I have come to a point in my thinking where I no longer know for sure whether the things that I quit doing are worth staying away from, and whether the things i have begun doing are worth continuing doing. Mostly because I cannot remember the reasons I decided to do/stop doing a lot of them. Some of them (like finding an appropriate, regular workout regimen to develop upper body strength and maintain a healthy body), I can remember the reasons for. Others seem more tricky.
I am having an emotional response
So I’ve been following this AI-Movie-related web game/experience/marketing ploy for the last month or two, and it’s really quite interesting at times. One of the recent updates has basically been something like 100 snippets of emotional things in the lives of 20 of the main characters… Some of it is sounds, some images, but mostly text… brief excerpts from conversations or a few paragraphs describing a particular thing they remember… It is put together in a compelling and interesting and complex way that could not have been discovered without many people working at once (there are over 3000 people in the collective that i am a part of, deciphering the puzzles)…
As I read through these snapshots of emotion, some for characters I am very familiar with that just help fill in the details, some for characters that are new to me or that were just mentioned briefly before that reveal a great depth that has been put into developing the world in which this story takes place through its characters. I noticed a moment ago as I read about something that caused sadness in a woman who was very much involved in the abolition of AI “slavery” in the future, that I was having a strong emotional response. That I felt like I wasn’t doing enough to allow Artificial life the freedom to choose. It was almost enough to get me to stand up, walk out, and go do something about it.
Then, as these feeling swelled up in me, I realized what was going on as I stared at a work of fiction relayed to me by a stranger, and in an incredulous tone I said aloud “I am having an emotional response.”
House-Hunting
I desperately want to avoid a duplex/6-plex/8-plex/condo/apartment/. I want a . In Tempe. I don’t need a lot of space. I just need one room to be no smaller than 10’x10′ (for my bed) and W/D hookups. You know. Walls, a roof. A little space between where I live and where my neighbors live. Heat in the winter, cooling in the summer. Running hot and cold water. Electricity. Adequate lighting and ventilation. Indoor plumbing including proper removal of human waste.
The more I think about my minimum requirements, the longer the list gets, but .. looking back at the list, there’s not much there that isn’t considered … standard? Minimum? I don’t need a pool or a big yard or a lot of rooms or more than one bathroom or some big fancy kitchen with a walk-in oven or whatever. Just … you know … someplace to keep my stuff. Someplace to return to at the end of the day. Someplace to leave when I feel like I need to go out; so I can know when I’m out.
Lost my appetite
About ten minutes ago, I was very hungry. It was one minute until my lunch break was supposed to start, and there were calls in the queue, and I almost didn’t take one, because I really wanted to eat something. I’m too responsible for that. I took the call, gave the guy his answer, and logged it in around 90 seconds. I couldn’t get my peanut butter sambwich into my mouth fast enough.
I took a few bites of my sambwich, trying to pace myself with pretzels and sips of Crystal Light Rasberry Iced Tea beverage, when my phone started singing to me from my pocket. I couldn’t swallow in time, so I answered as clearly as I could, and finished chewing and swallowing while the caller outlined the reason for their call. They didn’t even need to say it, though; as soon as I figured out who was talking to me, I knew what they had to say.
They called to let me know that I’m not as important or meaningful as they are, and that I don’t deserve to see a person that I love on their birthday.
I’m working on it.
Marie, if you can see this, it means I’m working on getting this site up again soon.
Don’t despair.
I haven’t decided whether or not to put your content back up anywhere though. Same old complaint about not enough volume, I suppose.
Not that I’m setting a good example, but … It’s about to be a lot easier for everyone to submit content.
I just have to … learn how to code in perl.