Mikiesboy

In case you missed this @lawfulneutralmage is ready to post his next, most excellent story on Oct. 31. Don't miss it.

I hope their blueberries taste better than our cultivated ones. I usually only buy frozen wild blueberries. Yeah, i'm blub-snob, so sue me. Anyway, nice chapter. I enjoyed the Naren/Miri interaction scene. It was interesting. Another great chapter in this outer-space story.

So, same as me then.

Glad you're still here.. and yes, a special thank you to the boss for sure. And congrats for 10 years!! 🎉

So, groceries got...i managed to NOT buy donuts cuz they were already 3 days old. Remember the old days when old donuts cost less? Do these? Nope not at all. So I got stuff from our list, qualified for the 10% off of fruit and veg you buy. Yay. Paid over $10 for 4 apples. They cost more than meat. However, ground pork was $1.99 per pound, so yes bought a batch of that for the freezer. I came home and baked oatmeal squares and a lemon blueberry loaf... so someone besides me will be happy about that. Now, I have a cardigan to continue to work on. The back is done, now starting on the front panels. 🧶 Hope you're all having a good and productive day.

i read it didn't have a name until 2015. i was reminded about this yesterday at the doc's, and again this morning when my Serenity app said to visualize clouds and see them moving across the sky. Well, i cannot conjure them up to see them. However, i understand the concept and can still use that somehow in my meditations. I have no idea what my IQ is and don't believe that VITA Mahjong really is the way to find out.

I added a new blog today....topic: Aphantasia. I've mentioned this before, but it's come up again in my life, so i did a bit of research and thought i'd write something about it.

“The only failure is quitting. Everything else is just gathering information.” —Jen Sincero (born 1965) writer, speaker and success coach

When I close my eyes and try to conjure up a red apple, or a cloud, all I get is a blank screen. No pictures, no colours. Just the actual darkness of my closed eyes. For most of my life I assumed that was normal. It turns out it has a name: aphantasia. So the 'mind's eye' is the experience of seeing something without any light entering your physical eyes. Close your eyes and picture a familiar face, or an apple, and that internal image is your mind’s eye at work. People with aphantasia, like me, don’t create those conscious mental images. Researchers estimate that somewhere between 2 and 4% of people are like this [according to Psychology Today and Aphantasie.org]. Some of us also don’t have an internal monologue, though I do, and I mostly wish I didn’t, but that's for another blog. It also means that “picture this in your mind’s eye” and “count sheep to fall asleep” are just metaphors to me, not literal descriptions of what other people experience. I can count, but there ain’t no sheep. Yesterday my eye doctor asked me to repeat a test I’d had two years ago. She called it “the clicker test.” I had no idea what she meant. Nothing. Then she showed me the printout of my previous results, and I remembered instantly because I’d seen it before. Two years ago, nobody called it the clicker test, so when she asked, my internal search engine came up empty. It had stored the experience under different words, and the label she used didn’t match anything. Once I had a picture to look at, the memory came right back. Because I don’t store visuals, I store concepts and words. That means I don’t get instant visual recall. When you ask me if I remember something, my brain opens a background app to hunt for the information. I might say “no” at the moment, but the app keeps running quietly until the memory just pops into my head hours or even days later. This may also help explain why I sometimes can’t remember a TV show we watched the night before, much to my husband’s frustration. I’m not ignoring him, and I’m not being careless. The answer is just still loading. Knowing all this has changed how I treat myself. I’m not broken, just different. I don't worry about it, but it's helpful to know because it explains a lot. It explains how I write. I don't see characters at all. No clue what they look like. I can have an idea but never see it, but my brain writes it quietly. I can write a chapter or paragraph and then days or months or years later, the story is there finished. I just need to write it down. So try it now: close your eyes and picture an apple. What do you see?

“Mistakes are a fact of life. It is the response to the error that counts.” —Nikki Giovanni (1943-2024) Poet, writer, commentator, activist and educator

Hello my friend! It's good to see you. I hope you're okay. Thank you for reading this. The world can be scary, lately i find myself trying to not see certain things, and finding ways to help myself and make my world a little smaller. But, I don't want to disappear completely. Thanks again! 💙

Oh boy . . . a haunting? I suppose your younger self can haunt you from a mirror. I don't think i'd want to see my past self… living it was bad enough. Great chapter. This should be fun.

i don't think i've read any of your work other than if you entered Secret Author or and Anthology. This was an interesting beginning, pricked up my ears certainly. And if you're posting as you go ... don't disappoint us. Just sayin'.

I'm glad this worked for you, Luke. I do my best to make things feel real. I need to believe for a story to work. Thanks for reading and for your comments.

You're not late! That's the good thing about books, they are usually around for a long time. And you're right, asking why things are the way they are is important. I think too often we are afraid of what the answer may be. Sometimes we should be. But exposing wrongs should be done. Thanks for coming to read this.

She's rather good with words!

Well, this one got a rewrite and your additional edits and suggestions were brilliant as usual. Thank you. And i hope your next visit with the boy and his sweetheart is longer next time, or you move next door to them. 💝

Thank you, Thirdly. Causing some hair-raising is quite the compliment.

Are you showing your age or did you grow up on a farm? LOL Washboard...lol

I always tell bugs.. if you want to live just stay outside. They don't listen, though🐞.

Yeah, probably best not to bring politics into this. I've not read The Hunger Games or The Giver, but I think I've seen the film, and I've read The Lottery, after writing Given. It was a very unnerving story and frightening to think conformity and mob mentality still happen easily. Thanks for you comments and for reading.

Thank you. I did read The Lottery after my beta reader mentioned it to me. It's a rather unnerving tale akin to Stephen King's, The Long Walk and other similar stories. I hadn't read any of them when I wrote this, but I agree that traditions have a hold on society more deeply than maybe we like to think, as you say. Perhaps we write about them to bring them into the light for re-examination. Thanks for your thoughtful and interesting comments.

Ugh, it's awful and it's everywhere. There are a few channels on YouTube which tell you they are still human. I watch those. Too much tech and AI isn't good. My web architect friend said enough...he's on a computer all the time for work, his house was run by a computer, lights, music, blinds...he took all of that out. It was too much. We don't have all of that, but we have phones, a tablet, laptops and Michael's work computer. I don't want a fridge that monitors me. Everything beeps, the Instant Pot, the toaster oven, the oven oven, the microwave, a timer we have that i want to step on....lol. Our old kettle died a couple of months ago ... it beeped. I bought one of Amazon's own kettles...no beeping, it has a blue light that you can look at to determine when its finished boiling. How did people manage before all of this stuff? lol

It's nice your brother was here. i hope all his well for all of you ... i was up at 5am too. Not to see anyone off though i did see Michael off when He left at 6. ugh. Just up and awake. i think i'll bake a little 5 minute chocolate cake today and make a quiche for lunches. Have a good one

So, today's quote is not for the people who write with A.I. And there are lots of them here. Yes, I am bitter about that. Angry even. More at myself I think for offering help to some. I won't in future. I've allowed it to ruin something in me. I have stories ready to post ... Things I actually wrote all by myself, but readers don't seem to want that. They are loving all this crap posted by AI 'authors' cuz it's fast and cheap . . .like fast food, I guess. Who wants to wait for me and others like me to write something. I don't know. Maybe I need to just stop ... Anyway, no matter it seems, here is today's quote from a real person's thoughts: “Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.” —Pelé (1940-2022) Footballer, humanitarian