I Think This Is Yours

I have just finished a new story—with the title above—by Iris Blythe Grey.  (Hang on, while I check that—yeah.)  It's about a girl who's finding it hard to make ends meet, and reluctantly goes into a fertility clinic to sell one of her embryos.  (Apparently, worth about $1000 each.)  By accident, she's implanted with another woman's baby.

Of course, that's a stunning accident, both for the girl now implanted, and the girl whose embryos these were. 

The story moves along in a strange way, as the two women begin to relate to this highly peculiar situation, in a strangely rational way, almost as if they were AI's, analyzing everything that happens, and everything they feel, almost mathematically, in a utterly strangely similar way to each other. 

All throughout, the author uses very specific vocabulary.  Initially, I think, to underscore their highly similar thought-processes, and eventually to show how they learn to trust each other, and become intimate—not physically, but in their relationship. 

Though they're very similar in some ways, the author manages to make them very different people; interestingly different.  They're each perfect in her way—but,  of course, in different ways—but, over many, many weeks, the reader can see them beginning to see each other as potential mates. 

One of them is a lawyer, and the other is a medical student, so of course their vocabularies are very precise, and they each is articulate enough to understand exactly what the other is saying.  Only the reader might be out of the loop, but not intentionally. 

At first, I thought this stiff vocabulary might be how the author thought and wrote.  Structure.  Lists.  Manipulation.  Framing.  Architecture.  Performative.  Decision and execution.  These are not unusual words, but they're used so systematically that one keeps wondering: what's going on?  I'm going to have to read another story by Iris, to see whether I'm going to have to wander among the decisions and executions for another couple of days. 

Spilt

For a while, I've leaned on my credentials as a former college instructor of writing, to address matters of style and grammar and usage.  (I was not an English professor.  I was teaching a content area, in a course where a lot of writing was required.)  But I'm getting to the point where I can't justify the rules I lay on you folks; that is, I can't give you reasons, any more, for why one usage is no good, and another usage is better.  A good teacher should be able to do that, even if the student isn't terribly interested. 

Think about the word "spilt", for instance.   A common instance is "There's no use crying over spilt milk."  You could use spilled instead, and that would not be wrong at all.  When using the word as a verb, spilled is the only word that seems correct to me.  When using it to describe a noun, such as milk, either of spilled or spilt will work.  I wish I could tell you why!  But I can't think of a reason, though I'm sure that I could have, at one time. 

I'm reading a story about the attraction between two women, one of whom is dealing with an elderly mother, who's bewildered by the onset of Alzheimer's Disease*.  Spilt has nothing to do with the condition, in case you were wondering.  The story is The Christmas Elf.

Kay

* Google this condition; there seem to be interesting new insights. 

The Inside

The inside looked as if an art gallery and a tiara had a baby.

That's brilliant!  I guess that's a not uncommon sort of cliche, but even familiar cliche constructs can be better than the run of the mill!

Kay

Lent, Leant

I just saw an unexpected confusion in a story:

"Valentina lent over and pinched both their cheeks, earning squeals of pleased protests."

'Lent' is the wrong word.  The idea is that  Valentina was leaning towards the kids; the past tense of Leaning is Leant.  It isn't a very common word, but ... this mistake is sort of jarring.

Well, it is a sort of cute gangster- related rom-com, but I'm only a quarter of the way through it; I may abandon 'cute' by the end of it.  It's Dangerous Game by  ... somebody.  Oh, Bel Blackwood!  Of four books by her I've read, I liked three.

OK, boys and girls, we'll meet anon.

Kay

Cherry Turnovers

Today, I went with a friend to Wengerds, (a Mennonite grocery store / supermarket), where they have really amazing stuff for sale: meat,  bread, oil, juice, cold cuts, and pies, and of course, these Cherry Turnovers.  Many of you must be familiar with the triangular filled turnovers, made with sort of puff pastry.  I brought one to eat at home (eating them in the store is sort of depraved, IMO), and it was SOO GOOD!

I love puff pastry, anyway, and this pastry was just perfect: a touch of salt, and sugar on the outside; and I heated the thing up in this little toaster oven, and gave myself over to floating up to heaven!

A thousand blessings on these Mennonites; their store is just so nice; I'm going to shop there by myself, and have to try getting more of a variety of supplies than just pies.

(If the Republicans win, I wonder whether these markets will continue to exist...)

Kay

Interfering?

I'm getting posts from Instagram and Facebook, that touchscreen voting is not allowing voters to pick their choice of candidate.  These are just posts on those platforms, but I'm getting nervous. 

Stonehenge: Underground Secrets

I was just watching a YouTube post, about new investigations in the area surrounding the Stones. 

For years it has been known that the setting sun, or the rising sun, during Solstices, Summer and Winter, aligns perfectly with various stones at Stonehenge.  It was therefore assumed that the significance of the ancient monument was most likely calendric.  But then it was decided to aim Lidar at the ground.  (Lidar is a way of investigating the ground, to detect buried masses; using sound, and how the ground reflects or refracts it.  I don't know much about this phenomenon, but they have discovered lots of interesting buried things using this technique.)

Well.  It turns out that there is fascinating buried stuff in an enormous area surrounding the Standing Stones we have known so far.  I was listening to the commentary of a woman who was reading out the text of the post.  (It was a huge text, and she had to race along after a while, to get in all the material.  She comes across as sedate and measured, but also excited and interested.  (I wish I could narrate a text like that!)

She emphasized that many of the properties of the ancient installation were acoustical, that it was designed to amplify the voice of a speaker in a very special way, to impress, or even intimidate the audience.  This creates some troubling thoughts about the whole thing.  They know that many of the existing, visible stones were hauled from Wales.  But it appears that one of the most important stones was brought some 700 miles from the northern tip of Scotland.

I don't want to get into the story too deep, because I suspect that there are all sorts of horrible things involved, such as human sacrifice, and so on.  In fact I know this is the case; there is often a human sacrifice in the foundations of any fortification.  It was thought that this made the edifice somehow stronger. 

I seriously doubt that the spoken narration of the video was AI generated, but the information about the video seem to suggest that it is.  It is possible. 

Kay