Mumble Mumble Mumble
Mumble! Mumble mumble mumble.
Tinkerbelle’s mumble mumble mumble hematocrit mumble mumble 31.5%, mumble mumble great! Mumble mumble mumble 2 weeks mumble mumble mumble retest. Mumble mumble mumble taper the prednisone.
Now that is some high quality writing, eh? Do I know what you come here for or what? No? OK, you’re right. My bad.
And I have to admit that continuing on like that would definitely get old. Even just typing that bit was a pain.
But honestly, the weeks are running together these days and I find myself stretching to write these updates. If nothing exciting is happening, what am I writing about?
My mother and I talk every weekend and often we wind up recapping the entire week in just a minute or two, and then we have to grasp around looking for things to talk about — which leads to politics, which depresses us both. In these posts I do my best to avoid politics, so I am even more at a loss.
Anyway…
This week, I started an awful job in the back yard. I am trying to cut some bamboo back from the edge of the yard where it is growing into the neighbour’s shed. It’s a monster job, and the next attempt (probably tomorrow) will involve ruining a chainsaw chain. It’s really not fun. But I need to get it out of there so the neighbour doesn’t have to worry about it, and I need to keep it from growing back into there somehow.
Bamboo is a challenging plant to deal with. Those planted here are clumping varieties, which are supposedly much easier to control than the running ones. I suppose that must be the case since they’ve been in the ground here for ages — long before we moved in — and they have yet to take over the world. But they do try, which is why it’s getting into the neighbour’s shed.
In other news, the building permit submission was reviewed for completeness (at least I think that’s what happened) and we’ve paid the first half of the fee, about $850. Now we wait for them to review it in detail and come back with any concerns or questions or issue the permit. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t take too long, but we are definitely not in charge of that.
At some point we are going to shift into high gear for this remodel. We think we are going to have to completely empty the bottom floor of the house early on, and that means renting a POD of some kind to sit on the driveway and hold all the furniture. And there are other complications as well, given the house is over 60 years old. There may be asbestos remediation needed. If so we’ll be entirely out for several days while that is going on. Fun fun fun!
To change the subject, lately I have been pondering the nature of stories. As a culture — and probably as a species — we focus on heroes. There is always one key person — or perhaps a small group — at the center of every story. A hero who does what no one else can (or is willing to do) and saves the day, invents something amazing, solves the problem, or single handedly creates an amazing work of art.
But that isn’t how life actually works. These days almost everything significant is a group effort, even if we don’t think about it at the time. And I do mean everything. Even if I were to invent something entirely new all by myself, it would no doubt be based on technology or knowledge that others discovered or invented before. And an artist creating a singular vision almost certainly has to use materials made by others. Taking things a step farther, if a new product comes to market — or if that art goes to a museum or gallery to be seen — it gets there on roads built and maintained by hundreds or thousands of others. And on and on. Everything we do these days depends — critically — on so much that has come before. Viewed in that light, there really are no more heroes who do everything themselves.
My interest here is how we tell stories that reflect that reality. Is it even possible? Would anyone read a story that discusses dozens or hundreds of people, each making a small contribution towards something that turns out to be large and important? Or would that be too disjoint and boring?
Is the need for a hero just too strong?
Or am I off base somehow. Are heroes really still possible in our modern civilization?
I have yet to come to a conclusion, but I would be interested in your thoughts.
In any case, the next community email goes out on October first and I have several articles I need to write up so they can get reviewed. So, I am off to work on my unpaid publishing gig.
Wait… it’s actually another unpaid publishing gig.
I may need to rethink my life.
Cheers!