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PROGRAMMING NOTE from the Author and Archivist


So obviously I just stopped blogging on this platform. I'll get back to it eventually. Or not. I'm taking a break from all social media. It seemed necessary for my mental health.

The last few years have been busy and … challenging:

- 2015 Happened.
- 2016 Let's call it The Lost Year. (Obviously words failed me.)
- 2017 about broke me. Literally. Mentally.
- 2018 was ridiculous, proving 2017 was just a warm up. (Good thing I was already broken so it couldn't hurt as much.#2018TrashCanFire I thought things were going okay, but maybe not?)

- 2019 was such a blur. I know there were highlights, but then stuff happened and carried into the next year...

- And then in March#2020 really took a turn. Who can even categorize 2020? Do we dare?


I kinda want a do-over of some of the last few years. But life doesn’t work that way.


So for now, I'm hunkering down. Regrouping. Trying to stay safe and sort some stuff out.


Stay safe everyone. Stay well.

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Friday, August 22, 2014

Quote of the Day: Unexpected Memories Lingered Beneath Words

As I work my way back to semi-regular blogging, I'm going to share some of the quotes from books I've been reading ... some of the random things that have perked my interest, and persuaded me to keep using this forum to share things, family history, etc.

"Over the years, Aunt Ailis had tried to lure Finnegan into the world of computers, the lines of software code that she studied as if they would give her a key to the inner workings of the human brain, if not heart. Finnegan understood the satisfaction she derived from the act of coding, her ability to aim for and achieve something she already she knew she wanted -- but for Finnegan, his interest in people's stories was always the unexpected memories that lingered beneath the words, waiting to come out. As far as Finnegan could understand, the purpose of coding was to create a form of stable perfection, a series of commands that could reproduce every time exactly what was intended. The opposite of humans, who were interesting to Finnegan precisely because of the way their narrative changed, hid other meanings, shifted with time and perspective.

 So he reached out and took the stories in, knowing that they had nowhere else to go, unable to refuse safe haven to memories that otherwise would disappear unnoticed. And yet, at times, he was overwhelmed by the weight of other people's lives, the stack of notebooks that surrounded his bed.

"You could publish them," Aunt Ailis suggested. But Finnegan knew, somehow, that wasn't the answer. What he had experienced in the transfer of these stories was as intimate as touch, a table for two in a crowded restaurant. Still, he didn't know what to do with them, didn't know who he was without them.
...
And so he sat in his room, surrounded. ... He sat on his bed and picked up one notebook after another, reading."

~ From Erica Bauermeister's The Lost Art of Mixing, pages 231-232

Emphasis throughout my own.

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