The End of July

Today is my birthday. I'm not around today as I have plans. (Nothing terribly exciting, but I won't be online.)

I thought it would be cute to post a very old picture of me. I went looking through the digital archives, and I couldn't find a good obvious birthday photo (lots of kids around a birthday cake), but I found quite a few of just me. So, in no particular order...

(My brother got my mother's old slides digitized several years ago and gave me access. I haven't seen these in years.)

And no, it's not a decade year. For me, those are years that end in one. This is just a middle of a decade, ordinary birthday. 🎂

The Big Yawn, Part 2

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

Back before the A to Z Challenge in April, I posited a question about a "second coming" getting missed. And a couple of commenters mentioned something along the lines of, "If the rapture had happened, no one would have missed it."

Ah, but see, that was exactly the question. 

These are "what if?" questions posited by a writer who works in speculative fiction. While my questions don't always hit science fiction or fantasy, when they do, I'm coming at it from a wholly fictional viewpoint. Even if you know it couldn't happen, what if?

So, this time, instead of doing some amorphous "second coming", I'm going to specify the Rapture, and whatever you believe that to mean.

What if the Rapture already happened and we just... missed it?

(If you can't play along, I understand.)

Looking Towards Sleeves

Progress has been made. I believe it's as big as it needs to be...

And I have attached the "shoulders". Next up, sleeves.

It may need more length, but it's as wide as it needs to be. So, as I said, progress. 

Eye sweater previous posts:

• Eyeing a New Project
  
• Seeing Some Progress
• Second Sight
• Envisioning the Next Step
• Glaring and Sniffling
• Surveying the Sweater

In the Background

What song are you listening to right now?

(I generally work in silence, so I'm listening to the wind and the fountains outside.)

13 Surprises from My Junk Drawer

Last week I listed a bunch of projects that I had worked on or was planning on working on. It was not a complete list. A couple days after completing the post, I found a "junk drawer organizer" that I had purchased months ago with the knowledge that I wouldn't be able to do anything with it until I had some time. I had some time.

I knew what was in the junk drawer. I did. I put the stuff in there myself. And yet, I was surprised by some of the crap I found. So, for today's Thursday 13, I am listing some of the surprises and some of the weird that I found while doing a bit of clearing and organizing.

1. I have an index card problem. I did not realize how bad it was until emptying the drawer. I knew I had some index cards, but I didn't realize how many. And they were everywhere. (Don't let the picture fool you. That was after I had found them all and stacked them together. They were not this neat in the drawer.)

2. I also have a post-it note problem. I had six full pads of post-it notes. 

3. And, I have a scotch tape problem. I had three full rolls plus an empty roll. Why I had an empty roll, I have no idea. It's now in the trash. (And that doesn't count the two or three tape dispensers I have in my wrapping paper nook.)

4. Mechanical pencils. I do not need this many mechanical pencils. I do not know why I bought all of them. (They are going to come to school with me next school year. I figure a week, two tops, and that will be a problem of the past.)

5. Instructions for a digital clock that I no longer have. I remember the clock. I had to have bought it in the '90s. I tossed it (after it died) years ago. Why I still have the instructions... (Those also got tossed.)

6. An old cell phone case... for my old iPhone 4... (I have an iPhone 15 today.)

7. Speaking of phones, I also found my old phone books. I haven't needed a phone book since getting a cell phone and keeping my contact list up to date.

8. A Halloween sound effects box and a Halloween flashlight. Neither work (although, that's a battery issue, I'm sure). I don't remember the last time I saw either, but it was before Covid. 

9. I have an eraser I keep in my school bag. I use it a lot. I used it up. I knew I had another, but I could not find it. So, sometime during the school year, I bought a new one. Guess what I found in the junk drawer? Yup, I knew I had another one of those erasers. Now I have four. (They come in packs of three.)

10. Three packages of crazy glue. I don't need three packages of crazy glue. And they're all sealed, so I have never used any of them. 

11. Old sunglasses...

12. Of course, there were the assorted tacks (why I need 100 tacks...), paper clips, rubber bands, etc. in every corner. And, of course, some fell on the floor while I was going through it all, so of course I stepped on a tack...

13. Random buttons. I have a button tub where I keep random buttons. So, why did I have at least a dozen in the junk drawer?

Yeah, so the drawer is organized. For the moment. You know what I did not find? Pens. I have been in Dollar Tree about once a week for months, and I have been holding back on buying pens. "You have pens at home." Nope. I now have permission to go and buy more pens. I think that's my biggest surprise. 

3 Body Problem

Last week I talked about how I had started a bunch of shows, but I couldn't get past the pilot episodes. Luckily, one show interested me enough that I was able to finish its first (and only, so far) season. 3 Body Problem.

I had heard some rumblings about this Netflix show, but they weren't the sort of rumblings that would normally draw me in. Incomprehensible. Violent. Weird...

Okay, weird I'm okay with. I'm not fond of violence, but I can put up with it for the right sort of story. As for the hard to understand part, I am familiar with the 3 body problem from my physics studies (in that it's not solvable). 

As nothing else was sticking, I figured I'd give it a go.

The pilot episode didn't turn me off. I was ambivalent, but willing to give it a second episode. It wasn't until episode four or five that I felt like I got my feet under me, and then I was on board. (That's about the time the underlying mysteries got explained. It went from what the heck? to oh, I know these tropes.)

The show starts off with some weird things happening in science. Particle colliders are turning up weird results that are upending all particle physics theories. Something's wrong with the accelerators or something's wrong with the theories. Science is broken.

At the same time, various scientists are dying--many by their own hand. It's too many to be a coincidence. And one of our main characters is seeing a countdown in her vision that no one else can see. It's clear that some of the other now-dead scientists had seen this same countdown. (She goes to see a neurologist. They can find nothing wrong.) 

The show centers on a group of people (age: 30-ish) who went to university together (I think it was Oxford--they're in the UK). They studied physics. Two are working scientists. One went into developing something in the private sector. One became a physics teacher. And the last one left the field and became a millionaire selling chips (food, not computer chips). 

And then there's a parallel story set in China in the late '60s. That connects it all together. Eventually.

This is a great sci fi show. If you like that sort of thing. And if you have Netflix. (Sorry if you don't.) 

Have you seen it? Are you tempted if you haven't?

All Closed

What if? It's the basis of many stories. We ask. We ponder. We wonder. 

On Tuesdays I throw one out there. What if? It may be speculative. It may stem from something I see. It may be something I pull from the news. 

Make of it what you will. If a for instance is not specified, interpret that instance as you wish. And if the idea turns into a story, I'd appreciate a thank you in the acknowledgements 😉

What if your local library closed permanently? (Could be budget cuts. Could be citizens protesting what's in the library's collection. Could be new regulations. I won't specify why.)