me in life, and I’m still too isolated. There’s things I want to do. And yeah, I’m lonely. — A friend is supposed to pick up a package, which is something either way early or that was missing and I’d presumed was lost in the mail. I’m hoping I don’t have to call him again to remind him, but probably I will have to. (No one from the office ever wants to walk packages to the residents’ doors, because oh, then everyone would want them to. Sigh. I can’t be the only one who gets packages delivered there.) — I’ll be ordering groceries later in the week. Other than that, I’m glued to my computer to work or study or play, or off it to do needed chores.
Take care, everyone. Still stuck on this-here mudball, haven’t made it to Mars and beyond yet.
50 years and a few weeks past the first manned moon landing. We can do better than this.
Right now, governments and businesses across the planet seem more determined to fuss and whine and blame everyone else, and not do anything much to solve problems we could fix, if only they’d do more than blow hot air and line their pockets with cash. — What a bunch of spoiled brats and greedy idiots. We need people who can see past their own pocketbooks and everything-phobic ideas, enough to care about the future and the people right now and after us. — Phooey.
Apartment Life Craziness Update — Sometime in the past day or so, someone vandalized a bank of P.O. Boxes, of which mine is one. The frame or gate that holds the doors to that array is unlocked, so it’s free to swing on its hinge, leaving all of that array open, unsecured, with only gravity or willpower holding it closed.
I hadn’t been to my P.O. Box in over a week, but I would presume this has just happened. And tampering with the mail is a federal offense, I believe. I’m presuming a postal worker wouldn’t “forget” to lock that back up. And really, I didn’t know the doors are all in a big gate that a postal worker could open, but OK, fine.
So…I am surprised, a little stunned, and anything from around month-end / month-beginning that I or anyone else in that one block of boxes had, is gone, stolen or lost or trashed. Whee. Not what I was expecting. — Aside from the usual occasional car alarms misfiring, I hadn’t heard a thing, and that’s near enough, any loud noise would’ve carried. Which means someone had a few minutes or however long it takes, with some nice, quiet power tools or a master key, to vandalize those. — Though it is also curious that it wasn’t the other banks also.
So…wow. — And my friend hasn’t been by, still, to pick up a package at the office. :-/
I’m really presuming it’s already been reported. It sure should be when the postal worker comes by with today’s mail. Somebody somewhere is not going to be happy, and the mgmt. office should not be happy either. — And since getting inside the complex requires either climbing over a high gate / fence or punching in an access code (for which at least one box seems perpetually in disrepair) — That presumably narrows down who might’ve done it. Not good. I’m trying to take this in stride, but it’s another sign of how out of whack things are lately. The complex feels fairly safe, but I guess I should rethink how safe I feel here. I try to be careful anyway.
Man…weird start to my day, a few hours ago. I wonder how long it takes them to fix it.
Well, according to the USPS, your packet of books should have gotten there a couple of days ago. It would be a drag if someone snitched them, as they aren’t valuable to anyone but us bookworms 😀
Our old condo complex had banks of boxes for each block of condos. Residents accessed them individually from the front, and postal workers distributed mail through a big group access panel in the back. Packages were put in one of 3 big lockers on the end; if you had a package, the mail carrier would put the key to that locker in your mailbox.
The books did arrive, more than about 2 days ago, and I meant to email or post here to say they’d arrived safely, but, er, I messed up. I’m sorry. I’ll be starting those, probably this week.
The package I’m awaiting is, I think, either jeans or a missing-presumed-lost pail of cat litter. Heh. Good thing I am not out. Aside from that, there’s a shirt for which UPS claims it is having trouble locating my address. (Their drivers either can’t locate the apartment or can’t get in the gate. Chronic issue.) Other items aren’t due until the usual month-end delivery (cat food, cat litter, occasionally some people food and drinks).
The mailboxes are like you described, except there’s no locker for larger packages, which either go to the resident’s door or to the office. There’s space for another single bank of mailboxes or a locker like you describe, at the end.
If the apartment complex got really ambitious and wanted to let go some of that profit from the monthly rent and utilities, they might (1) put in a locker / closet / cupboard in the privacy area outside each resident’s apartment, perhaps with a lock, so people could get their mail / deliveries there. (This is just a daydream, a figment of my imagination, something I saw when apartment hunting elsewhere, for around $200 / $300 more for a comparable apartment, at the time. Heh.) Or (2) They might fix the pool, which hasn’t, as far as I know, been officially open for weeks. It looks fine, very inviting, but I haven’t heard anyone using the pool for most of the summer. I am sure the kids and the adults would love it if it were open.
It is possible, based on a flurry of activity, that my upstairs neighbors have moved out. Dunno. I never had any issues with them and met them once or twice, saw them a few times, but we never went beyond that. I did introduce myself, didn’t get names back. :-/ There is what might be a “fresh paint” smell emanating from, I presume, above or nearby.
One of thise busy friends was not by again today. I’ll have to remind him tomorrow.
I’ve heard cats fighting or mating several nights, but haven’t seen the two, or the guy, again since. I do not think they are special Brigadoon cats. If they are, then Brigadoon has a lot of stray cats with soon-to-deliver kittens. Heh.
Other than that, just hanging around here, doing stuff.
Never assume that someone else has said something. With many things twice is better than never.