Hope Writer Challenge - Reconnect

For the sixth day of @hopewriters writing challenge (#hopewriterlife) the prompt was Reconnect.

I Reconnect is an incredibly important theme this year. As we reimagine how our 2020 will look in the future or what it may have been in a different version of itself, reconnecting is at the core of it.

As we all entered lockdown, with very different flavors and inflections based on where we lived, we all had to reimagine connection.  In isolation connection is more important than ever.  But we had to reimagine it and how to reconnect.

I have personally found myself reconnecting with old friends that live far away.  I love them dearly, but the distance often keeps our lives rather separate.  Now that all communication and connection is digital it seems easier to reconnect with friends from out of state.  It's just as easy to get an out of town friend on zoom as it is to get your close neighbor on a zoom call.

With less outside activities demanding our time, there is less competition for our focus, and more time to schedule for friends.  Time zones seem to matter less when you're in all day.  And while I don't want or expect my friends to keep their schedules open indefinitely, it has been a lovely change to reconnect with good old friends at this time.

Some of our built up rhythm will carry with us into the rest of the year even as restrictions lift.  In part because we have reimagined how we connect with one another already.  My friends and I have started a quarantine book club.  When we go back to our outside activities we may not be able to zoom call each other all the time as we have been regularly.  But we will keep up our digital bookclub.

Sometimes all you need for reconnection is a start.  As we strive to reclaim a sense of normalcy we find ourselves not just imagining, but also reinventing the way we connect.  And I think that having put so much time into reconnecting we have enriched the days and months to come, whatever they may hold.

So, find ways to reconnect in a positive way.  Call someone you care about, tell someone how special they are to you.  Have a phone or zoom call with people you miss.  Enrich the rest of your 2020 with positive and meaningful reconnections. 

Why aren't Mouse Cages More Interesting?

My Uncle has just started a business raising fancy mice as pets.  He breeds them to be docile and in all sorts of colors and varieties.  And so I was contemplating his selection of mice and remembering the hamsters we used to keep in childhood.  This started me down a whole weird path about what I did and didn't like about keeping hamsters as a kid.

It occurred to me that I don't actually mind mice or hamsters, but I really mind their cages.  Our hamster cage was a gaudy pile of interconnected and strangely shaped plastics in a variety of uncomplimentary colours.  So, it occurred to me that what I don't like is how very bold and ugly the cages are while at the same time remaining in largely boring shapes.  As an historian I've bemoaned the fact that we no longer make beautiful Victorian bird cages, but I've never heard of fancy looking cages for pet mice.  Well, I've never heard of or seen fancy cages for any animal these days.

And why is that?  They are made of plastic.  You could just as quickly mold them into any shape you wanted, complicated shapes being just as fast as boring shapes in the modern world of molds and factory production.  So, why don't we make them more interesting looking?  It's not like you can shove a giant cage away in an attic and not look at it.  So, why are we content with them looking the way they do?

I suppose all of this comes back to my longing for the world to be more beautiful, more interesting and more strange than it currently is.  I don't think I'm the only one who feels this way about large cages.  Even for fish tanks there are little columns and shipwreck things you can put at the bottom to make it look more interesting and piratey.  Why can't we do the same for mice?

I want my world to be filled with beautiful architectural shapes.  If I were designing a mouse cage I'd make it into a Greek temple, or a Moorish Palace.  I remember that cleaning out corners was particularly unpleasant, maybe I'd make a Roman Colosseum for my mice to live in.  Then I could name them all suitably impressive names and watch them manically run around in their wheels and pretend they were training for the gladiatorial Games.

Maximus would train ceaselessly while Claudius napped after a hard fight in the arena.  Arena just means sand in Latin by the way, not that sand is in any way recommended for mouse cages.  I simply got excited about the Latin.  Truly though, how can you get a fancy pet mouse and stick him in a boring square cage?  I think it would be much more fun to name your rex pet mouse Maximus and house him in something you don't hate looking at.  If I couldn't find a cool mouse cage I'd probably build him a Colosseum.  But then, I'm mad.  We all know this.

Anyway, if you happen to be looking for fancy pet mice and live anywhere near Rhode Island you should look no further.  And if you happen to find a cage that's actually interesting looking, do let me know.

E is no longer just a letter?

rEading cat - Photo Source: Flickr by SuziJane

Today at work I saw a title that said e is for escape.  The article itself was talking about ebooks for the elderly.  However, it made me think E scape.  Huh, a technological escape.  Suddenly my mad brain took this idea and ran with it.  The letter e in front of things means some sort of technological version of them.  Ebooks, and emuseums are somehow online and accessible through new technological means.  If the letter e stands for technology then I decided all sorts of other words needed to be rethought.  For instance, a rEunion is where people are rEunited by the internet or facebook after a period of time.  Come to think of it, rEthought itself needs to be rethought.  REthought could mean coming to your conclusions based on things you have read on line.  The word rElate can mean to email a friend a story, or to form a connection or bond with someone online, (e.g. She could rElate to the blogger's love of ice cream).  To rEgift would be some form of sharing online, perhaps on facebook or twitter.  To rElax would be to find peace in online activities.  To dEstroy can be to ruin something online.  To bEsiEge can be to attack something online, probably with nasty comments (it gets two E's because besieging things in real life requires you to surround them and it is a rather intense process involving numbers and deserving of two E's).  But you could probably Evade capture by simply going offline.

On second thought, I don't think Escape is a technological escape.  I think Escape is a technological landscape.  A long row of computers could be considered an Escape though.  Or maybe a picture of the components of a computer.  Escapism could become a new art form.  It would be the next stage beyond post-modern.  It would be so post-modernly modern it could almost be modern.  See (which would become sEE, would be to view images online, and considering the eye-popping implications of two capitalized E's they are no doubt shocking ones).  Anyhow, my sentence got derailed by that tangent.  This is what happens when you start replacing whole words with letters and using letters to mean whole words.  E, is no longer just a letter which can only lead to more confusion in the future.  E is the most used letter in the English language if I am not mistaken.

Think about it.  Words like Elucidate (explaining things online) may be just as good as elucidating face to face.  But consider words like Eat and Elope.  Eating and Eloping are not in any way enhanced by an online experience.  These words are physical and their enjoyment is in the real physical world.  No E anything can rEplace that.  And what about sEcret.  There are no secrets online.  This all brings new meaning to the word Evil.  Is technology of the devil or is it simply malicious?  I'm not sure.  But this just brings me back to my rants about technology ruining the world and so forth.  Before I go on at length about this I will go to bed.

By the way, bEfore, now means procrastinating online when you should be doing other things like chores, or sleeping.  What other E words can you think of?  Ok, I'm really going now, you must be rElieved.

The Lazy Luddite

Despite that fact that I have always declared myself to be a Luddite, it would seem that I am a bit too lazy to be a really good one.  I do have moments where I consider defenestration to be the only real solution to my technological woes.  And of course, stomping on things can be truly satisfying.  But I always seem to stop just short of this truly Luddite action and carry on using, though slightly grudgingly, all the most modern sorts of technology I claim to hate.  I have thought about it and I think the reason is honestly that I am too lazy to be a good Luddite.

Throwing your laptop out the window might be satisfying for a few minutes.  Then the realization of all the things you have to do over will slowly sink in.  What about all those photos I put on it?  I don't have them saved elsewhere because that requires more technology and effort and time.  And all those random documents I have on it.  Variations of CVs and resumes that I really don't want to have to recreate.  I would die of sheer boredom.  Then there is the fact that killing off your current technological device just means you'll have to replace it with another one.  As much as the old device irritates you at least you know how it works.  New devices have all these complicated features that don't work the way that logic would dictate they should.  I suppose what I'm really saying is that I hate change more than I hate technology.  I could reasonably adopt the saying "change is bad, new is terrifying" as my personal motto.

Nice little phone minding its own business.  Suddenly senses that it is being followed.

That's really the problem with technology.  They never leave things alone.  They "improve" all the things that worked until they don't work anymore, until they become the least logical way of doing things, and make your life more complicated.  At the same time the real problems never seem to be fixed or worked on.  It seems like the masters and makers of the technology change things simply for the sake of creating change and that is the epitome of evil as far as I am concerned.  So, in this way I am truly a Luddite.  I see technological advances as challenging my way of life and I resent them.  I like the old way.  I understand it.  I do not want it to change.

Heart pounding the phone runs.  It trips on a curb and falls.  Then it sees its attacker and screams.

Perhaps you are wondering why all of a sudden I felt a need to rant about technology.  What precipitated this outburst, you ask yourself?  My phone.  My nice, easy, uncomplicated phone decided that it had worked for too many years.  It decided it was done working and that it needed to die, quite suddenly, in the middle of the night dragging me into yet another clash with technology.  I suppose it is rather fitting that my phone chose to die here in Leeds, that my technological struggle takes place here in this city.  You see, Leeds is located in what used to be the West Riding of Yorkshire, which along with Lancashire, saw the largest disturbances from the Luddite movement.  So it really is fitting that my old ways are being challenged here.

Incoming call from Hammer de Muerte.  A proud moment for a true Luddite.

So, being that I hate technology and change so much, and seeing that I think that technology is pretty much magic, see my thoughts on flash drives, the question is really this... why don't I seize this opportunity to really turn Luddite and do my convictions proud?  Because it requires too much work, that's why.  As much as I complain about the way technology ruins my life, it really has to be said that it makes many things easier.  For instance, I do prefer actually writing with a pen in my hand.  I find it easier to think that way.  But who has the time to hand write essays and then type them out later?  I barely had time for all the reading I had to do as it was.  Typing out essays as I went and using flash drives was the lazy option.  When it came down to it I preferred to spend less time writing and rewriting by hand, be a bit lazy and sleep a bit more.  Have you ever met a college/university student who got enough sleep?  I haven't.  Of course, this doesn't mean that I don't write by hand.  I do keep a hand-written journal.  On occasion I scribble down random story ideas and whatnot and I absolutely adore writing in this way, with real pen and paper.  It just feels better.

But wait.  What is that?  The Luddite begins to tremble in fear.

The same can be said for communication.  I prefer writing and receiving real letters to emails, but emails are so much faster.  I do still write letters but I write less of them because it is easier to email and get responses faster.  Then too you can write one email and send it to everyone.  Rewriting the same letter over and over again can get tiring.  Then of course, if you want to discuss instant communication, phones are even better.  I never really loved talking on the phone but it simply cannot be avoided.  It is the quickest way to organize things and provides instant communication despite distance.  My mistrust of technology is slowly being overcome by my real laziness.  I like convenient things.  If one phone call can sort out all necessary plans I prefer it to ten emails back and forth.  And if I can stay in touch with family and friends on multiple continents by suffering through a little technology, then it is worth it.  A smart phone can do all of these things and more you say?  Hmm.  It doesn't mean I like technology, or even trust it, but it would seem that I will continue using it.

Is that a smartphone? Oh God the horror!

I am the worst Luddite ever.

Flash Drives: The Inner Workings

First, I should explain that my views on technology are rather odd.  Basically I believe that technology is magic.  Electricity is definitely magic.  All the explanations of how it is supposed to work has only convinced me that this is the truth.  All electronic devices are therefore run on magic. 

Let me use an example.  I have my own strange explanation for how flash drives work.  If you have ever looked at computer components and thought they looked like miniature cities you may understand where I am coming from.  Now, I don't know about your flash drive, but inside mine there is an entire city of miniature scribes.  Lots of very little scribes.

So, when I put the flash drive into my computer the scribes run out of their little city and into my computer.  They copy my word documents down super fast, there are lots of them so it doesn't take long even though they are super small.  Then they all return to my flash drive with my document stored on their little writing tablets.  They archive it neatly away in little piles that are quickly accessible if I need it again.

If I decide that I need to read my document on another computer I put in my flash drive and all the scribes run in and copy my document down again quick as lightning.  They are really good at their job.  They are scribes of the highest quality.  They are highly literate, and well-versed in different scripts (or fonts as you modern people would call them).  It takes hours of practice to attain such perfection in their art.

This is why you must remove flash drives safely.  To remove flash drives unsafely is irresponsible as it circumvents the safety features of the device and could risk the well-being of your scribes.  Clicking remove safely is the final warning that the flash drive is about to be removed and all your scribes should make sure they are safely back inside.  It clearly sets off the flashing red lights and sirens.  This saves them from danger and you from frustration when your document is incomplete or simply missing because you left behind some scribes with key parts of your document written down.  There is simply no other reasonable explanation for why you would need a safely remove feature.  It is clearly to protect the magical city of scribes from harm.

That is how flash drives really work.  Magic.  How else do you propose the miniature scribes got in there?