Weekend Assignment #334: Around With Awareness

Weekend Assignment #334: What Are You Looking Forward To?

We are about to begin the last quarter of 2010, tell me what you are looking forward to. Will it be the coming holiday season? The cooler days of autumn? The kids going back to school? Family gatherings. Tell us all about it!

Extra Credit: Tell us what you are least looking forward to in the upcoming months.

What am I looking forward to? Umm, nothing, really, at least nothing definite. What was that quote?

Every time is a time for comedy in a world of tension that would languish without it. But I cannot confine myself to lightness in a period of human life that demands light ... We all know that, as the old adage has it, "It is later than you think." ..., but I also say occasionally: "It is lighter than you think." In this light let's not look back in anger, or forward in fear, but around in awareness.

 - "Foreword", Lanterns and Lances (1961), by James Thurber

I'm just trying to get by where I am now, and be prepared for whatever comes next.

I'm looking forward to cooler weather, but that's at least a month off, and at least we're finally getting a little rain here and there to go with the humidity that makes it hard to breathe. I wanted a monsoon and I got it, but it's not the most productive one ever in terms of rain, and sometimes it's distinctly uncomfortable.

I'd like to look forward to the day when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee stops waking me up every two to four weeks asking for yet another $25 donation, but I doubt that even the midterm election, for good or ill, will stop those calls.

I've got a job interview next Monday, the first of three rounds for less money than I was making in 2004. Should I be looking forward to that?

Last night I spent the evening pasting together every chapter of my unsold first novel, Heirs of Mâvarin, into one large document for the first time ever, reformatted it all in Courier New and started breaking my chapters into smaller size. This is all in preparation for one more revision and sending it out again, this time to a publisher that Sara G. told me about. I hate to look forward to that; I've been disappointed too many times to want to get my hopes up now.

So what am I looking forward to most? Anything that pans out well, whether it's the midterm elections not going to the Republicans after all, the sale of my novel in the indefinite future, or eventual full-time employment at my former wage level. Aside from the first of these, none are likely to happen quickly. What am I looking forward to least? Continued negative outcomes on all of the above.

Still, I live in hope. Sort of. But here's the point of all this, which I had to finish and post this entry to find. I don't know what's coming along in the future, good or bad. Most likely, as usual, it will be some of each, along with a large helping of miscellaneous stuff, whose "goodness" depends on what I do with it and what my attitude is. But right now, I'm more interesting in the right now. Right now is not so bad. Right now I'm only working part time, but at two jobs I love and for a semi-decent wage. Right now I'm excited to be drawn back into my first novel for almost the first time since it was rejected and I learned of Tuffy's cancer on the same day three years ago. Right now I'm enjoying an all-time Doctor Who marathon, which is currently up to 1967's Tomb of the Cybermen.  Right now I need to start dieting, again. Right now I need to leave for work, so I'd better stop here. But you get the idea. Why obsess about the future, when right now is pretty good, and the only part of my life I can affect directly?

Karen

Weekend Assignment #324: The Future, Unwritten

Weekend Assignment #324: America 2062

Next Tuesday is my birthday, I am not quite 50 yet, but when I was a little girl I liked to sit and imagine what the world, more specifically, America, would be like when I reached 50! Having nearly arrived at my goal age, I am now aiming for another 50 years! So, in honor of my 48th birthday, I want you to search your imaginations, and tell what I can expect in the year... 2062!

Extra Credit: Tell me, is the world anything like you imagined it would be when you grew up? What's different? What's the same?

I guess for me, the short answer is, "It will be like this, only more so, with some surprises."

My friend S. gets out of a flying Delorean - at a Universal Studios
special effects show in 1990.

When I was a kid, I drew my own flying car, sort of a mobile home style, antigrav-capable flying saucer with wheels and a relaxed attitude toward facing forward. I've always kind of resented the fact that The Jetsons and other sf tv, movies and books promised all sorts of fun things that we haven't gotten yet. On the other hand, in the realm of computers and hand-held communication devices, we are either on track or way ahead of schedule. Perhaps in another 52 years, we can get the other fun stuff up and running as well. You have to want it, people!

Sure, there are a few prototype flying cars out there, such as the one pictured above, driven by its inventor, Dr. Paul Moller. Notice, through, that this picture is from three years ago, and I'm no closer to seeing one for sale at my local Jim Click car dealership. Like Avery Brooks ten years ago, I want to say, "I was promised flying cars!"

A Back to the Future Delorean at Universal Studios California in 1990.

Heck, according to Bob Zemeckis and Bob Gale, we're only five years away from hoverboards to replace skateboards, and hover conversions for our vintage Deloreans. Oh, and printed books with dust jackets will be kitchy collectibles.

 
While we're at it, where's my hoverboard?

There's a book about all the innovations promised us in 20th Century fiction that never arrived, Your Flying Car Awaits.  I like that a lot.

So what do I think will actually be around in 2062? I expect that the easy stuff - better, smaller, faster tech toys, solar power and other alternative energy sources, etc. will all continue to be designed, refined and readily available. The energy thing has been on America's and the world's back burner far too long, and I believe that will start to change in light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, President Obama's priorities and other factors. The other, fun stuff, the flying cars, personal robots and so on, will depend on what's possible, cost effective and provides a benefit that people want. Is a humanoid robot better than a Roomba? Would flying cars scooting around the sky have even more accidents than cars on clearly-defined, well-marked roads? Probably, unless you got really clever with programming them. Maybe monorails for distance and slidewalks or People Movers for short hops will be more practical, but I suspect people will always want the autonomy of their own individual vehicle whenever possible.

Judging from the evolution of social attitudes in the 53 years since my birth, I expect that by 2062 we'll be much further along in issues of tolerance, with nearly everyone finally according equal rights and respect to others regardless of ethnicity, religion, sexuality, etc. I'd like to think that the rest of the world will also improve in this respect. But I have little hope that will actually get past the whole idea of wars, not in a mere 52 years. It's not easy to change attitudes and responses that are pretty much hardwired into the human brain, or encoded at every level of human society. Still, we have to try!

Unfortunately, I'm not expecting time machines, faster than light travel, Transporter and transmats and other sf conveniences, even by 2062. There's actually been progress toward matter transmission, but I doubt very much we'll ever be able to "beam up." There are some things the future can't fix, and the laws of physics are high on that list. Darn it.

Happy belated birthday, Carly! May your future be a fun one!

Karen

Weekend Assignment #300: Best of the Memes

Way back in April, 2004 (I think it was April 15th, but it's hard to tell from the surviving evidence), John Scalzi posted the very first Weekend Assignment writing prompt on his AOL Journal By the Way. Nearly six years later, it's time to post the 300th Weekend Assignment, with particular attention to the memes we've been using ever since to fill up our blogs:

Weekend Assignment #300: In 2004, John Scalzi proposed the first Weekend Assignment, designed "to give AOL Journalers something to post over the weekend." Over the years the blogging community has had a huge proliferation of blogging "memes" - questions to answer, themed photo challenges, lists, writing prompts and quizzes of all sorts. What internet memes, if any, do you participate in these days?

Extra Credit: Is there a particular category of memes you particularly enjoy, as a blogger or as a reader?

The shot above happens to be my only known screen capture of John Scalzi's old blog By the Way, taken one night during a temporary AOL glitch. (Ya think?) When Scalzi started the Weekend Assignment in April, 2004, the AOL blogging platform, AOL Journals, was officially less than a year old. Blogging was a new concept for most of its participants. To help them find things to do with their new electronic soapboxes, Scalzi started posting a Weekend Assignment every Thursday night, and a roundup of participants' results the following Monday or Tuesday.

I learned about By the Way and the Weekend Assignment about six weeks in, posting my first response on May 31st. The first WA I did asked for vacation recommendations for places you've never been. My entry, Temporal Mystery Tour, was for trips that could only be made by traveling in time.

I'm not quite sure whether I participated in every single Weekend Assignment from then on, but I certainly haven't missed any since that spring and summer. The weekend Scalzi won the Campbell Award, he understandably had other things on his mind, and forgot to post a Weekend Assignment. I pinch hit with one of my own, which he graciously picked up in By the Way a day or so later. When AOL Journals shut down at the end of 2007, Scalzi stopped posting Weekend Assignments (except for once) and gave me permission to continue the meme myself. Two years later, here we still are, although I post later in the weekend now. The Weekend Assignment no longer has the dozens of participants (occasionally more) that Scalzi used to garner, but I very much appreciate those of you who do play along, and everyone who turns up to read the entries.

Over the years I've only had a few other memes I participated in regularly. Scalzi's second weekly meme, the Monday Photo Shoot, was one of the first themed photo challenges. I was there from the first week in 2005, and have never missed one, although occasionally I've squeaked in at the last minute. That's another one I took over from Scalzi, only to pass it on to Carly, who does a much better job with it than I did. Her Ellipsis Monday Photo Shoot is still posted each Sunday night. The third meme I always, always do is, of course, the Round Robin Photo Challenges, which Carly and I started together in 2005.

Beyond that, I've mostly avoided taking on my memes, largely because I didn't want to feel obligated to put in the time and effort for them, in addition to the three mentioned above. For a while I was answering a Writer's Weekly Question, but I didn't do it every time and the meme eventually folded. I was even more spotty in participating in Feline and Furball Friday, balancing other people's cat photos with my canine ones. I like both the photo shoots and the writing prompts, as long as they offer scope for me to write something with a little depth on a particular subject. I tend to approach both writing and photo memes the same was, with both words and pictures, albeit with more emphasis on photos for the photo memes. I have zero interest in memes that call for a series of one word or one sentence answers.

How about you? Do you play along with some of the photoblogging memes, generate lists of random facts when prompted, or ponder literary writing prompts? Do you do as much meme-blogging as ever, or not so much, or more and more? Please tell us about it in your blog, or in the comments thread below.

While you're thinking about that, let's have a last look at last week's assignment. For Weekend Assignment #299: Time's Up!, I asked whether there was anything you wanted to get done before the "aughties" were over. Because of the holidays, only Julie managed to post a response this time out. Click on her name below to read the full response:

Julie said...

Long ago I learned to resolve not to make any resolutions. Long-term plans, yes. Even those fail, but long-term plans and goals are - for me - more achievable than those spur of the moment "it's a new year and I must do something!" plans.

1. Please post your entry no later than Friday, January 8th at 6 PM. (You can also post your response in the comments thread, but a blog entry is better. )
2. Please mention the Weekend Assignment in your blog post, and include a link back to this entry.
3. Please come back here after you've posted, and leave a link to your entry in the comments below.
4. Visiting other participants' entries is strongly encouraged!
5. I'm always looking for topic ideas. Please email me at mavarin2 on gmail.com if there's a Weekend Assignment theme you'd like to see. If I use your idea, you will be credited as that week's "guest professor."

I hope to hear from you soon. Happy New Year!

Karen