Are We Training AI

 Very not hot take: I can't be the only one not excited about posting anymore because it only feels like we're training AI. 

How to be funny? How to empathize? How to have a normal number of fingers? 

Besides my regular daily dose of self sabotage telling me that it's all been said, it's been done, blah blah blah, there's battling the daily upheavals of my body, and then the question of your socials aiding and abetting in the training of AI FemBots to trick incels in their "He-Man Woman Haters" basements sending Bitcoin to GiveSendGo. 

I ain't got time for that. Nor the energy. 

Are we past time for caring? Has every post and every blog I ever wrote just a cog in the big AI machine now? Do we all unplug our social faces and only communicate through texts and messages? Snail mail. The answer is snail mail and books. Probably.

Guess this not very hot take was longer than I anticipated. 

An additional not so mini take, I'd like to think I'm capable of calling out AI videos or writing every time, but no doubt it gets past me. Oh, and yes, I have used the AI search option on Google and Bing while looking up a recent health diagnosis. I've probably shared AI. Hit the love and like buttons. I can't be some innocent AI purist. I think being online at all prevents that. 

The fact is an AI data center that will produce the energy equivalent of 23 atomic bombs every, single, day, is going to be built in my backyard. It is horrifying. 

There's also the incels.

Get the Lead Out

 Most mornings I've been writing in my dream journal about all the dreams I had during the night and morning. I use my favorite mechanical pencil. I've had that thing for decades.  Well, I started to run out of lead. I searched and searched my apartment for the replacement lead (which I was positive was here somewhere) and could never find it. So, I ordered more. 

Today I'm putting the new lead into my most favorite mechanical pencil and decide to put the new lead somewhere that makes sense, where I won't forget it: at the bottom of the ceramic jug holding all my pens. 

When I dump out all the pens what do I find? All the replacement lead.

I have enough lead to last until the apocalypse.

Things I Need

 List Of Things I Need To Do

1. Dust
   
2. Vacuum
3. Go Through Mail
4. Shred Mail
5. Organize And File Mail That I Didn't Shred
6. Reorganize Cupboards (Dry Goods/Staples)
7. Clean Bathroom
8. Laundry
9. Write
10. Read
11. Sort Memorabilia Boxes
12. Organize Memorabilia 
13. Get Out Knitting And Restart (Relearn Casting On)
14. Continue Paint-By-Numbers
15.  Colour
16. Write
17. Tune Guitar
18. Learn to Play Newly Tuned Guitar
19. Send Cards
20. Rearrange Bookshelves 
21. Sweep
22. Mop
23. Write
24. Detail My Car
25. Be Grateful For My Mom
26. Tell My Mom I Love Her
    

 

List Of Things I Have Done Today

 

1. Compiled This List 
2. 25 and 26 on repeat
   

 

 

 

 

 

Me Party

I want someone that thinks I am funny, even when I am not. Someone that understands why I try too hard or not at all. Someone that lets me take care of them as much as they take care of me. Someone to whom I dare expose how truly terrified I am. How embarrassed I am. Someone that eats like I do, that laughs like I do, that loves like I do. I need a best friend and I don't need sex, I am so over that. I understand how irrational many of these needs and wants are yet I still need and want. I need to differentiate between wants and needs. I want to be truly vulnerable without the fear of evaporating. I want to stop feeling pain. Feeling alone in my pain.

This is why I write it. This is why I lived with bunnies. Why I will live with bunnies again.

I am my someone right now. And then. And for the foreseeable future. Explains me talking to myself. I felt a peace as I typed that. More than I have recently when I would ruminate on my future "alone" existence.

Guess I want to be my own best friend.

Swiper, No Swiping

I have put off this blog for months. Here I've been, ruminating about it, talking about it in therapy, even suggesting it as part of "homework" to boost the urgency, so maybe the expectation/curiosity of someone else would light the fire I can't seem to light on my own. What is so difficult to admit/express/share on here when I have talked about having my legs in stirrups and speculums and so much more? The answer is dating; why it terrifies me, why I shield myself from the pain of it and why I don't feel worthy of romantic love.

Most everyone has their own grab bag of insecurities to use as talismans from pain. We hold these up (not attractive enough, finances, age, too fat, too thin, imposter syndrome, job security, status) as proof to either not try for a desired goal or as the long long division data that justifies why it will just never happen for you. For myself, I tack on my health to this pile of human mental detritus. My health has turned into not only a bludgeon with which to beat myself but a dome of twisted security. I need to find a way to crack the dome.

I hear it more often than I advertise, "Why are you single?" or "Why don't you date?" The hefty nitty-gritty answer to that would take up many and sundry blog posts, but to attempt a summation; dating is selling yourself and I feel I have a product that comes with too much damage. I can hear the objections already from the people that love me. "You have so much to offer" and "Do you know what a catch you are?" This is about honesty so I will admit this is where the bludgeon comes out and I start the internal tallying of my "Why Would Anyone Volunteer For This Job" list. It is a thing. I do it well. It has served to protect me for nearly twenty years. I don't anticipate it ever going away, fully. What I am trying to see in my future is my striving to lessen its power. That cracking the dome notion I mentioned earlier? I was thinking maybe starting with a dating app.

Now, this is where I get completely frozen with fear. I know nothing about them (the last time I attempted an online date was when I had AOL and it was a disaster) and when I mentioned dating apps to some neighbor friends I got "Don't do it, all they wanna do is f@#k" which wasn't reassuring, in the least. This is the interactive portion of this blog. I await your stories; horror, love, comedy, drama. I want to know if you love or hate dating apps or if indifference rules the day (as it has for me.)

The only promise I am making to myself as of now is that once I collect all the goods from your recommendations/warnings I will at the very least install an app. That is a big-time step for me. This blog is a step for me. I am also thinking of this as possible material for future blogs and other content because my mind goes directly to the learning experience of it all, of course. Then, after I have an actual app installed, there's the next step. Who knows, by this time next year I might know what all this swipe right, swipe left business is.

Quite A Yarn

Blogging about my dreams lately has been a kind of cheat, a shortcut to get me back in the mindset of writing. At all. More like priming the pump of my mind that is scrambled and fuzzy with fear of expressing myself. Also, I think my dreams are fun, interesting, and often more than not, hilarious. So, if my subconscious doesn't interest you, don't bother with this blog today. And, probably others in the future. 🙃😏

My most recent doozy of a dream was about a television pilot called "Cully." It starred a ragtag group of knitters that secretly banded together to stop a worldwide conspiracy, whose main goal was to CULL the entire human race.

The poster for the show had the cast standing armed with their knitting needles, yarn hanging from the ends. They all had fierce faces and CULLY was scrawled atop in red, that dripped.

I'm starting to wonder if my subconscious needs an agent.

Waitlist

I haven't written here in quite a while. Blocked, intimidated, busy, shy: there are many words to describe the motivations that kept me away. There are also many things happening behind the scenes, physically and emotionally. My physical health seems to be a never ending series of unfortunate events. I have made them the priority in my life, to battle. Somehow convinced that if I keep fighting (emotionally as well) that somehow I will magically win. I am nearly 48 years old and it seems I need to learn that I am never going to "win." It is the need to not feel so small and out of control when all of this is happening where you have never ever had control. As my therapist keeps kindly reminding me, acceptance isn't giving up, so I am learning to accept that I need to feel better about never feeling better. Flip the focus so I use what I can control, my mind, and find the best ways to live my best life my way.

The past few months have been very busy with ER visits, multiple tests at the U and then just last week I had an echo with a stress test at McKay Dee. After the echo and during the stress test my cardiologist waltzes in and informs me they found a Fibroelastoma in my Aortic Valve. He ordered blood cultures. Then he leaves. Waltzed out. No follow up. No plan. No size. Nothing. The next day when I went for my cultures, they were ordered incorrectly. A nurse from the office called two days later and had no idea about anything other than my stress test showed no ischemia which is GREAT!

We have an appointment at the U on February 5 with a new doc. I've had my test results sent to him and I'm done with my old one. This whole thing makes me sad and bewildered. I feel so many balls were dropped and I am too exhausted to pick them up and throw them at his head.

My new personal goal now is to write more. Stop talking myself out of it everytime "No one wants to hear that" "boring" "it's already been written." Sure, I may feel like crap when I write but I can't keep waiting to feel better. I've waited long enough.