I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat. ― Rebecca West
#notetoself
#timesup
A History of A*
According to the ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY**, the etymological “definition” of the indefinite article “a” is:
a form of an used before consonants, mid-12c., a weakened form of Old English an “one” (see an). The disappearance of the -n- before consonants was mostly complete by mid-14c. After c. 1600 the -n- also began to vanish before words beginning with a sounded -h-; it still is retained by many writers before unaccented syllables in h- or (e)u- but is now no longer normally spoken as such. The -n- also lingered (especially in southern England dialect) before -w- and -y- through 15c.
It also is used before nouns of singular number and a few plural nouns when few or great many is interposed.
For reasons unclear, I wondered all of a sudden how that much overworked and under-appreciated word “a” came about…
Fans of Albert Camus are so absurd
Yeah, so call me absurd…
Anyway, as happens with my other such favorite influential authors — Kafka, Vonnegut, Melville, Hemingway, London, Conrad… (I know, I know. This list is very male and very white… I’m working on that. I promise.) — I, like clockwork, begin jonesin’ for a Camus fix at least once a year.
Right now I’m in the midst of satisfying my most recent Camus craving by plowing through several of my perennial favorites of his — The Stranger, The Plague, and The Fall.
However, yesterday I began reading for the first time a short story collection of his called Exile and the Kingdom, and I’m saddened and a bit embarrassed to report to you that, after three stories in, I really don’t have a clue what’s going on in any of them. They, after the first read, just don’t make any sense to me. Hopefully they will after subsequent reads.
But I gotta tell ya…
Why does it seem stars from my generation* have such a hard time staying alive?
What gives, yo?
I mean, life’s a bitch and all but come on Gen Xers, don’t let all that depressing music from the Nineties go to your head…
Or your heart.
Man**…
I tell ya, last year we lost such notable Gen Xers as Chester Bennington and Chris Cornell*** and, before them, Scott Weiland a couple years ago, not to mention all those Gen Xer stars we lost early in their prime: Kurt Cobain, Tupac, Biggie, Layne Staley, Shannon Hoon, Bradley Nowell, and god knows how many others I’ve failed to mention.
And now this year we continue the tragic Gen X endings with the tragic death of Dolores O’Riordan.
By the time my generation gets in its natural zone of death, it seems all the stars from it will be long gone with no big names left for me to pay tribute.
But, as is evident by Delores’ recent passing, it’s painfully obvious the premature dying off of famous Gen Xers will continue unabated and I sincerely would like to pay a heartfelt tribute to the life of Dolores, for hers was a unique and beautiful voice that defined my generation*.
Sadly, like the death of Scott Weiland, I kind of saw it coming…
Writing is Sorrow…
Having had written is sublime.
#notetoself
#amwriting
Slowing Down the Synapses
Or, Speeding Up the Reviews
Not the primary reason but one of the reasons I decided back in April to take a hiatus from the web was because I wanted to give my brain a break from all the nonsensical chatter that was cluttering it so.
I have been having what I collectively call chemo brain issues for quite some time so I thought it may do me some good to lay off for a while all the hyper-clicking and attention-span deflating skim-reading that the web so sweetly and successfully induces us into doing and which studies have told us is altering our brain and its ability to focus on and process information.
To counter what seemed to me to be my lack of focus and ability to process effectively process information (perhaps less a result from all my web time and more a result from all the chemo and prednisone I used to be strung out on years ago (and, in the case of chemo, which I still take daily dose addiction of)), I decided to turned off the web for a while.
Which, for the most part, I did surprisingly enough.
To fill the time I no longer spent on the web, much of which had been dedicated to this blog, I mobilized the pen and cracked open the books pretty hard.
Happy Cyborg Monday!
Hey, wow! To celebrate Cyborg Monday*, you can download all my ebooks from Amazon for free for the day!
If interested, you can read a sample and download them from here.
And as always, thank you for shopping at Amazon where your feedback in the form of reviews are always welcomed (and desired).
#prayforthesingularity
****
*It’s obvious to me, seeing how Jeff Bezos is embracing Cyborgs and dedicating an entire day of discounts and savings in their honor, that he doesn’t fear the AI Apocalypse quite as much as his billionaire bud Elon Musk does.
There’s so much to gripe about I can’t decide which gripe to blog about so instead I’ll just share this…
According to this article, which is a derivative of this article, which leans heavily on this study, creative people literally see the world differently than us lesser than creative types, as is illustrated by the following video…
Some of you may remember this similar titillating* exercise in awareness I shared in days past.
#prayforopenness
#andpuertorico
*The word “titillating” was added for clickbait purposes only; although, some may in fact be titillated by brain teasers. Who knows…