computers – beckycochrane.com

Tiny Tuesday!

Small stack of letters. Big feelings.

As the Internet grew from infancy to its ‘tween then adult years, I participated in various sites that came to be known as social media. Facebook, where I went inactive on 2016 for several reasons. Twitter, where I did the same in 2022. After all, I’ve had my own site since 2006, starting on LiveJournal before I migrated that content to this site in 2011. I’ve never been hard to find. I’m always open to interacting with people here via comments. I have on occasion made some comments private because people crossed boundaries, whether of privacy (theirs or mine/my family’s) or courtesy. I’m minimally active on Instagram, but that’s tapered off quite a bit, too. I’m here. It’s enough. This site keeps me consistently writing something, or sharing photos. Every day’s like a letter: to myself or anyone who decides to stop by.

Long before there was an Internet, I was an avid correspondent. Old school. Pen to paper. Envelopes to address. Stamps to lick (grateful stamps no longer require that). I mostly hope all those letters were thrown away. I never hesitated to share an opinion or dole out advice (to be fair, I was often asked for advice, and I hadn’t yet developed the wisdom to know people generally want advice that validates what they already want to do). Regardless, I’m sure Current Becky would be exasperated/mortified by Know-It-All Becky. Would roll her eyes at Young Becky’s attempts at drama, wit, or wisdom. As an adult, did you ever see home movies of yourself made when you were a young child and think, Good grief. What an idiot. Show some dignity. I think that’s probably how I’d feel reading old letters I wrote. However, from THIS side of things? When people have told me I should throw away all the letters I received during those years, I resisted, even though I don’t reread them. They’re just there. Part of my history.

One time, I DID purge some letters, and damn if I didn’t start writing a story that could really have benefitted from still having letters written to me by a girl I met at camp when we were like…twelve? Because I was fictionalizing girls around that age from the same time period. It would have been nice to have a record of what occupied our brains, what trendy words or phrases we used, etc.

It made me hold on to the rest of them. Point being, if you wrote me (there were several of you, and you know who you are), I still have your letters. On my Sunday’s paisley image, there are two collections of letters–one near the top, and one closer to the bottom. Today, I’m writing the person who sent me that top stack of letters.

“Dear Correspondent, we were friends in high school. Not like hang out all the time, constantly together friends. We ran with the same group. After I left for college, several of us kept up through letters, including you and me. I think those letters deepened our friendship to the point that when I came home for summer that year, it seemed like we were better friends than maybe we were. It became confusing for me. I made some questionable choices. I was used to friendships where it was okay to make mistakes. Maybe it would become necessary to clear the air. To have hard or uncomfortable conversations. I trusted we had that kind of friendship. What I didn’t expect, as we neared summer’s end, was an abrupt vanishing act and your next message to me: Don’t call me. Don’t write.

DOOR SLAMMED. It was so unexpected that I tried to talk to you anyway. It didn’t happen. Instead, I went back to Tuscaloosa and became like the freaking Rime of the Ancient Mariner. I kept talking to my other friends about this. Speculating endlessly about WHY. As it turned out, that might have been okay. I learned when you’re in pain and confused or mystified, there are people who will listen as long as you need them to, and show you kindness, whereas other people can’t be bothered. I let those last “friendships” die quietly, but if a single one of those people had reached out to me, confused or hurt by my sudden silence, we could have fixed it.

You chose not to fix the silence that fell between us. A few years later, something bad happened to you. I called you to let you know I was thinking about you. You were nice to me and expressed appreciation for my call. (I hoped it wasn’t the painkillers talking.) It was only one conversation, but I was okay with letting it be. At least it was a better ending than the previous one.

Fast forward to 20-plus years later, you called me out of the blue. You left a message. I returned your call. I hoped maybe I’d finally get the answer to WHY? So I asked. You first said you didn’t remember, but later, your recall seemed to be pretty good, just not really the WHY. Again, I was okay with letting it go. We’ve been grownups a long, long time, and moved on with our lives. Now, though we rarely have any contact, and I think we have very different opinions about some things, so what? Tucked in with those letters are some photos, including two of you from that summer. I still catch flashes of that boy who made me laugh. Who made me confused. Who made me feel special until…he didn’t. And I’m okay with that, too.

I’m glad you reached out. Glad we reconnected and continue occasionally to interact. Hope you’re doing well. Still have no plan to read those old letters. Unless I need you for a character I’m writing. Kidding! Maybe.–Becky”

Time management

I’ve likely told some version of this story on here before, but I was reminded of it again this week when I talked to a friend with whom I once shared a workplace, a subsidiary of a large, centuries-old corporation. Corporate suggested that our subsidiary find someone to take on the task of facilitating awareness and discussion of diversity topics. I was a person approached to be “it.” I understood at least two reasons why: my background in writing and editing, and my established willingness to, on my own time, advocate for AIDS/HIV awareness during a period when that was controversial and shrouded in silence. My manager and the company had consistently approved my making a newsletter available on December 1 for World AIDS Day (written on my own time, printed at a copy place, with a red ribbon attached to each sheet with a small safety pin that could be worn, if chosen, all provided at my expense and all MY choice, not mandated by the company or my manager).

I didn’t jump at the offer to be their diversity rep because my experience with the company (including that newsletter!) had already informed me how I could be treated like a lightning rod drawing the ire of anyone who felt somehow “wronged” or “offended” by one, any, or all of the issues that would come up. (If you doubt what a problem this is, have you never read comments on damn near everything you can find on the Internet? Sure, keyboard warriors may feel more emboldened by anonymity, but many of them probably spring from people who feel equally emboldened by position or privilege to exhibit similar behaviors in the workplace.)

I ultimately decided to take it on. I don’t feel like sharing the negative impact that choice sometimes had on me, because what was more significant, to me, at least, were all the things I learned as I researched the “months” related to diversity. (I’m not sure we had all of these back then, but possibilities are Black History; Women’s History; Arab-American Heritage; Jewish American Heritage; Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage; Military Appreciation and National Veterans and Military Families; Caribbean-American Heritage; Immigrant Heritage Month & World Refugee Day; Hispanic Heritage; LGBTQ Month or National Coming Out Day.) None of these would have bothered me, and I valued learning so many new things. (Also, tip: The more you learn if you’re creative, the more you can populate your work with people who and experiences that are not you or yours. Including the villains.)

I was grateful for that opportunity to get to know people not only in our smaller company but also people in corporate and other subsidiaries. I learned about challenges people faced that I would otherwise have been unaware of, and I learned about colleagues’ accomplishments and what they valued and respected about their identities. (Regrettable bonus: I also learned which people would never get any of my free time outside of work and some who were “unsafe” for employees who were part of traditionally marginalized groups. It emboldened me to communicate that I was a safe person and place and to practice rigorous discretion. Turns out that matters a lot in the workplace.)

What does this have to do with time? I’ve been trying to find better ways to respect my own time. Nobody’s paying me for it anymore; I get most of the choice in how I use it. I’ve started being more honest with myself in recognizing and acknowledging the reality of those who don’t respect or value my time so I can allocate it better. I’ve been weaning myself off of social media and being more deliberate in how I use it. Just as I eliminated most of my content on Facebook in 2016 and ended it as a contact point, I did the same with Twitter in 2022. I still have an account on each site because I want to keep my name free from possible misrepresentation (my name being connected to published novels, short stories, and anthologies, and to this website).

I recently opened a Blue Sky account to interact with some people or organizations who’d once been part of my Twitter world. I’m spending very little time on it, and have used it so far only to post to a “20 day challenge: share covers without any commentary or reasons, etc., of books that impacted you in some way.” ONLY twenty? This has been a painless way to ease onto the site.

Similarly, I’d once replaced time spent on FB with time spent on Instagram, though my own posts on Instagram have become sporadic and inconsistent. February is ~~was?~~ for me, remains Black History Month. Though I rarely post on Instagram anymore, I decided to use every day of the month to recognize Black history in some way (dolls, art, and coloring pages have always been part of my Instagram account, for example).

When they say that never in the history of the world have people who banned books been the “good guys,” I agree and add to that people who ridicule, forbid, and seek to eliminate awareness of what I believe are among the greatest assets our country has: the experience and value each individual or group adds to our national character. When power starts using our differences to marginalize and divide us, they are never “the good guys.”

If I’ve been willing, since 2020, to give every day of October to a skeleton with a fictitious voice and family history to indulge my creative self, my February is well spent featuring something I find more meaningful. This choice hasn’t brought a lot of engagement to my feed. It could be the algorithm, but I can see that consistently over 97 percent of the people who view my posts follow me, and most of them don’t hit that . Could be an indicator that my energy and time have little value on Instagram, and maybe it’s time to ease away from using it as a public space, too.

words for today

I will now get to learn how to manage depression and anxiety. I’ll be seriously curtailing my online time. This morning, I read the social media post of a personal friend. He’s a really good human. A gay man. Gifted. Smart. Compassionate. He was being encouraging to people who feel wounded by the election results. Reminding his readers to take the long view, knowing there are still ways we can make our world a better place for ourselves and the marginalized. There was nothing hateful in his words. Nothing objectionable. But his comments began filling up with people mocking him, verbally attacking him. Gloating. Even low-key threatening him.

I’m sure he’s not surprised. I’m not surprised.

I’ve never tolerated hatefulness on this blog since I began it in 2004. I will ask you do not comment here or speak to me elsewhere and tell me ALL [fill in the blank with whatever descriptor you identify as] are not like that. I know. I’ve been around a while. I’m not the one making hateful generalizations. In so many places in my life, I have to choose my words and remain kind with people I know, people who are friends and family members, who vote in ways that literally threaten the health, peaceful and full life, and happiness of people I love. Their choice.

But never try to justify to me that chaos, division, demonizing, mendacity, and mental, emotional, and physical cruelty are okay. Hide yourself in a cloak of something abhorrent to me, and know that even then, I will listen, for a while, anyway, to all the things you say and all the things you don’t even realize you say, and the only, ONLY, point when we are done is if you begin to insult and demean me or the ones I love. If you don’t like me, respect me, or love me, for who I am, step off. Find a better way to fill your time than wasting it on me. (I have people in my life who build me up. Who comfort me. Who started bright and early this morning sending messages of love and commiseration, and the reminder that I can breathe with them. We can speak frankly whether we’ve been friends since we were eighteen, or since 1989, ’92, ’93, ’94, ’97, 2005, 2007, 2011, or 2015, I’m there for them. They’re there for me. We connect in so many ways.) To them (or you if you need to hear it) I say:

And to the others of you…
If your candidate won, celebrate. Sit at home with a big smile on your face; have some champagne. Crack a beer. Grill your favorite meat. Call or gather with your likeminded friends and repeat all the things you’ve been saying out loud since 2016. Actually, since 2008. You’ve gotten what you wanted. You’ve taken the White House, the Senate, the Supreme Court, (as of this writing, the jury’s still out on the House), and you’re already anticipating how all your “enemies” will be punished, controlled, vanquished. Do that instead of traveling social media and finding the accounts of strangers (and celebrities, because they are your very favorite targets) to pester them. Go and live the idyllic life you’ve been promised.

Today, I’ve spent lovely hours with my dogs. (Starting at about 4:30 am, when they began nudging Tom and me to GET UP. He took them out but then made them come back to bed and wait for breakfast.) They’re all a little crazy in all their different ways, but they have so much love to give. I don’t mean to aspire to craziness when I try to be more like them. It’s just a bonus, I guess. I showered, dressed, left the house to wash my car (the weather is lovely), make a bank deposit, and grab Starbucks.

My heart hurts. I want to be nice to myself. I’m not sure if I have the focus to write. There’s so much I’m unsure about. But I sure am grateful for the love in my life. I’m grateful for the values and strength I was given by my family, and the family I’ve made since. I feel far away from and lonely for many of them, but I also feel the love. Thank you.

Tiny Tuesday!

Barbie and friends do a reenactment of me preparing to find fashion, dress skeletons, and post photos to social media (i.e., my Instagram account), with Lord Cuttlebone and his nephew Ambrose supervising (i.e., chattering unsolicited advice into my ear). Since the theme is set: a spooky season homage to music, WILL I HAVE ENOUGH T-shirts or band memorabilia to do the entire month of October? The Shadow knows…

I’ve put my first seven days of photos behind the cut, if you want to see the artists I’ve featured.

Continue reading “Tiny Tuesday!”

Mushroom House

Too many days of death and disaster in the world. Wars. Politics. Hurricanes. I’m weary.

Tonight I needed to do something to wind down before bed. Despite having a shelf packed full of coloring books, I looked online for free downloadable coloring pages, knowing something would be easy and appeal to me sooner or later.

“Kawaii Mushroom House” from momlovesbest.com. When it was finished and I went to put it in my book of collected coloring pages, I realized I didn’t color at all in September. Movies. Books. Life. I’m glad I did this tonight. Sometimes a person just needs a cozy little fantasy.

Regarding my creative output, October’s the month I post every day on Instagram, which is not at all my usual practice. Every October for years, I’ve brought out the skeletons Lord Cuttlebone and his nephew Ambrose to pose them in photos. We’re two days in now. Music is my 2024 theme. Even if you clicked the Instagram link on the right and got to my feed, when I do that, I’m not hearing the music I add to the posts. I can only hear it when I access Instagram via my phone. I don’t know what’s up with that.

Saturday No. 1

I got a working DVD of 1998’s You’ve Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan sometime last week. You may remember that I was watching my previous DVD version and it got to a halfway-ish point in the movie and stopped working. I think it was because there was some kind of tie-in between AOL, Microsoft, and the DVD, and it would play only on a computer with a certain version of Microsoft Windows that was released in 1997. Which is kind of funny, because 1997 is when I got my first Windows-based PC (before that, I’d only had Apple/Mac products). If I still had that computer, I probably could have watched the DVD.

The reason we got that computer was because I was reeling from several years’ losses of friends to AIDS, and my friend Lisa Y had, on a whim one day on a contract job we had, showed me how to access chat rooms. Tom said AOL was known for its chat rooms, so if we got a PC and loaded AOL on it, maybe I could find an AOL chat room with supportive people who’d experienced some of the things I’d been going through since 1989.

“Meeting” someone through communication via AOL email and Instant Messaging who turns out to be meaningful is basically the plot line of You’ve Got Mail. Among the people I met in the chatroom I landed in were Timothy, Jim, and Timmy, who became my friends and my writing partners, plus a stranger-then-friend who turned out to be a distant cousin from my father’s side of the family (what were the chances?).

That whole AOL experience is so LAST century, right? Yet in a viewer reaction to the movie, someone mentioned how outdated the technology is but NO ONE CARES because it’s still a good movie. I think it is, too. Like Sleepless In Seattle, there’s something so quietly sweet in the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. I say that despite how the plot line has his character (Joe Fox) opening a big box bookstore that unapologetically aims to put her character (Kathleen Kelly)’s charming independent bookstore, inherited from her mother, out of business. By the time that movie came out, I’d been a bookseller in a chain, but I shopped at local booksellers, too, and I regretted every one lost. Ironically, ultimately, Amazon not only ate the independents, it continues the process of putting bookstore chains out of business.

Until last night’s conclusion of You’ve Got Mail, I hadn’t rewatched movies this week. I got in the mood to reread a book series that I first became acquainted with in junior high school. That’s a story for another time, but it’s provided a much-needed diversion from an anxiety-filled week.

Sunday Sundries

This is a continuation of last week’s post, suggested by Mark L, wherein I’m sharing photos of the physical bookmarks I’ve found around the house. As I was looking for something on my bookshelves after I did the first post, I realized I have books with bookmarks still in them. I thought it would be fun to share those, too. I’m starting with those found on the library shelves. Next week I’ll go to the living room shelves and be finished with this particular sundries subject. Unless I get more bookmarks. =)

I ordered this book back in April as explained in this post.

I don’t remember why I might have been rereading or referencing Browning’s “My Last Duchess” (a favorite poem), but that’s where I found another Murder By The Book bookmark on that page with the poem’s delightful illustration. Appropriate bookmark! If you aren’t familiar with the poem, the speaker had his “last duchess” murdered. It’s the kind of thing a duke leaves off his online dating accounts. Duchess wannabes, you have been warned.

Then I spotted a bookmark in the second volume of Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past, reminding me where I left off. And that I left off, and when the heck do I intend to finish reading this and the third book? Who knows, but Half Price Books will be happy to alert me, the next time I glance toward that shelf, that I’m on page 80, and time’s a’wastin’.

Ralph Waldo Emerson looks none too pleased with me. Is it because I haven’t read my Proust, or is it because of the bookmark tucked into his book on page 30?

It’s an advertisement for Lisa Alther’s novel Original Sins. I suspect the very serious Emerson knows that’s not a treatise on the concept of original sin, but hey, it’s probably not as racy as Alther’s first novel I read, Kinflicks. Count your blessings, Ralph.

I’m hoping Henry David Thoreau is not as upset about the bookmark I found in his tome. At least it has a somewhat more religious theme, with references to Psalms and Proverbs. I think this bookmark came from my mother, and the full text is, Becky, “Close To God,” “…Thou art my God, and I will praise thee,” Psalm 118:28,” and “A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches…” Proverbs 22:1.

The quote marked on that page is most likely because it was cited in a lecture in a college class (RIP, Dr. Beidler, who changed my life in so many ways): “However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is…” Thoreau would no doubt be pleased that I take this to heart. I do love and appreciate my life. I might fault-find technology, but I suspect the original Mr. Live Off The Grid might be of a similar disposition.

This copy of Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass was a gift from old LiveJournal pal and composer Jeff Funk. It’s full of index cards with notes made by him referencing certain passages. The first card reads, “Becky, if you’re ever feeling caught up in chaos, I hope these beautiful words will bring you comfort. All my best, Jeff Funk, 12/18/09.” I often take dives into Whitman, and one of my long-term goals is to take a free online course on Leaves of Grass. I have several copies, but this one will always be special thanks to Jeff.

I also spotted something sticking out of the pages of the biography Virgina Woolf, by Hermione Lee. I’ve mentioned on here before that I’ve never finished this biography. It’s not from lack of interest and it’s no reflection on the biographer, I simply forget about it, despite recurring reminders of Woolf (just this week, Timmy posted a drawing on Instagram from his sketchbook with Woolf as his subject).

As Jim always says before he visits us and we talk about movies he wants to watch with us, meals he wants to eat with us, and places he wants to see with us, “Put it on the list.” Coincidentally, what was the perfect “bookmark” of what page I’m on? Two photos sent by Jim, one of Jim, one of his ex (I don’t show that one because I didn’t ask permission of the ex. Jim, on the other hand, is used to me sharing images of him on this site). No idea how long ago these photos were taken, but I think he’s at his family’s cabin, and I like that he’s in front of books. Holding what appears to be a glass of wine. What a distinguished gentleman!

ETA: I don’t know how I missed this photo when I created this entry. I was riveted by this Joan Ashby novel and definitely finished it. I don’t think the bookmark is there to note any particular passage, but I’m sure it’s from Brazos bookstore because I bought the book there and used it while I was reading. (It’s a long novel.) Wolas has only two published novels. As soon as there are more, I’ll read them.

Let sleeping dogs lie

Sorry for a belated post. We have a few things going on at Houndstooth Hall. Lots of people in and out not for fun, but working on things, and that will continue through Friday, late afternoon. Plus Tom and I have been sorting out some of the computer issues that have challenged me for…well, the last four years, when one of our computers died, and one performed badly, leaving me mostly with my laptop, which is now showing signs of exhaustion.

All of this has kept me busy and the dogs in a constant state of WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE DISTURBING OUR PEACE? So, whenever we can, we let them sleep where they fall.

Anime on a dog bed in the living room.

Delta, stretched across pillows on the living room sofa.

Jack on a dog bed temporarily moved to the dining room.

Eva, on another dog bed that ended up in the dining room.

We hope they’ll be back to this favorite activity soon, with less interruptions. So tough to work as guard dogs…

Button Sunday

April 6 was National Tartan Day. Though I’ve s-l-o-w-l-y come to embrace my sister’s research that showed our lineage is Scottish, not Irish, which I was told all my life, information given to me by my college running buddy Kathy about Thomas Cochrane, tenth earl of Dundonald, whose burial place she saw at Westminster Abbey, helped pique my interest. You can see a little of the Cochrane tartan on that button.

And you can see how that interest in our Scottish side led me to this. I still keep these dolls in their kilts on display in the writing sanctuary every day. Muses.

I misdated this post so it published on Saturday instead of Sunday. I went back and put my actual Saturday post where it was supposed to be, corrected this one to April 7, and noted that National Tartan Day was April 6. Computers and me sometimes…

A bit of Thursday

The good stuff: Tom worked a half-day so that he and I could go into the old ‘hood to see our friend Larry and get haircuts. Spending time with Larry is always fun and full of conversations about a random range of topics. Somewhere in the middle of it, he dropped the information that his partner has for years been a collector of Barbies. I had no idea. It sounds like the collection is one I’d be likely to drool over, so I hope to see at least some of it one day and promise not to drool on anything.

Afterward, we picked up dinner-to-go from one of our favorite restaurants and were home in time to feed the very aggrieved dogs who were sure they’d been abandoned (as if Debby isn’t here for them when needed).

The eh stuff: Not a lot of writing got done, but while I thought about writing, I did some coloring. It’s unfinished, and at some point, I got very frustrated with the pens I was using and slapped on a bunch of star stickers to cover up some of the coloring that displeased me. I don’t like that either. I’ll take a couple of days away from that activity before I decide what to do to fix it.

In any case, even that ended the day on a much higher note than how I started it, dealing with the frustrations of canceling a website I’m tired of overpaying for and no longer using. Technology…. I understand exactly how this woman feels.