Don't let yourself get confused trying to make more of the bits than are there. Thanks.]
Gooey is GUI is a Graphical User Interface. Yum-vee is YMMV is Your Mileage May
Vary.
Yum-vee? No one
pronounces that.
Are you calling me no one?
You know what I mean.
Yes, but if I remove the onus of specificity from you, you
may end by living in a mental landscape with an obscuring layer of idiom and
unstated acceptances.
Onus?
Burden. As in a duty
not welcomed. Sort of like my knees do
not welcome the duty of carrying me down this trail, no matter how refreshing
the vista.
Sort of like. Barbara
smiled as she said it.
I did mention that I wasn’t a prescriptive grammarian,
didn’t I?
Probably. It took me
weeks to get used to things enough to hear you properly.
Do you think you’re hearing me properly now? Oh, does that log look like it will make a
decent bench?
I think I’m doing well enough. If I could hear you again in a year and again
in ten years, I’d probably make different inferences, but this is good enough.
But we’re not frightening each other any more. Arrg.
You know you’re getting old when you provide your own sound effects when
seating and rising. It’s a good thing I
know a little about leverage.
Are you sure we shouldn’t head back?
Very sure. I’m
maintaining the onus on my knees. They
have a duty to carry me and allow my muscles to maintain a little tone. Or regain a little tone, more likely. It was a very good idea to come here. I thank you for it. And I thank you for toting everything. I wouldn’t have been able to come without someone
else hauling the baggage.
You’re welcome.
I’m beginning to relax and enjoy having you here. The relax says more about me than about you,
of course. I warm up to people slowly.
It’s my scintillating personality
that makes me inevitably irresistible.
And you know the difference
between infer and imply. It’s odd the
things that people decide are significant.
The difference between infer and imply is almost gang sign for me.
An odd way of putting things. Speaking of odd things. As long as we’re sitting here, I entered some
of your things into a database. Could we
go over some of them? Get them
labeled?
Some of my things?
From pieces of paper and notepads
and things. I’ve been putting them into
boxes and envelopes, but just a list won’t be very useful. I figure, once we have them categorized and
cross referenced, then maybe you won’t need the paper. Or not.
That’s up to you.
But I had a teacher once who said
that you can tell a lot about a person from their bibliography – their personal
library. And I get the feeling that
you’ve been developing a sort of bibliography all around your house. Books that no one has written or read,
ever.
I’m not sure I’m up to writing
them. Or reading them, even.
We’ll talk about that later.
Oh, will we?
Yup.
You’re certainly confident of
that.
When the student is ready, the
teacher will come.
Sheila gave her niece the eye, but
relented into laughter.
All right. Maybe I won’t mind talking later about what I
can and can’t do. Or, perhaps, will or
won’t do. Sometimes it’s difficult to
tell the difference between those things.
A scuffle and click as Barbara
gets out a laptop.
I’m looking for a main category
and maybe a few keywords for each of these.
There’s Reinventing Your Live by
Jeffrey Young. I’m assuming it’s a book
you want to read?
Yes. Although I don’t remember why. I usually write things down when someone or
something recommends them.
Something?
An article or review. Or a thread.
Science With Shit – no author.
That’s one I want to write.
No kidding.
It’s actually a deep and interesting subject. People ignore it. Oh, as long as we’re listing things, list new
words for ignore.
Under a category for new words?
Sure. You said we
could add keywords?
Yup.
Sheila closed her eyes and let her head drift back. The sunlight was warm on her skin in a way
that just being in a warm house can’t reproduce. Basking warmth.
Let’s add a keyword – or a cross category: Primatology 101.
Is that where you want to put your lists of Things People
Should Know?
No. Sheila dragged
the word out like the warm mozzarella that you know isn’t ever going to release
your slice from the main pizza. Things
People Should Know aren’t recursive.
Barbara looked up.
She manipulated the words in her mind, feeling the ideas. She nodded.
OK. Primatology
101. Things we should know about how
humans work. Any other keywords?
For which again?
New words for ignore.
La’adan, (spells) which I’ll tell you about sometime.
I’ll give it it’s own entry.
So we don’t forget to talk about it sometime.
That’s a relaxing feeling.
It’s written down conveniently, so we can refer to it instead of having
to remember it. Like the clean feeling
you get when you make a new to do list.
As long as you don’t make the list the only thing you
finish. Barbara waved a playful finger
in her aunt’s general direction.
Sheila clenched a bit, then closed her eyes and let out a
breath, slowly relaxing.
La’adan is a constructed language and an experiment.
Experiments I Haven’t Done.
No, I’m putting that under Projects I haven’t done, with a keyword of
experiment. I’m going to video you, you
know.
What? Sheila was
obviously a bit shaken. At least it was
obvious to Barbara.
It’s what I want to do as part of my homeschooling. I want to learn to interview people and I can
show them on community cable. I’ll have
to get enough shows in the can to make a season. So it will take awhile. But if I’m going to learn to do it, I need to
start where I am and I need to keep at it.
“You can do anything if you do it for twenty minutes a day.”
Yes, that. That’s in
the database, but we’ll keyword it later.
And the one about reaching for the balls you can’t hit, too. And I like this so I’ll probably work at it
more than twenty minutes a day.
Well. I suppose I
don’t mind helping you practice.
Actually, I think you’re an interesting person. But I might not have the skill to show how
interesting you are. So unless we’re
both happy with it, it won’t be shown anywhere.
That sounds like a plan.
It feels like we just made a pact, doesn’t it?
Oddly, yes. A
conspiracy of two.
Three if we can get Peter into it.
If he’s gardening, he doesn’t want to talk, dear.
I know. But he
doesn’t mind me taking pictures of his hands or feet. As long as it looks like the plants and the
work are the focus, he just ignores it.
A Peter way of ignoring, no doubt.
Yes.
So what’s the next thing on the list that should not be
allowed to just be a list.
AdcultUSA by James B. Twitchell. The note says advertising in the 20th
century.
Books I Haven’t Read, keywords History and Primatology.
Got it.
Advertising and Consumerism is a whole library that I haven’t
had time for.
History and Primatology it is, then. Ads and stuff will probably be Primatology,
keyword Brain. Or would you rather have
neurology or something?
No, brain is succinct.
This one says, “As a counterbalance to Dawkins, I suggest
taking in a couple of Ernst Mayr's sage volumes, particularly This Is Biology:
The Science of the Living World and What Evolution Is.”
Books I Haven’t Read.
And Things People Should Know.
Have to pick one. The
other can be a keyword.
Books, then. Keyword
evolution.
Have you read Dawkins?
The Blind Watchmaker.
A long time ago. I probably ought
to read it again. Or perhaps I should
read The Selfish Gene. The two seem to
be the ones most people quote or rail against.
I’m not sure what you might have heard, but he isn’t evil. He just has different. Sheila felt the air in front of her. Ideas?
Gang colors is a bad way to describe it.
When I think of the word or concept that I want, I think of the word
shibboleth. And I think of a tree
trunk. And how people are frightened of
people who can’t be ignored. And I’m
using ignore in a very special way, here.
That’s enough for the entry.
Thinking is hard work.
But it hooks you.
I read an article that said that people like to solve
puzzles because the brain reacts in a way that’s like sex. There’s a tension that builds and builds and
then is released when the puzzle or problem is solved.
That’s very interesting.
I’d like to read about that. Put it
into the database. Under
Primatology. We’ll have to confirm it,
of course. Oh, listen to me. I sound like we’re researchers. Colleagues.
Well. Maybe we
are. Would that be bad?
I just don’t want to . . . well, be silly, I suppose. Be foolish.
Mislead you into thinking that . . .
Well, that’s silly, too.
Stopping for fear of embarrassment.
Spineless. Are you being harsh
with yourself, or is that someone else’s voice?
The spineless? Not
specifically. Unless it’s my own voice
from way back. I come from a time when
‘woman’ was a bad word and all girls were raised to be ladies. I understood completely when the group Ladies
Against Women formed. If anyone tells
you that feminists can’t have a sense of humor, you can point to them. They were a comedy troupe of sorts.
You know, I don’t really remember anything in specific that
they said, except that they were a parody of people reacting against
feminists. Against women.
Did you . . .
Barbara was obviously reluctant to go there, at least to her
aunt. But she would if it was an
important thing and something that her aunt knew about. No need to go there now.
Just enter it. Ladies
Against Women. History. It feels like more. Maybe we’ll make more of it later. Just history for now.
[this section to be continued]
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