Inventing the Future

Image courtesy of toomanybookstoolittletime.wordpress.com

I'm reading Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood. I discovered quite by accident that there is a sequel to Oryx and Crake, that that unsettling ending isn't the end of the story after all.

As with Stephen King (sorry, Margaret, for comparing you to such a mainstream author), I have discovered Atwood's formula. But instead of making me lose interest, this discovery has made me see science fiction wherever I look.

While King creates horror by first making the reader completely recognize the characters and setting (thus bringing the unspeakable horror "home," so to speak), Atwood takes objectionable recognizable things from around us and imagines the worst possible outcome-- X, whatever it is, to the nth degree.

In A Handmaid's Tale, for example, she takes government control of women's reproductive systems and says "what if this got much, much worse?" In Oryx and Crake, she takes commercialism and anti-intellectualism and says the same thing.

Reading her work, you suddenly recognize, in case you missed it, that you are actually living in a dystopia. It's right here all around us, fueled by mass media and the information age, and it isn't destined to get any better any time soon. That's Atwood's formula for horror.

I once heard a science fiction author speak and she said "Science fiction is inventing the future." The dystopic subgenre of science fiction, playmate of horror, operates as a warning--- but does anyone listen? Do we have to invent such an ugly future?

Why It Takes Me Awhile to Write a Presentation

Because nothing is simple in my mind. Work assignment: write a presentation.

(Image courtesy of chemistryland.com)

But first, these types of thoughts have to run through my mind and find a place to settle along with the task at hand.

"We trace the historical development of the business presentation genre over the last century, examine the influence of the PowerPoint software tool, and consider the evolving enactment of the PowerPoint presentation genre in a few organizations.

Drawing on this analysis, we highlight the emergence of what we refer to as corollary genres that challenge our conventional understandings of genres as tightly coupled to particular recurrent situations and communicative purposes.

Our analysis points to an empirical blurring of genre expectations around conventional discursive practice, suggesting important implications for the nature of workplace communication in contemporary organizations."

-- From "The PowerPoint Presentation and Its Corollaries: How Genres Shape Communicative Action in Organizations"

(I include the link in case you are as complicated as I am)

May Day

These little sprouts were hibiscus starts by the time I transplanted them today.

Thank goodness Spring has arrived.

In hopes of Spring, a folded away the down comforter and exchanged it for a fresh cotton quilt. When I pass through the room and see the expanse of this quilt and the sheer white curtains dancing above it in the breeze, I want to lie down and daydream.

In hopes of Spring, I set out for the day in a t-shirt and shorts. By the time late afternoon rolled around, I had to add Uggs to this ensemble. Shorts + Uggs = hope+ reality.

In hopes of Spring, I got on my knees and planted pansies and impatiens, little emblems of instant gratifications as I wait for the herbs in my flowerbed to grow larger. And I secreted bulbs under the ground like Easter eggs to find next spring.

The Algebra of Selling Yourself

Image courtesy of apoorplayer.net

Work is supposed to take up 40 hours of each week, right? We sell 40 hours of each precious 168 hours of our lives in order to survive. It's less than a quarter of our time, so it's not a bad deal really, considering what people once had to do to survive.

Then we sleep, what?, 7 hours a night, if we're lucky and insomnia doesn't plague us. That's 49 hours a week, 30 percent of a week.

Another 5 hours a week getting ready for work, 3.5 hours a week getting to and from work and 5 hours a week having lunch breaks (but because they are surrounded on both sides by work, one can hardly think of them as one's own time). That's another 15.5 hours (10 percent of a week) that belong to work and not to myself.

That's 104.5 hours out of 168 that are not available for all the rest of the things I need or would like to do.

Or, looking at it positively, I have 63.5 hours a week to cook, eat, shop, do errands, pay bills, take walks, call my mom, see my kids, visit friends, write, garden, fly kites, kayak, dance, do yoga and kiss my boyfriend.

The trick is not to be mentally and physically exhausted during those 63.5 hours so that they can be used properly.

At the moment, the problem is that work is nudging out of its 55.5-hour allotment, bleeding by the hour into my "free" time and even into my sleep.

I have to get it under control or I'm going to become like those sweaty guys in bad suits swigging Maalox from their desk drawers.
This week, a crew (including me) from the company I work for is going to a trade show in Las Vegas. Work, already growing beyond its boundaries as I have described, is about to take on 24/7 proportions for an entire week.

By the way, don't let the word "Vegas" sound too alluring; I've been to these events before. They are a series of 15 hour days on your feet answering question after question, walking miles on concrete, smiling when you don't want to, and not being able to shut down your mind for sleeping when you finally get back to your cold hotel room.

When I get home, I intend to find balance.

Rides & Residences

(Image courtesy of Pioneer Valley Local)

Thirty years pass, water under the bridge, then the wonders of social networking allow for this exchange, each colorful term a tiny door that could be opened to reveal a wondrous vista.

She writes: "Did you know several of my stories lately have begun with, 'I once dated a hot-air balloon pilot...' I always have to stop there and let people comment on that notable fact before I can launch into the real story, whatever it is: my aversion to spitting over the side of an airborne vessel, how good Constant Comment tastes early in the morning, or how to pronounce Tulomne."

And he replies: "On occasions, I still tell the story of dating a woman who, in total earnest, looked me right in the eyes and stated: 'I can't believe that you own a perfectly good 1964 Volkswagon microbus, and you don't even live in it!'"

Slow Fast Food

Image courtesy of lataco.com

Well, now that I've revived the blog, I have to decide what to do with it. There are so many directions to go that I just can't decide.

Maybe it could be a spot for restaurant reviews, in which case I should tell you about Naan of the Above in Arcata, where I had lunch today.

It's sort of a stationary mobile restaurant. I mean, it's on wheels like a taco truck but tidier and more colorful. One eats al fresco, perched uncomfortably on lightweight resin patio furniture, trucks blasting by drowning out conversation, wind whipping through blowing the paper napkins off the table.

It's like fast food, except, well, not fast.

And not cheap either, at 9 bucks and change for two samosas and a mango lassi. The samosas were delicious and so was the lassi, but I think the price is too steep. I would like to have tried more things on the menu (like the kheer or the naan), but I couldn't afford it.

The al fresco part sounds nice but the location isn't good. And on a cool day like today, I'd prefer comfortable indoor dining.

And my favorite Indian restaurant remains: Eureka's buffet at Pak Indian Cuisine. Especially the chai, the rice pudding, naan, the chicken tikka masala and the dahl. Sometimes, there's even okra. All you can eat and Bollywood on the big screen: works for me.

If only it was closer to my work.

Back

After a six-month silence, here I am, back again. With such little activity, it's likely there are no more readers of the Bitten Apple out there.

During this time, I have archived all the posts I ever wrote since the inception of this blog in 2008, saved them all as Word files, began the project of printing them out into book form, for no better reason than a person would have for saving an old journal. For posterity, or something like that. But what happened to the Bitten Apple?

2009 was clearly the its heyday, and 2010 was definitely its year of decline; 91 posts in 2008, 128 in 2009 and 20 in 2010.

You might wonder, did I lose interest in writing? In writing publicly? Did I run out of things to say? To ponder? Not exactly.

It was a combination of things, the completion of a project, life changes. In May 2010, grad school ended, ending also the long, arduous process of researching and writing my graduate thesis. That process was a dark time of enforced house arrest, stuck with an overactive mind and a computer that I dare not stray too far from. I had leftover musings, and they found their way to the blog.

When that ended, it was like the sun came out, like I was set free into the bright sunshine with no desire to devote hours to writing. I fell in love, flew kites, had picnics, partied.

I also job hunted and worked three jobs at once, university teacher on weekday mornings, marketing assistant weekday afternoons, assistant newspaper editor on Sundays. This didn't leave a lot of extra time.

The blog itself became less hospitable. Suffice it to say it became less enticing to share anything meaningful here.

In addition to that, 2010 was a tumultuous year, and my feelings weren't often fit for publication.

Finally, there is the fact (still remaining) that the things that interest me, amuse me and shock me hardly ever seem to coincide with what has similar effect on others. TV annoys me, journalism is in decline, I hate it that NPR reported on which Superbowl commercials were best. I was already a complete grammar nerd thanks to descriptive linguistics, and now that I work for a tech company, I am even nerdier than ever.

So, while there is plenty on my mind, I haven't been sure that sharing any of it here was such a great idea.

I've felt the lack, though, the absence of an outlet, a place to process impressions, a way to add dimension and meaning to the everyday incidents of life.

So I'm back.