Steven Harper's Blog, page 12

A Million Boxes Interview

A while ago on Facebook, I posted my confusion about the One Million Checkboxes site. Later that day, a reporter from the New York Times saw the post and interviewed me about it. Here's the result!

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/style/one-million-checkboxes-game.html

comments

The Internet of Cat Boxes

Last year, I bought an automatic litter box. It's very high-tech. It senses when a cat climbs in, weighs the cat, waits until the cat leaves, and then cycles itself. The "box" is actually shaped more like a dryer drum with clumping litter in the bottom. It cycles by turning the drum, which runs the litter through a strainer that clears out the clumps and drops them into a waste bin below. 

It's a wonderful invention. Before I owned this device, I used a traditional cat box with clay litter. I don't like sieving out daily clumps and would rather empty the whole box every few days. Either way is messy and gross. But the automatic box can go an entire week without needing to be emptied, and the clumps are whisked away into an air-tight drawer lined with a plastic bag. When it gets full, I just pull the drawer open, lift the bag out, and drop it in the trash. No touching of cat clumps involved!

The box keeps track of all kinds of data--how much each cat weighs, how often each visits the box, how often it cycles, how often it fills up. And it sends this data to an app on my phone. I still get disconcerted when the litter box sends me a text. (I could shut them off, but then I tend to forget to empty the drawer and the box stops working.)

It does have a flaw, though.

Last night, I emptied the drawer and ran the bag out to the trash, which was already at the curb for pickup. Something distracted me, though, and I completely forgot to replace the bag and put the drawer back in. This morning---aaaaaagggghhh! Cat clumps all over the drawer space and on the floor.

I went through two pairs of rubber gloves and I don't how many paper towels sprayed with cleaner getting it all cleaned up. Then there was the sweeping and the mopping. And the ew, ew, ew!

This was totally on me, but you'd think a device that can tell our two cats apart would have a sensor that says, "Drawer's open! Hold off on cycling!" Maybe I'll write customer service.




comments

The Newsletter Is Back!

 I've joined Substack. Man, it's easier to use than Mail Chimp! My July newsletter is now out. Some great news about my books here:

https://stevenharperpiziks.substack.com/p/steven-harper-piziks-newsletter-july



comments

Minimum Wage Complaints

California's $20 minimum wage is set to take effect July 1. Already, some fast food restaurants have announced they're pre-emptively closing. This has led some rage trolls to say, "See? Minimum wage destroys jobs! Now people can't work at all! No one deserves $20 to flip burgers!"

Let's be clear, here. If the ONLY reason your business can stay afloat is that you pay your employees so little they can't live, YOU SHOULD NOT BE IN BUSINESS. It's NOT on the employees to handle YOUR business problems. Why? It's YOUR business. Your greed doesn't trump their needs.

And in this economy, there are PLENTY of places that somehow manage to meet the new minimum wage specs. How? They bite the bullet and make less money. Oh noes! This owner might have to give up the European vacation house! That owner might have to forego the new sports car this year! Oh, the hardship!

Of course, some businesses raise their prices and loudly complain about it. "We had to raise prices ten cents per item to pay this egregious minimum wage!" And the customers complaining above say, "Now we can't afford to eat out!" And the business says, "See? Now we'll have to go out of business!"

Honey, if the only way you can eat out is to go to a place that pays its employees dirt and treats them like trash, YOU CAN'T AFFORD TO GO OUT TO EAT. Stay home and (gasp!) cook a meal. Believe me, in the time it takes you to run out and get fast food and drive home again (or--more complaining about prices--wait for a delivery driver to bring it to Your Majesty's throne), you could throw together a pot of spaghetti, and for half the price.

Don't blame the workers for demanding a living wage. Don't blame the government for acceding to this demand. Blame the corporations who have a "never enough" mentality. They're the ones at fault here.  

comments

Cruises and Cancelations

Darwin and I very much enjoyed our cruise last year, and this year when our friends Michelle and Steve proposed the four of us taking one together, we decided we were in!

We didn't want to go all the way to Europe this time, so we scouted the Caribbean. This turned a little problematic. Some cursory research showed that a lot of Caribbean countries don't handle same-sex relationships well. Some are outright hostile. I know that lots of places that are homophobic toward their own people are very tolerant of gay tourists--they can't afford to turn away People With Money. But there were still some places that were flat-out NO. 

We finally found one that took us from Tampa to Cozumel to Belize to Costa Maya and back. And we signed up and we paid for all the things.

The arrival in Tampa went without incident, and we spent the night in a cheap hotel we aren't in a hurry to visit again but was tolerable for one night. Bonus: it provided shuttle service to the cruise port. Met up with Steve and Michelle and duly waited our turn to board.

My and Darwin's cabin is smaller than the one on our previous trip, but still nice, and it has a balcony. We spent the first day and night at sea.

And I got seasick.

I never get seasick! But the sea was very choppy, and I swear there were times the deck dropped so fast, my feet left it for a split-second. I finally went down to the medic to ask for a shot, which they gave me (to the tune of $300). It ended the nausea, but it made me sleepy for the next couple of days.

Anyway, our first stop was at Cozumel, where we had signed up for a visit to Mayan ruins and a chocolate-making demonstration. The best I can say about the ruins is that they were rinkydink. Seriously tiny---a rough altar, a governor's house (which you couldn't go into), a tiny temple (ditto). The most interesting part was that you could see the colored handprints left by the original builders. But we saw everything there was to see in ten minutes. The chocolate-making demonstration was also mildly interesting. The guy showed us the Mayan way, which involved pulverizing cacao beans with other spices on a rolling mortar and pestle. 

At sea, we ate and hung out and watched some mildly interesting shows put on by mildly interesting performers. 

When we got to Belize, we were supposed to go ziplining through jungle and tubing through caves. But we were politely informed that the excursion was canceled because the caves had flooded completely. And all the other excursions were full. And they didn't offer to at least take us ziplining.

Annoyed--I've never been ziplining and had been really looking forward to it--we decided to check out Belize City. We ended up hiring a local guide who drove us around pointing various spots of interest: schools; a graveyard; a store; an embassy; a factory. It was about as interesting as it sounds. And poverty and squalor everywhere. It was depressing. When we weren't in the car, we were surrounded by more guides and beggars and artists, all of them desperate to get our attention. Darwin couldn't help giving a handful of money to a boy who was about our older grandson's age. I've heard people say Belize is beautiful, but we didn't see any of it.

We did see several shops that sold life-sized wooden penises, each with a bottle opener sticking out of the front end. They're a local fertility symbol. Imagine opening a frothy bottle of beer with one to get the proper image.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out, eating, and seeing mildly interesting shows.

Last night the sea was BAD. Tropical Storm Alberto is making mischief elsewhere in the Gulf, and we're feeling it here. It didn't bother me, but it was an interesting experience.

This morning we were supposed to go kayaking in a famous local lake, have lunch there, and have a chance to sunbathe or swim. But ... you guessed it ... we were canceled. The sea is too rough for the ship to stay at anchor, and the shuttle boats (tenders) can't travel safely between ship and shore. So now we have ANOTHER day at sea, followed by yet ANOTHER one tomorrow.

Our excursion fees were quickly and cheerfully refunded, and I'm not hugely upset. But it turned what should have been an exciting vacation into one of mild interest.

Today I decided to set up shop at a table by the pool and write so I can tell people part of the WIP was written in the tropics.'




comments

Summer Break, 2024

I haven't posted much about this school year. I guess because it's pretty much been more of the same, despite the new ninth grade curriculum. 

On Friday, I graded the last freshman essays, finished tearing my classroom apart, bid the room good-bye, and headed home. And now I'm on BREAAAAKKKK! 

This is the best part of break: the beginning!



comments

Wedding NO

I have a bunch to say about this one:

https://percolately.com/coming-out-during-cousin-wedding/

First, NO! You don't use your cousin's wedding as a coming out moment. Just, no. It's forbidden, taboo, verboten, just like announcing an engagement at a wedding is also forbidden. Just NO.

(Side note: Why would you, Mr. Closeted Gay Man, want to put your boyfriend through this? It's awkward enough meeting your SO's family the first time. Why on earth would you add your own coming out to the mix? NO! Come out before the wedding, or come by yourself.)

Second, never EVER issue +1 invitations. No, no, no. If you think Cousin Vicky will want to bring her boyfriend of three weeks and you don't mind if he's there, he gets an invitation of his own. With his first and last name on it. +1 invitations foolishly hand control of the guest list over to a bunch of other people, and you don't know what'll happen.

Third, grow a spine, Miss Bride. You want to have a small, immediate-family wedding only. Great! It's at your aunt's house, though, so she needs to be invited. Well, all right. And that means all the other aunts and their husbands have to be invi--

Record scratch. No! No, no, NO! If Aunt Thelma will allow the wedding at her house only if she can invite a truckload of other people, you thank her kindly for the offer and look for somewhere else to celebrate.

This woman needs to grow a pair of ovaries. If her family and her fiancé's family are going to be this intrusive and controlling about the wedding, what are they going to be like when the couple starts having children? Jeebus! Use the wedding to set your boundaries, or your household will never be your own. 

comments

Gaming Fatherhood

Okay, I have a lot to say about this:https://percolately.com/man-refuses-check-spouse-gaming/Short version: dad/husband plays video games with noise-canceling headphones on after his toddler son goes to bed. His wife falls down the stairs with a laundry basket and he doesn't hear a thing. Fortunately, she's unhurt, but now she wants him to pause his gaming every so often just to check that nothing else has happened to her. He's refusing. The "Am I the Asshole?" community decrees she isn't an asshole for asking this, but he's an asshole for refusing.
 Here's the thing: neither the commenters nor the wife pointed out that this guy is enormously immature and self-centered. No parent of a toddler should cancel out their hearing completely. Sure, the kid might be in bed and asleep when you last checked, but kids do wake up and decide to wander the house. This guy is a father now, and his high-volume, ignore-the-world bro gaming needs to take a backseat to fatherhood. He should be playing with only one earpiece, or with regular speakers on and the volume low. He's irresponsible for doing this, and she's irresponsible for letting him. 

comments

Visualizing Words

Did you know Monday is yellow and is also a boy with blond hair?

It is! In my head, anyway. 

I only recently learned that people visualizing words as people or characters isn't a wide-spread thing. It's actually a form of synesthesia, and it's daily life for me. I thought everyone saw the world this way. Apparently not.

If you say a word to me, I perceive it as either a version of the word printed in a particular way, or as an object, or as a person.

Most printed words for me are the short or abstract ones. The word "me," for example, in my head is a white word on a dark background in a 3d sans serif font with the M closer to me than the E, so the M looks bigger and the word itself is slanted. The word "the" appears in dark print on a pale background, all lower case letters, but the TH is a little darker than the E.

Yeah.

Objects? The word "chair" to me is a 1960s-style living room chair, but spindly and with two legs in back and only one in front. The chair is black. No background. The word "bird" is a child's drawing of a wood duck (a duck with a slightly pointed beak) sitting on a straw nest. The duck has no eyes. The word "path" or "trail" is a long, swooping line that curves back and forth. It has a definite female feeling to it.

Lots of words are people for me. The word "you" is a young person with a round head and black hair falling over their face to cover it completely, so it could be anyone--like you. "River" is a laughing woman with long hair streaming out behind her, and her hair has a blue tint. The word "poor" is a woman in a blue or gray robe. Her hands are held out sideways and water is dripping from her fingers.

Certain words that fall within the same category are people with their own personalities. Monday, as I said above, is a blond boy and is also a yellow day. Tuesday is female. It has dark hair that curves outward around her ears, but her features are hard to make out. Tuesday is the color black. Wednesday is an adult male, though I can't say what he looks like. Wednesday is the color white. Thursday is Tuesday's mirror image and is also black. Friday is green and a young woman, though I can't describe her, either, except that she has long blond hair. Saturday is a motherly woman in a gray dress from the perspective of a child looking up at her. Saturday is gray, like the dress. Sunday is a man with brown hair and a brown beard staring off into the distance in right profile. He has a big nose. Sunday is red. 

While we're on the topics of colors, each of them has a gender for me. Red, orange, yellow, black, and blue are male. Green and purple are female. I don't see them as objects or people, but I do see the color in my head and that sense of gender.

January is a boy in white. He has silver-blond hair. February is a woman in red walking slowly toward me. March is a man in green, though this is somehow mingled with the word "March" in 3D font, like the word "me" above. April is a young girl in green, but is also a child's drawing of a daisy. May is a woman in profile. She's looking down and to the left and has a small smile on her face. She has long brown hair. June is a matronly women with her dark hair in a bun and her hands folded in front of her. July is June's sister, but her hair is down and she's dancing. August is a young man in orange. September is a rather younger man, maybe a teenager, but flat, like a cutout. October is May's opposite, a man looking down to the right. He's very pale and has black hair. November is someone's mother and is looking out a window at a gray space. December is a young woman in green and white. She's wearing a winter hat, and her hair flows out from under the brim.

Many words conjure up images similar to what they mean. "Popcorn" is a single kernel of popped corn, but as big as your head. "Cat" is a female calico cat sitting with her tail curled around her feet. She's facing right, and her head is turned away from me. "Coffee" is a white mug of black coffee (no cream) with steam rising from it, but from the perspective of someone looking straight down at the cup. "Phone" is a 1960s avocado green dial phone sitting on a round end table. 

How about numbers? 0 is a baby. 1 is male. 2 is female. 3 is a boy. So is 4. 5 is an adult man. 6 is an African-American woman. 7 is an easygoing man. 8 is a plump woman. 9 is a running child. 10, made of two numbers, is a man and a woman smiling either at each other or at me. This goes on up to 20. After that, numbers show up as numerals in my head.

When I read or when someone talks to me, various images and sensations flick through my head at lightning speed, as if they're rushing past on an old-fashioned ticker-tape. (The word "old-fashioned," by the way, is brown and has lots of whirling gears.) You would think it would be dizzying or overwhelming, but it isn't. The images and sensations vanish as quickly as they appear, so my head doesn't get crowded.

"Dead" is a patch of white flowers that suddenly wither into dust. "Sex" is two faceless people writhing together in a way that stops you from seeing exactly what they're doing or even what gender the people are. "Crunch" is another 3D word, but brown on a black background. "Tea" is a white cup of dark liquid with a saucer underneath and a tea bag suspended in mid-air above it.

I have no way to comprehend the world any other way. I can't imagine NOT seeing words this way. ("Seeing" is a pair of coke-bottle glasses hanging in the air and pointing to my right.) I've learned that lots of people get no image of words, just an understanding of what the word means. That feels to me like being swallowed by a black void. ("Swallowed" is a wide-mouthed fish gulping down a big chunk of food that was floating above it.) 

So how do you perceive words?




comments

Time Ramblings

Older people often observe how fast time seems to go. "Only yesterday the kids were in elementary school. Now they're grown and gone. Where does the time go?"

Meanwhile, younger people drum their fingers and complain. "It's going to be FOREVER before I finish my homework / graduate high school /  find a boy/girlfriend / Christmas gets here."

That last one is a major difference between adults and kids. For kids, the time before the holidays drags. The day will NEVER arrive! Meanwhile, in mid-October, adults are saying "There are only four paychecks between now and Christmas." (I once pointed this out to my students, and you could see the "Whoa!" looks on their faces as they digested this previously unexamined fact.) 

But really? I think time passes quickly mostly in retrospect, even for adults.

When you have a new baby or a toddler, and they're being difficult or you're exhausted with them, other parents love to say, "Oh, enjoy it now! She'll be a surly teenager before you know it!" This is not a handy perspective when you're trying to sooth an infant that's been screaming for two hours straight. Or when you're changing diapers in a public bathroom with no changing table AGAIN! Or when you're on a car trip and the kid's cup lid pops off sending juice everywhere. Time drags.

When you look back on it, though, time gets condensed. Those weeks and weeks you spent trying to get Clarissa to pass social studies are something you can look at in one quick piece instead of hours and hours of slogging and fighting. You remember the high points and the low points, but the drudgery in between vanishes into the memory hole. And you can't understand how you got here so fast. Time flies.

When I think of it this way, time doesn't fly. I'm 57 years old, and I've lived every day. I lived for several wonderful years in a big farmhouse in Wheeler when I was a child. I spent four and half years of horror in a half-finished house in Midland, and then two more years in arts-deprived Saginaw. I spent five years in college, a year working as a secretary in Ann Arbor, a year starving and freezing in northern Wisconsin, trying to survive on part-time teaching work. I started selling a few short stories. I spent three years back in college, both loving Mt. Pleasant and being stressed at living on a shoestring. I wrote my first novel. I started work at Wherever Schools and floated for three years in an overcrowded building. I sold my first novel and was contracted for a second, then a trilogy, then a fourth in the series. I spent four more years teaching in my own classroom in a nicely refurbished building, and then was transferred to another new building. I had a kid who turned out autistic, so I wrote two novels a year for two years in order to pay for his therapy. I adopted two boys from Ukraine who had special needs, and when all three boys were teenagers and I was a single dad, every day was either work or running the household, or wrangling boys--helping with homework, driving to appointments, playing games, inventing activities, reading books, going on road trips. At one point, the drug store told me it would be about 15 minutes to fill a prescription. I said I'd wait, and while I was sitting there, I realized that 15 minutes was the only time I'd had to myself in two months. 

Time crawled.

Back then, there was no, "Wow--it's August already! Where did the summer go?" There was no, "Goodness--only a week to Thanksgiving, and I haven't started planning yet!" Every moment of every day was mapped out in excruciating slowness.

But when I do look back on it through the more usual older person's lens, it does seem to have gone quickly. Max may be up for a promotion at work and he's planning to house-hunt this summer. Aran and Sasha are well-established in their own apartments with their own lives, leaving Darwin and me as empty-nesters. But really? The "time flies" thing mostly applies to how long Darwin and I have been together. We're going on eleven years now, married for nine. That's nearly half the time I was married the first time.

Time is subjective. It goes as fast or as slow as you want it to, I think. You get to decide!





comments