Tinkering With Demand

Ha.

For all my life, I hated Economics with a passion!  The economists had rules of thumb, like "If you raise interest rates, people will not be buying much, so ... (prices will go down?)"

It seemed to me that this was meddling with what the people wanted, so it was sort of sneaky. 

But yesterday, I noticed that Helen and the Flowershop Girl was selling too fast, so I charged $2 for it.  It used to be free.  This morning, it had only sold one copy!

OK, listen.  I apologize for interfering with the sales of the book that was being most heavily downloaded (Flowershop Girl), but I was afraid that that book would become the poster- girl for my writing as a whole.  I saw myself as a writer of medium-length stories about decent people; but Flowershop was a very short story; in fact, it was a tiny bleeding chunk from the Helen saga, and really was intended to describe the sexual and romantic problems that Helen had to face--- even in the summer, when college was on hiatus (remember, Helen is a professor) being in love with two women at once, and living with them. 

I had written an even better episode about this situation (Helen Teaches Calculus) where Rain and Lorna, Helen's two sex partners, struggle with their three- way emotional balance.

Maybe I'll upload that; I haven't yet. 

Kay Ashley Hemlock Brown

Flowershop Girl

There was a very brief episode (in the long Helen story) that takes place in the summer, after the filming of Merit.  I hadn't really planned on including it in the sequence; it doesn't further the plot, it doesn't help with background information, it doesn't help with time duration.  In fact it confuses a lot of things.  Things that are bad enough without Flowershop to begin with.

But the young woman whom Helen has a brief affair with had such a lovely personality, and the little story was just so charming, and revealed so much of the sweeter side of Helen's personality that I just couldn't resist packaging it into a little short story, and uploading it. 

Well.  It is the fastest-'selling' item, by volume, among all my books.  This last few days, it accounted for almost half my downloads: 35/80.

I just made it cost $2.  That was naughty of me.  My sales will probably plummet...

Why does My Cat Lie on My Chest?

I was visiting my friend, who has a cat.  I was minding my own business, sitting in a corner, when this cat hops up on me, stretches out on me, and starts to purr!

So I google: "Why does my cat lie on me and purr?"  To my indignation, Google changed it immediately to Why does my cat lay on me and purr?

To the best of my knowledge, 'Why does my cat lie on me?' is correct.  Google is using an AI spelling corrector, and it seems to have learned wrong grammar!!  

'Lie' is the present tense.  "I lie here, all alone, waiting...."

'Lay' is the past tense.  "Man, I lay there for quite a while, but did anyone come?  Nooo..."

'Laid' is the past perfect.  In a sentence with a had, or a have,  or a have had, you would use 'laid', or sometimes 'lain'.  I'm not enough of an expert to be able to tell you which one goes where; I sort of know when it's wrong. 

Coming back to the purring: apparently they purr at you if they like you and they're relaxed.  It also makes them feel even better, the few authors I read say, but I get the strong impression that it's a phenomenon still being investigated.  Unfortunately, since most cat people are familiar with purring cats, I get the feeling that research on purring has a low priority.

But why on our chests?  The warmth, partially, and the sound of our heartbeats is apparently very soothing to the purrmeisters.  Aww!  I love this little cat, but I get the impression that she--- and cats generally--- are a lot of work!  So when I want a dose of purring, I visit my friend. 

Kate Ashley

Graphic Art with AI

In the recent past I've been highly critical of how DA art has morphed in various ridiculous directions.  But certain strange features are really interesting. 

Firstly, there is an emphasis on decoration.  Most of the images are of women, and they wear ornaments to an almost obscene degree.  Their clothes are also elaborate, and sometimes fantastic. 

Secondly, there is a tendency for shoulder straps to be missing entire sections!  I can understand clothing having 'peek-a-boo' sections cut out.   But you can't do that with straps. 

Thirdly, women are depicted with enormous quantities of hair; even portraits of well-known celebrities are depicted with huge amounts of hair. 

Fourthly, celebrities are depicted anonymously, with out- of-character clothing and styles.   For instance, an image of someone who is almost unmistakably Greta Thunberg has been shown almost as a sex object.  This makes absolutely no sense.  The same with Emma Watson.

Finally, most of the girls and women are beginning to look the same, or maybe the girls and women that I'm being shown look the same, which makes me feel a bit paranoid. 

Hope all this is a temporary effect. 

Kay

Just Checking In

Greetings to you, on this 16th day of August.  We just this morning watched England chomp down on Australia in the Women's FIFA game, played somewhere in Australia or New Zealand.  (We were rooting for the Aussies.)

OK, onto the main business for the day: griping and ranting.  I am so sick of looking at bosomy blue-eyed chick's on DA; just don't like big- breasted girls.  Apologies to all you ladies with heavy chests; I know you can't help it, and I know you don't enjoy it, and it can't be fun being leered at by men---at least, not for all of you.  But DA, as I have complained so often, is so dominated by guys with arrested development, that images of chesty women go completely unremarked on. And now I've stopped saying anything, because paying attention only encourages them. 

Also not all, but the majority of visual or graphic artists are only preoccupied with appearance, and not with any other considerations.  Nothing but how the image looks pierces their consciousness.  Talking about other issues is just a waste of time.  If they like big boobs, they're going to put big boobs on their heroines, and nobody's going to stop them. 

In other news, I've started collecting animated features by Studio Ghibli.  They're awesome. So bye for now, 

Kay.

P.S. I've decided to give myself a temporary middle name of Ashley.  So, bye, 

Kay Ashley Hemlock Brown

An unlikely mistake!

I'm reading a piece of lesfic, and as usual, it's about a girl who goes to a bar, hoping to hook up with a date.  It's well written in its own way, but there were a few unexpected mistakes, the kind that people make who have discovered some new word late in life; probably in their late twenties.  (People are often surprised that having lots of words to choose from is fun.)  In this case, it was chase versus chaste!

Most of us know what it means to chase something or someone.  It's a verb.  Chaste is completely different: it means in a non-sexual way.  At least, that's what I think it means; it is a way of doing something, so it is really an adjective.  I often write kissed chastely to mean kissed with closed lips. 

The two words are not even pronounced the same; the 't' is most definitely sounded.  This pair does not belong in our list, really, because readers could take it to mean that they are pronounced the same. 

P.S: a person who is chaste in everything they do may have taken a vow to be that way.  Nuns are supposed to do this; it's called a vow of chastity.  Chastity simply means chaste-ness.