Author: Chris

The Internet of Things

ChrisLeave a comment

I don’t remember how old I was when I first heard the concept of “the internet of things” – I was probably working at a tech company – and I remember thinking that the idea was weird. I mean who really needed their toaster or coffee maker or lights attached to the internet? Who needed their blood pressure or weight connected automatically to their doctor? It was all kind of space-age, far-out stuff.

And yet here we are. Tonight I learned how to connect my laptop and its webcam to my smart TV so when I have a Zoom call with family members across the country, I can see them on the big screen instead of just my little laptop window. I’m testing it in my bedroom, from which I can use a smart speaker to read me an audiobook or turn on the kitchen light so I don’t trip and fall while raiding the refrigerator. My holiday lights outside automatically turn on at sunset and turn off at 11pm… but I can change that any time I want to using an app on my phone. The Internet has gone so far beyond mere information exchange and has turned into a platform from which we run our day-to-day lives. I’m not 100% sure this is a good thing, because information overload has done a bit of damage to my mental health (is it January yet???), while the automation aspect means I can sit on the couch and control pretty much anything I need to without getting up and moving.

Truly a double-edged sword. I just need to be wise enough that I don’t accidentally put my eye out with it.

So It’s Been a While

Chris2 Comments

Welcome to the final weeks of 2020. I can only hope that 2021 is an improvement, because this year has had some really miserable moments. And while I know my losses and hardships are nothing compared to the people who have lost lives and loved ones to COVID-19, it has still been a bad year and I am ready for things to get better.

Wyatt in Bluebonnets
Wyatt, 2006-2020

This has been a Cancer of a year, in more ways than one. In March my pathology came back negative – it was fibrocystic changes to my breast tissue, not any sort of cancer. So that was a huge relief. COVID hit and I ended up moving from “working in an office” to “working from home full time” which was a big change. I have worked from home on occasion and always appreciated the flexibility, but I never wanted to do it full time. I liked having the “separation of church and state” between my work life and my home life. But in the grand scheme of things, it was a good thing that I was working from home… because shortly afterwards one of my dogs needed surgery to remove a tumor, followed by three weeks of daily trips to the vet for radiation treatments. Just as she was finishing up her treatments (which were successful, thank goodness), another of my dogs started having seizures and cognitive issues and there was no way I would have been able to leave him every day to go to an office. It turns out he had a brain tumor, and after three months of decline I had to put him to sleep. He had been a part of my life since 2009, so not having my bright, alert, bouncy, waggy baby boy has been hard for me.

I have found myself wanting to journal more lately, but I type better than I write anymore, so hopefully I will post on here more regularly. I don’t know if the ramblings will be of interest to anyone else, but it will help me get them out of my head.

The one with the wire

ChrisLeave a comment

In late December, I had my annual mammogram. No big deal, just one of those things that being a woman in her 40s needs to do. Except this time I got a call back a few days later – they wanted me to come back in for additional pictures. I tried not to freak out, and went back in for the follow-up mammogram and ultrasound.

When the radiologist started telling me about her thoughts on the ultrasound, I told her to just be straightforward because I deal better with facts. She said she was concerned that it looked like cancer.

Well. I said I wanted straightforward.

Actually I appreciate her being straight up and not tap dancing around it. The question was then “Okay, now what?” Next step was a needle biopsy to get a sample and see what I was dealing with. The mass was 7mm – the size of a pencil eraser – so at least it was found early. The biopsy was not exactly a fun experience, but I went in, got it done, and tried not to panic for the next several days.

The news came back – no sign of malignancy, just fibrocystic changes. Hallelujah! Except then the radiologist suggested a surgical consult anyway. Since the mass was so small, there was concern that either she didn’t get a sample with the needle, or the pathologist didn’t see the cells when they did the specimen analysis. After talking with my doctor, we decided to do a surgical excision anyway. Better to take it out and get a definitive analysis than to play “what if”.

I’d never had surgery before – like, full-on “intubated and under anesthesia” surgery. I can’t say I recommend it. Everyone at the hospital was wonderful and I felt about as at ease as possible, but coming out of anesthesia sucks. I don’t like feeling that discombobulated and out of control, and the gaps in time as the drugs cleared out of my system were really disconcerting.

One piece of humor in the process, though. I had to get a hookwire placed in my breast to mark the area for removal (another not exactly fun experience). When my surgeon came in to talk to me before the procedure, she did the standard “In your own words, tell me what you’re having done and where we’re operating” dialogue to make sure we were all on the same page. When she went to mark the left side of my chest as the side she was operating on, I pointed out “It’s the one with the wire sticking out of it.”

So at least there was some humor to be had.

Now there’s yet another waiting game until next Tuesday while they do pathology on the tissue, and then I find out where I go from here.

Renegade Returns

ChrisLeave a comment

It’s been 22 years since I wrote the first seven parts of my fanfic Renegade.

I can remember working on it in the cafeteria at work on my lunch break, when I could see scenes in my head as clearly as though I was watching it on television and all I had to do was keep up with transcribing it. I remember working on the timeline and events, trying to make sure that things made sense. I remember being completely surprised when one of the characters revealed that he know something that I hadn’t planned on ahead of time, but that was completely in character and felt right.

I had posted it to my Magnificent Seven fan page, and was confident enough in what I was writing and enjoying myself enough that I was comfortable sharing it with others. And even though it was a Mary Sue in so many ways, that didn’t matter because I was having fun with it.

Then I discovered that at least one actor from the show was visiting my page, and I freaked out. What if he was reading the story? Was I writing his character okay? Would he read it and not like it? He knew this character better than anyone – what if I messed it up? Would he be amused/upset/creeped out that I was writing it?

And that ended my work on Renegade. Killed by a bunch of worries that I built up in my own head that had no basis in reality… It suddenly wasn’t good enough, it was stupid, it was horrible, no one would like it, people were laughing at me for writing it.

Last night I found it in an archive and read it for the first time in 12 years. As I was reading it, I could see the scenes in my mind’s eye as though I was watching it on television. And while it wasn’t great literature by any means, it was still a fun story and I enjoyed reading it.

I think I remember where the story goes from here. I intend to find out.

Identifying An Audience

ChrisLeave a comment

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

– Cyril Connolly

I haven’t posted anything in a while because of crippling self-doubt issues. They’re not new – I’ve had them for about 20 years, when I suddenly started realizing that people were reading what I wrote and I was afraid that they wouldn’t like it.

I used to do creative writing. I used to write fan fiction. I’ve had stories rambling around my head for as long as I can remember, but around 2000 I stopped putting them on paper (or on the computer), because suddenly I cared about what other people thought of them.

This week I was binge-watching Criminal Minds on Netflix and one of the bookend quotes by Cyril Connolly really hit home. I had stopped doing something I liked because of others. I started focusing so much on what they would enjoy that I stopped focusing on what I enjoyed.

The Connolly quote made me realize that if I wrote for myself, I would always have an audience. And if I enjoyed doing it, if I enjoyed taking the worlds in my head and committing them to paper/screen, then I could revisit them whenever I wanted. Like I used to do. And if other people enjoyed them along the way, then that was just gravy on the biscuit.

So this WordPress may end up having various pages popping up here and there as I revisit the worlds in my head and pull the stories out. My challenge to myself is to write them for me, without second-guessing myself about what anyone else thinks of them.

They won’t be perfect… but I’ll bet they’ll be beautiful.

Beginning at the end

ChrisLeave a comment

I wrote my mom’s obituary this week. I discovered that distilling the life of a woman as amazing as my mother down to a few paragraphs was a lot harder than I ever imagined, and I struggled with it.

My brothers and sisters-in-law said it was beautiful and perfect, and that they wouldn’t change it. But there’s so much more to my mom than those few words. She was my inspiration and my best friend, and a few mere sentences could never be enough.

I haven’t blogged in many, many years. But I have had so many thoughts and memories coursing through my head this week that I wanted to get written down that I felt compelled to start a new one.

Finding the beauty

ChrisLeave a comment

Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken.

— Oscar Wilde.

This isn’t the life I had planned, and in a lot of ways it isn’t the life I wanted. I didn’t want to lose my dad when I was 9. I didn’t want be widowed at the age of 38. I never thought I’d lose my mom, who seemed invincible.

But this is the life that I have. It’s the only one I get.

And in spite of everything, it can still be beautiful.

Sometimes it’s just harder to see it, that’s all.