Author Archives: Murphy

Asynchronous

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My job has a lot to do with synchronicity.

What i mean by that is, things happening at basically the same time. I work in telecommunications, and this is a concept most people are very familiar with.

In a phone call, both people have to be there at the same time. Not the same place, but the same time.

A face to face, also known as f2f, has to be at the same place and the same time. The nerdword for the same place is co-location, sometimes called co-lo.

A phone call doesnt’ need the same place, as long as there is technology in place that connect the two people. Cell towers, cell phones, regular wired phone equipment, SOMETHING that allows people to be far away but still talk at the same time.

But they both have to be ther at the same time

SYNCHRONICITY

then again, there are ways of talking that don’t require synchronicity. Remember letters? Tools in the form of paper and ink, a delivery mechanism, the education background to READ, letters allow asynchronous communication.

Email uses different tools, but also allows for asynchronous communication.

To step away from nerddom for a moment, there are things in life that require synchronicity and others that don’t.

Some moments don’t come back.

But some moments will come if you wait.

And you just have to wait.

protect your cherishables

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Stayed up way too late tonight with some old friends. We are rekindling a writer’s group.

There is little in life so precious as a good writer’s group. And this is a good writer’s group.

Ironically, we spoke very little about our writing tonight. We didn’t talk about our writing at ALL last meeting. Nevertheless, it was essential to the writing process that we do this.

See, just coming together and listening and talking with one another made me feel so much more ready to be creative.

To misquote:

If a writer writes alone in the woods, and nobody hears it, did it make a noise?

If I think about sitting down to put word to screen, and I do not have confidence that anyone besides myself gives a damn–I will most likely not sit down to put word to screen.

I have ideas and thought that I *think* about capturing and crafting.

But I don’t do it.

HOWEVER! My group got together to listen and to talk to one another. We were saying to one another ‘Yes! That is worth thinking about! Yes, you did phrase that cleverly! You do have a gift to share with us-with the world.’

We were cherishing one another.

It takes effort to write. To write ANYTHING, be it an opus magnum or a grocery list.

If I don’t value what I want to write, I lose it. All the ideas in the world are nothing to the lost ideas of the world.

It’s worth the effort

direct relationship

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There seems to be a direct relationship between how tired I am and how irritated i get when Chris does not get up FIRST to take care of our daughter when she is noisily awake in the nighttime.

SOME days, though, I dont’ mind.

I wish I could make those days most days.

rumplestiltskin

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he taught her how to spin straw into gold, you know.

I myself have no idea how to spin. I saw someone do it once on a school field trip. THey had wool, a puff of it, and they used a spinning wheel to make it into a thred. The puff of fibers was wound into a string and then the string was wound around a spindle. They loaded it onto a loom and made very rough-looking cloth out of it.

But for that girl, they demanded she spin straw-flax probably because that is what you make linen out of-into gold.

She didn’t know how. I didn’t know how either. I would have no idea.

But the king left her alone in a room with straw and said DO IT!

she had a visitor. Ruplestiltskin, though she didn’t know his name yet.

He showed her how.

and in the end, he taught her how to get a prince for a husband.

except he demanded more than he had a right to. He demanded her firstborn

She was clever enough to best him at his challenge and figure out his name

so ther she was, queen and mother and someone who knew how to spin gold.

She was never asked to spin gold again. I wonder if she spun it anyway?

Hard to say. Because her new family had put her in that unfair position.

I thinkshe spun the gold on her own. I think she didn’t tell anyone, but she spun the straw into gold in between when she had the timeleft over after queen and mother duties were done.

Because you never know when you might need some gold.

is the stalker gone?

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I hope so. I am pretty sure.

I think that I am safe. There are things out there that can get me, I suppose. But I have to believe that I am strong enough to sustain myself even if I am hurt.

That will have to do.

Yes, It’s been more than a year

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I had good reasons. Mostly to protect myself. But I have decided that I don’t want to live in a world where I can’t blog. So I’m not going to publicize this too much. I’ve always been circumspect about what I post here.

But I”ve missed this blog every day i haven’t had it up. I’m putting it up again.

Regardless. I stand by my words.

I’m not sure if I will still keep the weekly wonder. I have a few followers, but it hasn’t exactly gone viral. I’m just one women, with her thoughts.

Well.

Hello World.

Let’s Have the Good Guy Win

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Long ago, when I was making friends with a fabulous intelligent interesting woman—a bit older than me—I was disappointed to learn that she preferred to read mystery books.  At that time, I felt that mystery books were inferior genre fiction. A reader knew exactly what to expect from a book like that. Where was the challenge and pleasure in it?

She must have seen my disappointment, because she quickly explained “I like to see the bad guys get caught and good triumph in the end.”

I didn’t understand it then, but I think I get it now.

Last year, I had a bad run of my usual literary fiction choices. Wonderful book, wonderful writing, but three in a row dealt with suicide. After the second book, I was asking myself and the universe, “Really?! Must writers be so dark? There is nothing wrong with happy and victorious, is there?”

Then the third book with a suicide attempt happened. At this point, it was fool me THREE times shame on me. I was not going to read another book without a guarantee that no one was going to kill themselves. Enough was enough, already! But what sort of book was for sure not going to be suicide free?

Romance novel? One couldn’t be sure.
Mystery? Definitely not.
Science Fiction? Please. The dystopia of sci-fi might not only have people killing themselves, I might want to kill myself at the end of their bleakness.

Then I knew:
FANTASY
I could be very sure that if anyone offed themselves in a fantasy story, that person would deserve it. Fantasy is all about adventurous brave heroes. Struggle? Danger? Heroes and evil villains? Check and CHECK.

The brave would prevail! The bad guy would be at the very least badly thwarted, if not outright overthrown.
Yes, that would do.

The internet and friends gave me some very good recommendations, and I dove head first into the life-affirming world of fantasy genre fiction.

I finally got what my friend meant. Sometimes, you just need that one thing from a story. That thing that tells you it’s going to be okay and the world is alright on the whole, even when your world is off-kilter.

My proffessors’ Guilt List will be there. When I’m ready to go back to the ‘good’ books, I can find them. But right now, when things just seem more and more depressing in the world, I’ll follow the hero and believe in whatever magic they are using up until the bedside lamp turns out. Sweet dreams for me.

weekly wonder Sep 06, 2010 07:59 pm

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The weekly wonder

Do you ever wonder…?

September 6, 2010

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Hopping on Pop

We lost Veronica's trust this weekend. She had chewed a hole in her pacifier–we call it a sucker–and we had to replace it. But I was not an attentive mother, and I bought the wrong brand.

They are not interchangeable, and by the next day when I had presented her with an exact replica she batted it away and threw it across the room. Her message was clear: I AM NOT GOING TO BE SUCKERED AGAIN! I think we may have accidentally forced her to give up her sucker before she was ready.

This would have been humorous if we had not already suffered worry and sleeplessness and parental bickering all through the night before.
"I tried that already!"
"Give her to me."
"She will have to cry it out."
"It shouldn't matter to you, you're the one in bed sleeping."
"WOULD THAT WERE TRUE! I am in bed, but sleep and crying it out and not compatible."

It sent us back to the hell of the newborn days.

But, the fact is, despite the 1 AM bickering, Veronica has a very fine Daddy. She loves him tremendously, and I am very glad of it.

daddy's getting the eye

Now for the Hopping!
hop on pop!

She and Daddy get along great. And that makes me happy!
Innocent!

Fact is,  it's best to remember the happy times and let the rough patches slide away.

 
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weekly wonder Aug 23, 2010 04:29 pm

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The weekly wonder

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August 23, 2010

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How Many Cigars Does It Take to Make a Forest?

The problem with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant. It's that they know so much that isn't so
   -Ronald Reagan

 
Right here, right now, what is going on?  What do you hear? What do you see? Stop. Feel your bones and smell the air around you. I know you are reading words, probably at your computer or maybe on a handheld device.
 
Stop. I mean it. Peel your eyes away from the display and look at what else is going on. Notice the colors and the weather. Don’t read another word until you really know what your shoes look like. Okay. You have taken a moment to be in the present. That is a rare and rarer thing in this busy age of multi-tasking and interpretation.
 
Reagan up there accused the liberals of knowing things that are not so. Perhaps by leading with a quote from that republican president, you feel you already know what I am going to say. You may be ready to agree with me, or prepared to rebut me to the ground.
 
I don’t think his statement applies exclusively to liberals. It’s a problem of missing the trees for the forest. So many times people are ready to assume a whole trail of meaning by a small signifier.  One color, one preference can be a flag in the ground.
 
Red. Blue. Green. Rainbow. We all know what that means.
 
Choice of automobile, choice of shoes, sports team—these mean you are a certain type of person. So wise are the rest of us, so clever that we can interpret these obvious signs of each other’s character. All our many ‘isms’ have given us the decoder ring to the human race.
 
We are too clever for ourselves by half. Maybe a cigar is just a cigar.
 
So, Ronnie, I want to stop and listen to my fellow humans—even if they are liberals—and see what they know. We’ve already used up what we know. It is time for some new ideas, and stopping to listen to each other is the only way to get at them.

 
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weekly wonder Aug 12, 2010 11:59 am

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August 12, 2010

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Undying Ambition

Desire burns in me to do something. I cherish a burning ambition to stretch my abilities and talents. I yearn to make a mark on the world. What will suit to fulfill this dream?

…If I had the gift of being able to speak…

Perhaps I could stand before the multitudes, to inspire and motivate them. Crowds would be transformed by my words. What great things would come from this!

…If I understood all mysteries—knew everything about everything…

Maybe I could be a genius and make discoveries. I would connect separate information and ideas previously misunderstood. I could find the golden chain that connects and illuminates. I would discover something to change the world. That would be a worthy use for my talent. That would be proper fuel for my ambition.

..If …I could speak to a mountain and make it move…

So much needs to be accomplished! What if I could be the type of person to execute great deeds? Everywhere I turn some cause or problem is begging to be solved. “Poverty” “Hunger!” “Injustice!” What if I could throw all my strength into tackling and finally solving these horrible blights on humanity? Someone needs to. I could assure my legacy, my place in history, by accomplishing some great deed.

…If I gave everything I have to poor people…

Then again, there may be no way to get the cooperation it would take. Possibly I should exercise solo greatness. I could perform a grand gesture—be the example for all others to point to. Personal sacrifice!

…if I were burned alive…

Martyrdom is the ultimate sacrifice. The burning ambition in my breast flares up then quails in response to the thought. It is a final choice. There could be no taking it back. But there would also be no doubt. If I chose to be a martyr I would assure the story told about me. No one could deny the my unimpeachable greatness.

…I would still be worth nothing at all without love…

WHAT!? Inconceivable! Love? Love is nothing! Love is too easy. Children that can’t speak can give love. Puppies and kittens can give love. I am special. I am capable. I am full of talent and intelligence. I am better than love.

…only making a lot of noise…

But my special gifts deserve accolades and recognition! I will stand above the crowd. I want people to know me. I want to be appreciated for who I am and understood for my finest qualities. I want to achieve and be recognized. I want to attain immortality through the efforts only I can enact. The world should never forget me.

Love goes on forever…
 

(all italics come from I Corinthians 13, The Living Bible 1971 version)

 
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