This Is Just To Say
By William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

Besides that, I have a book of poetry that I’m not going to share, but I will share the story of why I own it.

I work in 911 dispatch. We have a frequent caller, she actually doesn’t live in our area, but her mother and father do. This is what I’ve pieced together about them.

Her father is in a nursing home. She calls frequently for police or EMS to go out for him alleging all kinds of abuse and mistreatment. This isn’t a particularly nice nursing home, but cops have been there multiple times and haven’t found any issues with her father.

She’s very uncooperative with us when she calls, refuses to answer basically any questions, and when we or the police try to call her back to tell her the outcome or to get more information she basically never answers the phone.

A few times she has actually shown up at the nursing home, caused a scene, and had to be escorted off the premises. One time her father was hospitalized for something (not sure what, but I didn’t see any calls for us that would have matched up with him, so it probably wasn’t something too serious if they took the time to arrange non emergency transport) and she showed up at the hospital, was escorted out, and spent the next day or two pretty much camped out at some nearby fast food places)

Her mother has dementia, and is a frequent caller herself, she calls to complain about her caretakers and sometimes even gets into fights with them.

I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised to learn that the father checked himself into the nursing home to get away from his wife and daughter.

They both occasionally call for well-being checks on each other. The daughter usually because she took her mother’s insane ramblings at face value, and the mother usually because she hasn’t heard from the daughter in a while (or at least doesn’t remember hearing from her) and because of some vague concerns that she can never really explain, things like “I’m worried because of everything happening in [city where daughter lives]” but she can’t tell me what’s supposedly happening there and when I looked up the local news there I couldn’t find anything particularly noteworthy.

I’ve given the mother the direct phone number to the dispatch center that covers her daughter’s home multiple times (sometimes multiple times in the same night) so she can reach them directly, but she always calls 911 instead so I have to transfer her every time.

During one such transfer, she was rambling about her daughter, and she mentions that her daughter is a writer.

I of course had to search out what she had written.

At first, all I could find was some mentions of her contributing to some magazines and such, but couldn’t actually find any of her actual writing, but digging a little deeper I was able to find some stuff she did in college. A bunch of poetry, and it was all terrible and weird. I’d pull it up to share with my coworkers occasionally when she was blowing up our phones.

Then one day I went to do that and saw that she had written a book. I got a copy for myself and as Christmas presents for a couple of my favorite coworkers. It’s more of the same insane, rambling, nonsensical poetry.

For the record, I don’t think the government is in contact or aware of alien life, at least not any technologically advanced civilization (I’m open to the possibility of maybe them being aware of microbial life on Mars or Europa or something and keeping it under wraps)

But, if they were, and assuming we’re talking about a civilization based in another star system (as opposed to somewhere in our solar system or maybe in interstellar space somewhere) I think it’s a pretty safe bet that that’s being handled by people in the military and the president, etc. are all kept out of the loop.

Because it would take too damn long to get a message back and forth to them assuming they don’t immediately give us the key to FTL travel or communications.

Let’s assume that first contact was made in January 1993, and one of Clinton’s first acts as president is to acknowledge that we received their message, introduce himself, and signals that he’s willing to open a dialogue with them.

He fires off that message, let’s say it’s to proxima Centauri, the closest star to us, it takes a little over 4 years to get there, arriving around early to mid 1997.

They reply and we get their next message probably mid to late 2001 (I really don’t feel like crunching the exact numbers of how long these messages are taking to travel or speculating how long it’s taking to draft our messages.)

Bubba is out of office, and Dubya needs to be brought up to speed on the alien situation right around the same time 9/11 is going down. He fires off a reply, and gets back to starting a war in the middle east.

Aliens get that reply around late 2005, and send another reply. We get that around early 2010. Obama’s been in office for about a year, things have kind of settled down a bit. He fires on another reply, it arrives around 2014, aliens are starting to get the picture that they’re probably not going to have a real back and forth conversation with the same president. They send a reply.

Their reply reaches Trump in 2018 sometime. He rambles at them a bit, they get it in about 2022, the aliens aren’t at all sure what to make of that, they think maybe the transmission got corrupted somehow. What they do make out sounds like insane raving bullshit, but at least this guy will be gone soon and they can get back to talking to a real grown up with the next message.

They don’t learn about COVID, or Jan 6, or any of the other stuff going on. Biden get skipped over, Donny is about to receive that reply in a few months, he’s gonna be the first president to have an actual back and forth with the aliens, and he’s probably gonna be pissed that they’re asking if we can put Obama back on the phone.

So yeah, not a great way to be having a conversation. It probably makes a lot more sense to give that responsibility to maybe some career military types, or maybe some unelected pencil-pushers whose government careers can last decades and have more of an opportunity to select and train their successors to ensure smoother communications, and to keep the president and politicians as far out of the loop as possible, because there’s a good chance they could be out of office before they can actually get anything done.

The dynamic changes a bit if we’re talking to someone closer, if maybe we’re dealing with a fleet that’s parked somewhere in or near our solar system that’s authorized to act autonomously from their home planet. Maybe then we could loop the president in a little more, but if they do ever need to phone home for something we’d still have the same problem.

Or if they’re further away than the closest star to us, the problem gets even worse. Let’s say instead of proxima Centauri at about 4¼ light-years away, they’re instead based around Altair at about 16.7 light-years away. They would have gotten Clinton’s message in around late 2009 or 2010, and we’re probably just about due to finally hear back from them in the next couple of months.

True, but fathers have been threatening their daughters’ suitors since time immemorial.

It’s probably not the origin of the phrase, but I remember seeing some sitcom where a father sat his daughter’s boyfriend down to give him the “the birds and the bees” talk

The boyfriend said something like “no thanks, I already heard it from my parents”

And the father replied along the lines of “not my version you haven’t, you see, when the bee stings the bird, the bee dies”

Not-so-subtly threatening the boyfriend.

In my head it’s Red Foreman giving that talk, but I’m not 100% on that.

It varies a lot from one school to another, at mine we did “block scheduling” so you had 4, 90 minute classes a day, and different classes 1st and 2nd semester

Which had its pluses and minuses. You could definitely get a lot more instruction time in during a class that way

But for something like a language, if you’re unlucky and your schedule works out that you had it first semester one year and second the next, you’re basically going a whole year where you may not have practiced those language skills.

Other schools around me I think usually had 45 or 60 minute classes, but sometimes electives which might include language might have gotten shorter timeslots than core classes

I’ve encountered what I think of as the Gen z stare once or twice.

It skews more towards the younger end of Gen z, and honestly might even be more of an older gen alpha thing.

What I’m talking about isn’t the blank look given after being asked a stupid question, although they are absolutely masters of that as well (and I love that look and use it as myself)

It feels like more of a lack of understanding that someone is asking you a question and expecting an answer, or perhaps an inability to process that question and come up with an appropriate answer.

My friend who works at a bank has what I think is kind of the quintessential story that shows this version of the stare looks like, a younger person walked up to the counter, he asked some variation of “How can help you today?” And just got a stare back, like it never crossed their mind that they’d have to answer a question and say “I need to make a deposit/withdrawal,/etc.”

And I don’t think it’s necessarily a feature of the generation as a whole, not that gens z and alpha don’t have their quirks, but I have plenty of Gen z friends and coworkers and I don’t think they’re much worse off in any particular way than my fellow millennials. I have somewhat less exposure to get

I think it’s a very specific subset of the generation with a perfect storm of social isolation/anxiety issues, maybe some neurodivergence, probably some overbearing helicopter parents, and COVID kind of hitting at exactly the wrong point in their lives so that they missed out on some kind of social development milestones.

How much do you think the average American flies?

Less than half of us get on a plane in any given year, so most of us aren’t impacted one bit by long lines at airports because we just weren’t going to go to the airport anyway.

And if we do, most of us are only flying a couple of times a year. A couple extra hours at the airport a couple times a year isn’t that big of a deal.

Especially since odds are that you already planned to arrive early because there’s always the potential for all kinds of hold-ups and delays at the airport anyway.

It’s something like 10-15% of the population who account for something like 2/3 of all airline passengers. They’re the only ones this is really “hurting” (and even then I’d still say it’s more of an inconvenience than causing any actual hurt)

And conveniently, it’s also about 15% of the population who are immigrants, and every last one of them should consider themselves to be in real danger of having their lives uprooted or even ended by ice. They are actually being hurt.

So no, fuck that.

I really only need 1 HDMI port on my TV- to connect my AV receiver to, everything else gets plugged into that receiver, it’s got about 8 HDMI ports.

Right now there’s 3 consoles, a pc, and a Chromecast hooked up to it, so I have ports to spare, and I haven’t had to use anything on my tv since I initially set it up and set the input to HDMI 1

It’s not necessarily feasible for everyone, it does take up a little more space in your entertainment center that not everyone has, but I also think it’s 100% worth it to at least have a decent set of speakers hooked up to your TV if you can find the space and budget to do so.

Probably the coolest thing since I started learning it is some of the weird places it turns up

If you read the comic series Saga, the “blue” language is Esperanto

It shows up in the background of some movies and such as a generic “foreign” language

The watch brand Movado is an Esperanto word (movement)

I’ve never dived too deep into in, but I know there has been some research into native Esperanto speakers (denaskuloj) because that’s a thing that exists

Basically none. A couple friends have learned a little bit with me, and I’ve sought out a couple Esperanto books, podcasts, etc.

But otherwise I can’t say that I’ve ever randomly run into another esperantist I could talk to, and I’m not the type of person who seeks out clubs and conventions or making friends with strangers online.

But it’s an easy language to learn, and I feel like it’s taught me how to learn a language, and I think that I’ll be better prepared if I ever decide to try picking up another language somewhere down the line.

And while I’m not holding my breath, I like the idea of an international auxiliary language, and while there’s some valid criticism of Esperanto for that purpose (like that it’s too eurocentric) it’s probably about the best option that we have right now since it already exists, there’s people who actually speak it and it doesn’t have all of the weird grammar rules and such that natural languages all tend to have.

I believe in esperanto it should be

bonvolu stakigi la seĝojn ĉe la fino de la tago

Literally translates to something like

“Please make stacked the chairs at the end of the day”

The measure of a good story isn’t in a brief description of the premise, but in the actual telling of that story. A good writer could take something mundane like putting on your socks and make a funny, interesting, or thought-provoking read out of it, and a poor writer could make the most absolutely amazing thing imaginable a slog to get through.

I see nothing glaringly wrong with the premise of your story, but it’s all of the other details you don’t want to give away and how you tell the storf that would determine whether it’s a good story or not.

So the question really is how are you as a writer?

I’m pretty sure this is at least the second time I’ve seen you asking this question somewhere on Lemmy, so at the very least you don’t seem to have a lot of confidence in your own writing abilities.

And maybe that’s warranted, maybe it’s not. I haven’t read any of your writing to be able to say, and even if I had, just because I do or do not personally like it doesn’t mean that it’s objectively bad or good, it’s a matter of taste.

Start writing. Share some of what you’ve written with others and solicit criticism. Take that criticism into consideration and write some more. Lather, rinse, and repeat until the people you’re writing for (maybe it’s others, maybe it’s just yourself) are happy with what you’ve made.

The first things you write, in all honesty, probably won’t be good. As a talking dog on a children’s cartoon once told me “sucking at something is the first step towards being sort of good at something” you gotta start somewhere, and unless you’re a rare generational talent who’s naturally gifted at writing, you’re not gonna be starting from the top.

Scrolling through your history I see a lot of “do rich people do X” kind of questions. And I feel like that’s sort of your way of doing research into this project.

And that’s good, the best stories have some aspect to them that’s grounded, that feels familiar to them in some way, that things actually could play out in real life the way it does the pages.

But remember, this is your world, your character, your story, you make the rules and while it’s good to keep things grounded in reality, it’s also good to ask “what if?” Even if there had never been a biracial drug-addicted rich-kid street-racer (based on some of the things you’ve asked) in all of recorded history, it’s your prerogative to write a book based on the concept of “but what if there was?”

A lot of your questions also make me think that you’re pretty young, or at least just don’t have a whole lot of worldly experience for one reason or another. That’s not a knock against you, that just means that you’re at a great point in your life to start building knowledge and experience about the things you want to write about. Don’t rely on Lemmy to spoon-feed you those answers go out and find them for yourself.

Read. Read absolutely everything you can stomach. Reading is probably the most absolutely important thing to learn how to write, how can you hope to write well if you don’t know what good writing looks like? Read fiction, read nonfiction, read news articles, stories, biographies, memoirs, comics, short stories, epic novels and multi-part series, read analysis and criticisms of other writing, read theory on how to write, read new works and the classics, read about philosophy, psychology, sociology, science, art, math, etc.

And think about what you want your own writing to be like, and what worked and didn’t work and why in all those things you read.

And don’t limit yourself to reading. There are stories all around us- on tv, movies, all over the internet in various forms, and most importantly real life, go do things and talk to people as much as you are able. Experience as much as you can, and think about how it all makes you feel and how you’d write about it. Talk to people who have used drugs, maybe see if there’s some kind of volunteer opportunity at a rehab clinic near you. Go to a racetrack, maybe work on your own car. Good luck finding an in to get direct access to the mega-rich, but there’s no reason you can’t try, sometimes you might be amazed at what’s possible if you just ask- there’s only about 6 or 7 degrees of separation between you and almost anyone else in the world, the odds are pretty good that you know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy who knows exactly the kind of person you want to talk to if you just care enough to chase down those connections.

Learn about black culture. Learn about Japanese culture. Learn about the experiences of biracial people. Learn about the lives of people around those people. Learn from their own perspectives and from the perspectives of outsiders looking in. Learn about the rich, learn about the poor, and all of the complex interactions between all of these different groups of people and when, where, and how they all intersect.

And again, just write. The only way to learn if a story is any good is to actually tell it.

I work in 911 dispatch, understandably once in a while I get a caller who is just absolutely losing their mind over whatever is going on that they’re calling about

And sometimes pretty much the only thing I can do to grab my callers attention and bring them back around to listening to me is to just kind of repeat sir/ma’am until I get their attention they come back around to realizing I’m trying to talk to them.

If I can get their name, I use that instead and it’s more effective, but that’s not always a given.

Just sitting there in silence until they get their shit together on their own doesn’t work, and more likely they’re going to just hang up on me.

And repeating whatever question I need answered really just kind of goes in one ear and out the other while they continue going off.

Their name or sir/ma’am is punchier, it has a way of cutting through their panic and grabbing their attention saying “you are being addressed right now and the person addressing you needs your attention”

And I really wish we had a good, gender-neutral equivalent of that. It needs to be polite and professional, and maybe a bit authoritative-sounding, so something like “dude” obviously won’t cut it.

And I need it both for trans/non-binary people, and people whose gender just isn’t clear on the phone because they’re in a panic, calling from a potato, and/or just have a somewhat ambiguous voice.

Normally I just have to pick one and go with it, and they’ll either correct me (in some cases, choosing the wrong one might actually be more effective at grabbing their attention because astonishingly (/s) people don’t enjoy being misgendered and they jump at the opportunity to correct that) or they also just roll with it.

But I’d really like to avoid that if I can, and I haven’t really found a good option for it yet.

Like others have said, the degree of technology permitted and a lot of other things vary a lot from one amish community to another.

But in general, most Amish aren’t going to school beyond about 8th grade. Some of them might be getting some sort of vocational training in addition to that but you’re probably going to have a hard time finding any kind of opportunities for Amish higher education.

In general, they tend to get more leeway for using technology as part of their business than for personal use, they might have a computer to help track business expenses, maybe even a business email or have a website for selling their goods online. It’s possible they might even be allowed to have a car or use a tractor for certain purposes.

But as far as just pursuing a math education, that’s probably gonna be a no-go. And if they somehow do permit it, you’re probably gonna need to get by with a pencil, paper, slide rules, etc.

I work in 911 dispatch, and we have some really rich towns in the county I work for

And I have one story that makes me think it’s at least something that’s on their minds

I got a call from one of those neighborhoods for a breaking and entering. The caller had been out of the house and came home to find that someone had broken in while they were gone.

I’m gathering all of the information, and without me prompting he starts giving me his description - 6ft-whatever black man, wearing blah blah blah, and that he’ll be waiting by the front door etc.

And it just felt very clear to me that he knows unless he is very upfront about that, that when the cops get there, there’s a really damn good chance that they’re immediately going to assume he’s a suspect and not the homeowner.

Googled him later, former NBA player, I don’t follow sports but apparently he was kind of a big deal when he was playing. Not sure what his net worth is, but houses in that neighborhood tend to sell for several million.

Probably the nicest caller I’ve ever gotten from that neighborhood, and with the best reason to call. Another guy nearby once got into a fight with an Amazon driver because he had the audacity to pull into his driveway.

As an aside, that is how B&Es happen. Unless it’s your crazy ex or something looking to start shit with you, they’re not breaking into your home while you’re home, they want to take your shit and get the fuck out they don’t want a confrontation with you. I admittedly work in an overall pretty safe area, but we do have some pretty shitty towns as well as the mega rich, but after 7 years on the job I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a call for an in-progress B&E while someone was home where they didn’t know the person trying to break in (and usually there was a very specific, though usually not particularly good, reason they were trying to break in- they wanted to take back something they gave the person, were trying to retrieve their own belongings, they just wanted to fight or trash the place because they were mad at them, etc.)

And it’s almost always in the super rich neighborhoods where houses are spaced far apart, the residents can afford to take long vacations far from home, and there’s lots of valuable stuff to steal left unattended while they’re gone. To a lesser extent it happens in the really shitty neighborhoods. It’s almost unheard of in the rest of suburbia.

My wife likes to listen to podcasts.

And often I find that the podcasts she listens to are about things that I’d followed closely in the news weeks, months, sometimes years before (we just have some different interests, she’s actually probably the bigger news junkie than I am)

But so I’ve taken to calling her podcasts “late news” because she’s getting that news later than I did.

Arguably that would fall under the banner of “emotional intelligence”

Native English

A tiny bit of French. My public school French education was a bit of a mess, lots of long-term substitutes and then substitutes for those substitutes, so none of it really stuck. If someone talks slowly I can usually catch the gist of what they’re saying, but probably wouldn’t be able to string the words together to respond.

And I’ve gotten myself to be somewhat passable at Esperanto using Duolingo.

I may make another run at learning French at some point.

Wouldn’t mind learning Polish, Italian, Gaelic, and/or Albanian, since that’s where my ancestors came from. Never been particularly great at language-learning though so that’s a huge stretch.

Also always thought it would be cool to learn Unami (the language spoken by the Lenape people who originally lived in the area I do)

And I’ve spent enough time in tiki bars that I occasionally think about learning Hawaiian or some other Polynesian language