Tag: computers

Magnetic Poetry 365: 31

I was composing a lengthy post inspired by an article linked by Jeffrey Ricker, when a couple of bad keystrokes cost me all but the paragraph I was working on–and nothing I could do would bring back my words. Over two hours of writing and research gone.

So, hey. Here’s today’s poem. Though even this mode of writing doesn’t always work out. The other day I picked up my poem to take it outside so I could photograph it, hit the door frame with the board, and all my magnets went flying into the great wide open. I still don’t know if I put the poem back together right or lost a few words in the process.

Button Sunday

Last week, Tim talked about going to College Station to be part of the official photo shoot for the NOH8 campaign. He brought me back this button! Thanks, Tim. He also let me take a couple of photos with Rex and Pixie before he scrubbed his face clean.


Dogs don’t hate.

For anyone who doesn’t know, NOH8 was born as a means of protesting California’s hateful Proposition 8. All funds raised by the NOH8 Campaign are used to promote and raise awareness for marriage equality and anti-discrimination on a global level through an educational and interactive media campaign. This matters to me foremost as a simple matter of justice–we should all be equal under the law. And on a personal level, I have gay and lesbian friends who I believe should have the same rights as me.

October 11, Monday, is National Coming Out Day. That’s been on my mind a lot in the context of the current wave of publicity and action arising from the suicides (the ones we know about) of kids who’ve been bullied or tormented in school or at home. As a longtime advocate and ally on behalf of those who are GLBTQ, I never stop believing that straight people have a moral duty to provide our voices and safe places on behalf of those who are marginalized and harassed.

Yet I find it so frustrating when those who deplore hate speech and believe it creates a climate conducive to violence descend to that same level. When we dehumanize those with whom we don’t agree, when we talk of hurting or destroying those who anger us, when we call them horrible names, we are hardly creating an environment that feels safe for anyone to thrive as themselves.

I have friends I could call out on this. That’s not how I operate. But for the past week or so, it’s been crazy how people I respect, like, even love, have given me just as much heartburn on my social networks and in e-mail as those who line up way to the other side of where I stand on many issues.

I’ve never quite been able to compose a post that adequately describes my conflicting feelings about Facebook, but here’s one of the reasons I struggle with it. I welcome the concept that people are free to believe what they believe, even if what they believe is radically different from what I believe. Certainly there are people in my life who don’t see things the way I do. But I have to be honest: Most of those people are friends or family members of long standing. I love and cherish them. I respect their right to see things another way from me, even when those beliefs vex and hurt me, and more achingly, when I know they are potentially hurtful, even harmful, to the well-being of other people I love and cherish.

However, I don’t seek out or welcome new people into my life whose beliefs will vex or hurt me, or who would be thoughtless or cruel to those I cherish and love. As an analogy, if every person is a book, I know there are a lot of books out there that I don’t want to read. I won’t burn them. I won’t ban them. I won’t fight to remove them from the shelves. But there are so many other wonderful books that I’d rather spend my time reading, and it’s part of my liberty to do so.

Facebook consistently agitates me with people who I might have known long ago, or people who’ve connected with me through other contacts, who say things and link to things that I find insulting, demeaning, even cruel. For a while, I found myself “hiding” people so I didn’t get that stuff pushed in my face every day–until the occasion on someone else’s wall when someone said hiding people on Facebook is passive aggressive “defriending.” It IS. So I did a huge “friends” purge. I got rid of the people who either update, or get comments, on their walls, in ways that I feel are hateful or defamatory (even inflammatory), or who consistently link to public figures whose beliefs I would never promote or want to be connected to. I try to fill my life with people who build up others, who look for solutions, who are positive and affirming. So why would I clutter my online life with hate, divisiveness, bigotry, and destruction?

Some of the people I “unfriended” were people I know never read me; I’m only a number to bolster their hundreds to thousands of “friends” because they use Facebook as a networking tool. In the case of writers I deleted, I’m aware of their work through sources other than Facebook, and I didn’t necessarily want frequent updates on their works in progress or their personal lives–just as I know they have no interest in me or mine. I’m not offended by that, and neither should they be.

Finally, I deleted many of those who asked that we be “friends” but who’ve never interacted with me, shown any interest in my work or my life, or with whom my only connection is that we once might have shared the same school or town. If they are genuinely interested in me, my LiveJournal is always here, always open. My e-mail address is published everywhere. I doubt they even noticed I fell off their contact list.

But what do I do about people I know “in real life,” whose company and time I’ve enjoyed in the past, but whose status updates consistently run contrary to ideals and principles I hold dear? I really haven’t figured it out yet. If they wrote those things on my wall, I’d react for sure. But on their own Facebook walls, they have the right to say whatever they want, and I don’t have the energy or enthusiasm to debate or refute them–knowing from experience what a futile effort that is. But does my silence, while my face and name are right there on their friends’ lists, imply approval? Agreement?

There are times I get so irritated by it all that I want to deactivate my Facebook account, but it provides a convenient, one-stop location for people who live far away and with whom I enjoy staying in touch–in enough numbers that e-mail would be cumbersome, even daunting. So I hover above that option but don’t take it. And I wonder if the people whose beliefs are so antithetical to mine have hidden me long ago, so they don’t have to see my occasional links and notes and updates that might vex and trouble them?

No real answers here. But one thing’s for sure–I’ll get it worked out long before the next election season for my own peace of mind.

Dear Everyone on LiveJournal:

Just in case it needs to be said: I don’t even understand the whole cross-posting to Facebook or Twitter thing, but I can assure you I will never intentionally cross-post one of my comments to any of your posts, whether your entry is friends-only or public.

My own LJ feeds to my FB account because I have people who read me there but not here. Only my posts feed there–none of the comments made via LJ. However, almost all of my posts are public, so if you comment here, and someone comes to my LJ, they can read your comments. But they can’t read them via FB.

For the past few days, I disabled comments on several of my posts because I was ill and wouldn’t have had the energy to respond to comments. Normally, anyone is welcome to comment any time–anonymously or otherwise–with the understanding that I reserve the right to delete or hide comments that might be either hurtful or not for some of the young eyes who read here.

Also, in my comments, if you ever use the “c” word to insult any woman or the “other ‘f’ ” word about any gay person, that’s an automatic delete from my LJ and pretty much from my esteem.

A bit of Sugar

Today The Brides are making a quick run to Austin to deliver Lindsey’s, Jennifer’s, and my paintings to the Creative Fidelity exhibit. They’ll be back this evening, but Margot, Guinness, and I get Sugar’s company in the meantime. This is always a treat. Yesterday, Tim and I shared custody of Minute, Sparky, and Paco. Paco was my best friend until Lynne got here for dinner, then he was through with me. Faithless beast.

On their way out of town, The Brides were kind enough to drop me at the post office so I could ship review copies of novels to Italy. Since I’d taken allergy medicine before I left the house, it was actually pleasant (the weather is GORGEOUS) to treat myself to lunch out. Then I did the thing that any writer with a new computer and an entirely different operating system might perceive as ecstasy: I purchased a brand new and current edition of Microsoft Office. My word processing software since 1987, I stuck with Microsoft through the Word Perfect craze–until Microsoft Word emerged victorious. Installing it this afternoon has made me almost giddy.

Or maybe that’s the allergy medication.

Button Sunday–I mean Monday

New computer–all my button photos are on the other computer, so here’s a very delayed button for you:

It’s very strange to be relearning Mac. Back in [year redacted], my first PCs in the workplace and home were Macs. Then Faux Mac, a/k/a Windows, came along and I lied–yes, LIED–and said I knew Windows so I could get temp jobs. Windows was, after all, just Mac Lite, and former employers, SUCK IT, because I excelled at all my Windows applications thanks to Mac’s brilliant software and set-up.

But, oh, the bad habits I’ve learned over the years. The first thing I had to do was set up my mouse to right click because I’m lost without it. I need to relearn some key commands.

If you’ve been wondering why I’m not online, it’s because I have this new toy to explore and learn. A very expensive toy, but since I had to destroy my zero credit debt for a new washing machine (old one died after eighteen years) and a new refrigerator for Tim’s apartment (his was our old one and is dying after fifteen years), I figured I might as well replace my desktop, which has been threatening to die for several months now. (Occasionally, guests at The Compound ask, “What is that NOISE?” and I have to tell them it’s the sound of the last stages of life of a computer two rooms away. A computer that has years and years of photos stored on it, which are fortunately now backed up to an external hard drive–and some of them will eventually end up on the Mac–including those button photos.)

Remember that Margot had to go to the vet because of a hurt paw? She CHEWED half the pad off a toe on another paw, so Tom rushed her to the vet Saturday morning before they closed. Result:

I haven’t let anyone tell her this is the Cone of Shame, but she’s still disgruntled–and her attitude isn’t helped at all by daily foot soaks and ointment applications.

I have a ton of photos I’ve taken over the last few days and some stuff to write about, including cowboys and art and dolls and friends. But for right now, since Project Runway was a rerun and I didn’t have to sew a design this week, I’ll leave you with a doll photo that’s part of a household reorganization and storage project I’ve undertaken involving my doll collection–and a definite fashion statement.


A 1991 MC Hammer doll by Mattel; New Kids on the Block Joe doll, Hasbro, 1990;
1984 Michael Jackson doll from Mjj Productions of Ljn Toys, Ltd.
Can’t touch this!

Button Sunday

I don’t know who’s responsible for this beautiful photo because I stole it from the Internet. In fact, blogging turned me into a photo thief, and I know I’m not the only one.

I chose this button because today is the fifth anniversary of Timothy J. Lambert’s LiveJournal. That date is important to me not just because it gave my writing partner more presence on the Internet. In the winter of 2004, we were finishing writing Timothy James Beck’s Someone Like You as well as Cochrane Lambert’s Three Fortunes in One Cookie. All my writing partners were proofreading SLY, Tim was adding his final chapters to 3F, and I was at loose ends. So, as I have many times, after a couple of weeks, I followed Tim’s example and started my own LiveJournal. It pretty much ended my time on message boards (just as message boards had once ended my time in chat rooms).

I have no idea how many blogs I was reading at the height of the blogging craze, but as bloggers have tapered off updating their blogs, my reading has fallen off. There are times I think about ending my LJ because it’s frequently difficult to come up with content, and I know that my readership, like everyone’s, is less than it used to be. (Hello, Facebook and Twitter.)

But then I think about how many interesting, funny, kind, quirky, and good people I’ve met through here. I consider all it’s taught me about HTML and formatting. It’s given me a forum to discuss art, photography, literature, and politics. It’s provided a means for family and longtime friends to keep up with what’s going on in my life (though I’ve never used it to discuss those things I want to keep private). It’s also given me a means to share news about one friend with many other friends–in a way that’s more fun to me than e-mail.

I’ve tried hard to keep it from ever being insulting or mean-spirited. I’ve enjoyed using it to share photographs as I try to become a better photographer.

And of course, it gives me a place to put everybody else’s photos after I steal them.

To get back to the reason for this post and the button, during these five years, I’ve never gotten tired of getting a glimpse at the world through Tim’s perspective, courtesy of his photos, his stories, his association with Scout’s Honor, and his art. So happy blog-iversay, Tim, and thank you.