The AH Coffee Shop and Reading Room 09

[TarnishedPenny]

Putzing around with a story I had written a few lines of almost a year ago. It could be read as a stand-alone stroker or a follow-up piece to a previous story.

I'm stuck on formatting while having barely written much. A character will be sending voice messages to someone--do I write it as if it's normal speech in paragraphs? Do I single it out as its own lines for impact? Italics or not?

You can do whatever pleases you and is accepted by the site. The important thing is that the reader understands your intent, in this case that it's a voice message. Normally, I would say that it's just like somebody speaking, but if you really want to stress the message nature, then, yes, italics might be an idea.

 

[NuclearFairy]

A few months ago I got a slightly more expensive grooming kit just for the tweezers. It's hard finding good tweezers. So far, I've used it for grooming once, to remove splinters twice, and to fix my mouse innumerable times.

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

Your mouse is fixed?


Did he complain?

Does he look at you funny now?

 

[NuclearFairy]

Well, if I keep bringing him to the vet to get fixed, I think the vet would start looking at me funny after the second or third time.

 

[MrPixel]

I've always thought of writing as a fundamentally lonely pastime.

I feel the opposite when I write. I love my characters and enjoy the time spent with them. Sure, they may be figments of my imagination, but they're a fun-loving bunch and full of life. Besides, paraphrasing Groucho, “Outside of a dog, a [story] is man’s best friend. That’s because inside a dog it’s too dark to read.”

 

[NotWise]

Today, I'll roast, chop and freeze the first New Mexico chiles of the year. There should be more on a regular basis until they frost.

I harvested six cantaloupes, all from one vine, and still have one in the fridge, uncut. The second vine got a late start and was covered up by the first and by the Armenian cucumbers. I have seven new cantaloupes set since I removed the cucumbers. I know that one of those is on the second vine, and I expect they all are, but the vines are so tangled that I can't tell. What I don't know is whether they'll be able to ripen, given shorter days and cooler temperatures.

Transplanting the broccolini today. I'll transplant the fall cucumbers after they've set their second true leaf, which should happen soon.

My Summer Lovin' contest story (in Toys & Masturbation) now has more views then my last story in T/I. That's the contest effect, and the result of Mom, etc.'s poor placement on the New List and me discouraging views with the WIWAW essay. Otherwise, that should never happen.

 

[Belegon]

Everyone's brain works differently, ya know?

absolutely true. I sometimes think it's a wonder any of us understand another person at all

 

[stickygirl]

Ready for another round of tomato relish. Only 2kg this time, but they're soaking overnight with salt.

On an entirely different note
Information scraping, privacy, VPNs and all that.
I watched an interesting YT yesterday, pointing out that a free VPN is just a front for a shady company gathering info for one of the big four Intels. The US govt of course has a keen interest in snooping, but the UK is a close second... China...

Now I have a newer Mac, capable of supporting modern software, I've looked again at my privacy. I use multiple browsers that I keep unconnected; I use Cloudflare and NordVPN; I totally castrate the browsers so they can't record browser history etc; I never publish a photo of myself online ( and I'm considerate of other people's image ); never give websites permission to run all their cookies. I was surprised that Firefox was recommended provided you switch all the security options to max. I stopped browsers keeping my credit card numbers out of 'convenience' - like duh!

So far, I can still access Lit, porn sites ( *yawn* ) and haven't found any problems.

BONUS is that being autistic, I get really irritated by intrusive adverts on YT, but now my VPN points to another country, the adverts play in a language I don't understand!! Yipee.

 

[NotWise]

BONUS is that being autistic, I get really irritated by intrusive adverts on YT, but now my VPN points to another country, the adverts play in a language I don't understand!! Yipee.

Sounds like a language-learning opportunity, if you wanted one.

 

[stickygirl]

Sounds like a language-learning opportunity, if you wanted one.

I thought about that, but if I started speaking to people like I was a Huggies or a MacDonald advert, then I'd have even more trouble socialising I prefer the current situation: the jumble of unknown words don't grab my attention in the way English sales-talk does.

 

[TheRedLantern]

I get really irritated by intrusive adverts

I read this as "adverbs" the first time and agreed just as hard as when I saw what you really wrote.

 

[stickygirl]

Well I can't sit around here drinking coffee. I must head off to where I belong and make tomato relish: it's going to be a long hard winter and we're all doomed

 

[Five_Inch_Heels]

55, lowest temp since May.

It was 98 last Tuesday.

 

[Omenainen]

For the first time ever, my story already had one comment by the time I first checked on it! This has never happened before, since I live on a time zone that lets me see the publishing time, and also previously comment moderation has prevented anyone commenting so quickly. (Also work kept me busy, which sucks.)

It’ll be nice to have a day of refreshing my stats after a long pause I’ll have coffee to refresh me while I refresh my author’s panel.

 

[iwatchus]

Still drizzling here this morning, which matches my mood pretty well I guess. But it is supposed to clear up as the day goes on. Maybe my mood will, too.

This being my last year of teaching is bothering me differently than I expected it to. More melancholy. And for some reason, it seems to have triggered my first real grieving for my father yesterday. He died peacefully last month, but I took it surprisingly nonchalantly.

Hopefully I will feel better after I teach a class this afternoon. And get tortured in PT later this morning. I have my surgical consult on my knee in two weeks.

Two stories to work on editing today and one story to read and comment on for someone else. Right now, that is the only part of the day I am looking forward to.

 

[NotWise]

Still drizzling here this morning, which matches my mood pretty well I guess. But it is supposed to clear up as the day goes on. Maybe my mood will, too.

This being my last year of teaching is bothering me differently than I expected it to. More melancholy. And for some reason, it seems to have triggered my first real grieving for my father yesterday. He died peacefully last month, but I took it surprisingly nonchalantly.

Hopefully I will feel better after I teach a class this afternoon. And get tortured in PT later this morning. I have my surgical consult on my knee in two weeks.

Two stories to work on editing today and one story to read and comment on for someone else. Right now, that is the only part of the day I am looking forward to.

Before I went to bed last night I noticed that the weather forecast for today was "Drizzly Day." It was the second time recently I've noticed that forecast. It makes me ask, "Who's forecast was that? Did they get our forecast?"

They say that the death of an old man is not a tragedy, and I think we may skip the early phases of grieving for them. In time, their absence underlines the importance in our lives and the loss sets in.

 

[JGittes]

@NotWise. How much older than you was he? (I assume your former boss.)

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I've always thought of writing as a fundamentally lonely pastime.

I think Dylan Thomas had it aright.

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

 

[NotWise]

@NotWise. How much older than you was he? (I assume your former boss.)

My boss was twelve years older than me. My thoughts were motivated by my father. He passed away in 2007 on the eve of his 80th birthday.

 

[JGittes]

My father passed in 2005 at 84. Our relationship was 'strained,' but he kept alive just long enough for me to drive nonstop from Houston to Palm Springs for a brief chat before he slipped into a coma and died the next day. I now have a thousand questions I'd like to ask. He was at Pearl Harbor on Dec 7, 41, but wouldn't talk about it, nor the rest of his service during the war. I've pieced things together, but I sure wish I could consult the source firsthand.

His mother (obviously, my grandmother) was born in China in 1888. I've learned more about her from going through those diaries, scrapbooks, and photo albums that have been passed on to me than I did from talking to her while she was alive. Again, what I wouldn't give to consult the source.

 

[TheRedLantern]

Mostly sunny. Warm. And a guy I know gave me one of those "special, homemade brownies with an extra magic ingredient."

I ate it not too long ago and it's kicking in already. He said it takes about an hour before I'd be "ready to experience Fleetwood Mac the way God intended" (his words)

 

[Omenainen]

Mostly sunny. Warm. And a guy I know gave me one of those "special, homemade brownies with an extra magic ingredient."

I ate it not too long ago and it's kicking in already. He said it takes about an hour before I'd be "ready to experience Fleetwood Mac the way God intended" (his words)

I’d say yes to cookies a lot more if they all were like that.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Lou works for a girls nickname right?

 

[NotWise]

Lou works for a girls nickname right?

Short for Louise, sure. It's no worse than Mel for Melissa, and I used that with success.

 

[NotWise]

Short for Louise, sure. It's no worse than Mel for Melissa, and I used that with success.

If you want an alternative, then there's Lu or Lulu.