A Week Was Had
Feb. 10th, 2023 05:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cafenowhereWe started the week at a disadvantage. On Sunday, the garage door spring broke, trapping our car inside the garage. We had to have someone from the garage door company come out on Monday, and fortunately they were able to fix the spring, so the door is again operational. We were prepared for them to say the door was a goner and they could only release the car. We are going to replace the motor for the garage door once they can get us scheduled. J says it should be more reliable during the winter and quieter too. I hope a new motor also means the whole house will no longer shake when the garage opens and closes.
On Wednesday, José gave a talk for the city's Office of Equity and Human Rights titled "Stepping Back Before Stepping In: Preparing for Conversations in a Modern World." He discussed sharing pronouns as part of introducing oneself, the importance of pronouncing people's names correctly, how to avoid microaggressions, using inclusive language, and making accommodations. I think he did a really good job. He introduced resources I'd never encountered before (and I'm beyond Inclusivity-101) and spoke from his own personal experience.
For example, he related how, as a child he was in a class with another child named José Jiménez and the teacher asked if he had a nickname she could use. Being young enough not to know the word "nickname" he said no--and ended up being called Panchito (meaning Little Frank). Out of desperation, because José Jiménez is a very common name, he resorted to using JJ as his name for the next thirty-some years. It was only when we collaborated on a poem and he used his proper name in the byline that anything changed. A very thoughtful editor inquired if he used an accent on the e in José and the question eventually led him to reclaim his name, accents and all.
In the evenings we have been watching two shows on Netflix, one a Korean time-travel series called "Sisyphus" and the other a Turkish series called "Hot Skull." The Turkish series is more interesting to me, as it has a very similar storyline to one of my favorite horror movies, Pontypool. In "Hot Skull," a semantic virus causes a pandemic of "jabberers," people who can speak nothing but nonsense. Mostly it's syntactical but it's still nonsense. Listening to the jabberers is a little like how I feel after a long day of reading poetry. I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding but my brain can't make that last connection. The reluctant protagonist of "Hot Skull" has these beautiful moments of surreal whimsy that save the show from being too somber but it's definitely a pandemic dystopia.
Work-wise, I'm still winnowing down the Strange Horizons poetry submissions I received in January. And I keep chugging away at the novel. On a good day, I produce 800 to 1000 words. Obviously, they can't all be good days, so I'm having to be patient with my characters and myself. I'm nearing 30K, which should be about a third of the way through.
Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Or for Valentine's Day?
On Wednesday, José gave a talk for the city's Office of Equity and Human Rights titled "Stepping Back Before Stepping In: Preparing for Conversations in a Modern World." He discussed sharing pronouns as part of introducing oneself, the importance of pronouncing people's names correctly, how to avoid microaggressions, using inclusive language, and making accommodations. I think he did a really good job. He introduced resources I'd never encountered before (and I'm beyond Inclusivity-101) and spoke from his own personal experience.
For example, he related how, as a child he was in a class with another child named José Jiménez and the teacher asked if he had a nickname she could use. Being young enough not to know the word "nickname" he said no--and ended up being called Panchito (meaning Little Frank). Out of desperation, because José Jiménez is a very common name, he resorted to using JJ as his name for the next thirty-some years. It was only when we collaborated on a poem and he used his proper name in the byline that anything changed. A very thoughtful editor inquired if he used an accent on the e in José and the question eventually led him to reclaim his name, accents and all.
In the evenings we have been watching two shows on Netflix, one a Korean time-travel series called "Sisyphus" and the other a Turkish series called "Hot Skull." The Turkish series is more interesting to me, as it has a very similar storyline to one of my favorite horror movies, Pontypool. In "Hot Skull," a semantic virus causes a pandemic of "jabberers," people who can speak nothing but nonsense. Mostly it's syntactical but it's still nonsense. Listening to the jabberers is a little like how I feel after a long day of reading poetry. I feel like I'm on the verge of understanding but my brain can't make that last connection. The reluctant protagonist of "Hot Skull" has these beautiful moments of surreal whimsy that save the show from being too somber but it's definitely a pandemic dystopia.
Work-wise, I'm still winnowing down the Strange Horizons poetry submissions I received in January. And I keep chugging away at the novel. On a good day, I produce 800 to 1000 words. Obviously, they can't all be good days, so I'm having to be patient with my characters and myself. I'm nearing 30K, which should be about a third of the way through.
Do you have any exciting plans for the weekend? Or for Valentine's Day?
no subject
Date: 2023-02-11 03:35 am (UTC)30K will be an excellent first-draft milestone.
I don't have exciting weekend plans, but I am going back to Skylight Books tomorrow because a book I ordered came in, and I will be continuing to revise chapter eight of my novel. As for Valentine's Day: many years ago, some medication I was taking knocked out my taste buds, and on Valentine's Day that year, chocolate tasted like mud! Ever since, I've always been grateful that I can enjoy chocolate on Valentine's Day.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-13 06:05 pm (UTC)Wow, what a lesson in gratitude! I'm glad you got your taste buds back.
no subject
Date: 2023-02-13 11:06 pm (UTC)So happy for José reclaiming his name, and so glad he's out there giving talks that can open people up to what they can do, how they can speak and think about things. Although there are hostile assholes out there, there are also a lot of people who are happy to be shown a way to do things better.
Coming to your entry several days after you posted it, so I'm past the weekend, but I spent part of the morning planning a lesson for my ESL tutee, and the lesson featured valentine's day (we're practicing "like(s) x more than y," and I put together something with lots of potential valentine's gifts).
Go you with those good-day word counts. But yes: take your time, too, as needed.