I’m a tiny bit Irish, if inheritance by marriage once removed counts;) And today, I hope you’re a little Irish too.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
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Posts Tagged ‘#365Ways2023’
A Little Irish Today
Posted in Holidays, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, happy, yay on March 17, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The Power of the Word
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, inspiration, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 16, 2023| Leave a Comment »
The power of the word to help transform our own emotions and our own belief in what’s possible for us? I don’t think anything transcends that.
— Oprah Winfrey
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We Are Mirrors
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Fiction, free fiction, genre fiction, Thoughts, Writers, writing on March 15, 2023| 2 Comments »
I found this short in a digital pile of old draft material. If I remember correctly, it was written after seeing a documentary on nature in cities, and the problems that can cause for people and especially animals.
So I won’t lie, it’s a little bit of a downer (unless you are an alien? If so, maybe try talking before breaking out the ray guns?). But there is much more to humanity than the negative, and (oddly) capturing some of the not-great like this helps me remember what’s good.
And since it’s the Ides of March, a day to remember that not everything in life is what it seems, the theme of this story could also apply to AI.
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You and Yours
I came from the stars to meet you. I was happy. Excited, even. First contact with your verdant world. Think of all that we could share with you.
“You” could have meant a lot of things. I started with one of the most populous. An insect.
I remember little of what it was like, a flash of light, a warm wriggle in a puddle after rain. The feel of wind in my wings.
It’s embarrassing to say this now, but I was promptly eaten.
I was a spider next, all cool calculation and advanced engineering. A small corner of a log, beaten down by storm and time, dark with possibilities. I lasted longer there. Ate my former fellow insects and waited, and watched.
A bird came next. Such wondrous flight! I could barely remember what it was to crawl on the ground. I wasn’t as happy, though, too busy searching for more of my kind, for clean water and air, for food that didn’t come in a take-out container. What is it about those golden arches that you like so much, anyway?
The weather turned, and I lost a step. Two, if you count both feet, and I do because the cat got them both along with all the rest of me. Stealth, fear, and longing. The shivers began then, side effects of the sickness building up inside me. Without my equipment I couldn’t tell you the cause, but I felt it deep inside.
The coyote came next, hungry for an earlier time and a better place. I made do with city food, crippled squirrels and bird’s eggs, mice and the occasional half-eaten burger.
It was a hard life, hemmed in by development, but I found someone, as one does. I built a den, raised a family and was almost ready to send them out into the world when you came.
Too much wild near their streets, they said. As if they hadn’t put those streets into the wild in the first place.
I escaped, but my kits did not. Now the twisting in my gut was more than sickness, more than an accumulation of multiple lives.
I waited. I watched. And now I am the officer who shot my kits rather than wait for animal control.
I no longer remember the happiness I felt when I began this journey, this introduction to you and yours.
All I feel now is sorrow, and an aching need for my people to collect me and my data. They will be able to cure the accumulated poisons but they cannot give me back what I’ve lost. Optimism and hope have been replaced by something darker, something sharp and selfish and hard.
We came to meet you, to understand, in the most fundamental ways, who and how you are. We are mirrors. We observe you, absorb what’s yours. Reflect it with intention until we achieve comprehension.
Then we introduce you to me and mine.
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Pi Today, Pie Tomorrow
Posted in Food and..., Holidays, Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, pie, science, Thoughts on March 14, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Ladies and Gentlemen, we regret to announce that because this year’s annual Pi Day celebration falls on a Tuesday, it will have to be postponed. The good news is that pi is infinite. Any day can be Pi Day!
I will focus on pie at a later, more auspicious time. Until then, please enjoy both the mathematical concept and culinary reality of pi/e.
Happy Pi Day! Here’s all you need to know – CBS Boston
10 Ways to Celebrate Pi Day with NASA on March 14
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Not That Big A Deal
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, kind of a big deal, science on March 13, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Despite weekend efforts to the contrary, my taxes remain unfinished (soon! really!). In the larger scheme of things, however, it’s not that big a deal.
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The Cure for Idiopathic Persistent Singultus
Posted in Science!, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, health, science on March 12, 2023| Leave a Comment »
In case you’ve ever wondered how to cure idiopathic persistent singultus, and really, who hasn’t?
How to (Actually) Stop Hiccups – The Atlantic
First, exhale completely, then inhale a deep breath. Wait 10 seconds, then—without exhaling—inhale a little more. Wait another five seconds, then top up the breath again. Finally, exhale. Generally, you will find that your singultus is gone.
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Our Time
Posted in Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, #coronavirus, Thoughts on March 11, 2023| Leave a Comment »
COVID was declared a pandemic on 3-11-20. Photos and quotes capture the moment
(March 11, 2020) “WHO has been assessing this outbreak around the clock, and we are deeply concerned by alarming levels of severity and inaction. We have made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.”
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien
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Moses of Her People
Posted in Favorites, Holidays, Likes, Other, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, history, inspiration, Thoughts on March 10, 2023| Leave a Comment »
Today is Harriet Tubman Day. Who was she and why do we celebrate her?
Harriet Tubman: Facts, Underground Railroad & Legacy
Harriet Tubman was an escaped enslaved woman who became a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading enslaved people to freedom before the Civil War, all while carrying a bounty on her head. But she was also a nurse, a Union spy and a women’s suffrage supporter.
When I was young we lived across the street from a mansion. A massive Victorian from the 1870s, it had a wrap-around porch and beautifully kept grounds. Flowers bloomed behind wrought iron fences and mulberries spilled over onto the sidewalk. One Halloween, the woman who owned the house took at look at my ghost and my brother’s Batman and invited us inside. (Don’t worry, this isn’t a scary story.)
We were greeted by a wide foyer, elegant wooden paneling, high ceilings and chandeliers. Our neighbor gave us a brief tour and then, perhaps looking through our costumes to the skin underneath, said, “Once upon a time, this house was part of the Underground Railroad.”
Based on the age and location of the house I don’t think that’s likely to be true,* but I didn’t know that at the time. The story helped bring to life the books I’d read about runaways, slave catchers and the transformation of a young girl with a disability into a savior of her people.
How to Experience the Lasting Legacy of Harriet Tubman
Pressing my hands against the bricks of the home Harriet Tubman built, I closed my eyes and listened to the wind rustling between the leaves of the trees surrounding this place where she lived and worked as a free woman, awaiting a message from the Underground Railroad conductor and Union spy.
She continues to be an inspiration and so to her, to my ancestors and all those who braved so much during that frequently harsh and terrible time: thank you.
“If you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods, keep going. If there’s shouting after you… Don’t ever stop. Keep going. If you want a taste of freedom, keep going.”
— Harriet Tubman
* The specifics of this particular house aside, there was an active spur of the Underground Railroad running through the region. The Bellefonte Art Museum down the road hosts a permanent exhibit showcasing its operations.
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Mysterious Origins Revealed?
Posted in Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, Carol Scheina, creativity, Fiction, genre fiction, inspiration, Nature's Futures, submissions, Writers, writing on March 9, 2023| 1 Comment »
With apologies to turtles. And tortoises. And science.
Today, allow me to refer you to a story from Nature’s Futures, about a put-upon pair of frontline workers and the genetically-modified reptile who captured their hearts.
Clean-up on Planet 9 by Carol Scheina
A giant sea turtle swimming in a building-sized aquarium. Fields of toothy purple flowers. Goddamn dollhouse-sized pine forests. Quite a bit wasn’t the size or shape it was supposed to be.
While I appreciate the author’s discussion of her inspiration for the story, I can’t help but think that it could also be (at least distantly) related to the mysterious origins of the dimension-hopping tortoise* in my own story, “The T-4200.”
Sadly, “The T-4200” is not currently available online, but this story inspired me to send it off to a reprint market. Fingers crossed!
* I know, while a turtle and a tortoise are both members of the Testudine family of reptiles, they are not the same. Still (and with apologies to all right-thinking scientists out there), the story already adds animal-based faster-than-light travel, so I’m just going to go with it.
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The Red Rose Girls
Posted in Holidays, Writing, tagged #365Ways, #365Ways2023, art, creativity, inspiration, Thoughts, women in history, writing on March 8, 2023| Leave a Comment »
“The chief obstacle to a woman’s success is that she can never have a wife.”
— Anna Lea Merritt (19th Century Artist), Lipincott’s Magazine (thankfully, this is no longer true everywhere)
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The path to success has always been difficult for many artists, and much more so for women. Given that it is International Women’s Day and I am from Pennsylvania, I thought I’d share the story of one group of women who looked at the crappy hand they’d been dealt and said, “Thanks, but we’ll find a better way.”
This is the story of the talented Victorian girl gang known as The Red Rose Girls.
Clubhouse Goals with the Red Rose Girls
While renting out the Red Rose Inn in Philadelphia, they lived on their own terms exploring the benefits [of] a communal all-female household. And at a time when women were barely even permitted to attend art school, they enriched each others careers and thrived together as self-sufficient artists.
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