Today is the last day of four days off and I am proud to say that I went nowhere and did very little. I tidied up some, I played some games, I watched a few streams and I read a few books. I like the time to myself, it was much needed this week....but I miss spending time with people too.
Is it just me, or have people become more socially isolated since the pandemic? There are less people out and about, less events, and people mostly stay in and don't do anything. I spent so long staying home when my lungs were bad that I got out of the habit of being social. Now that I am better, I kind of wanted to get out more, be more social -but there's really nothing to do. It's unreal how quiet it is outside. So many of my friends live elsewhere, as do my family, so I never get to see anyone. I don't go out except to buy things and I make so little that I cannot afford to buy that much(lets not talk about how impossible it is to find a better job, better apartment, get an education-the system could be so much better).
Without connections online, I think we would all be lost This world is too isolated. People were not meant to live without true connections...you know what they say - no man is an island and all that.
I don't recall the last time I met someone new. People have been encouraged so forcefully to stick to themselves lest they get sick that no one ventures outside of their bubbles any more, lest their bubble get popped. It's like we have all lost our sense of community, of togetherness.
On to news about me: I have not been streaming much - something weird was going on with my computer filters- audio AND video, and then there was how oddly I looked on camera- it was like I was overacting and not realizing it until I watched after. I have been working on how to fix all of that.
I want to do some soldering work and do it on stream...and I kind of don't want people to watch, but kind of do, lol. If you get what I mean. But I burned my had pretty badly yesterday and am not sure that having that much heat close to a burn site would be a good idea. It's mostly a 1st degree burn, with only a couple of blisters, so it is super painful but will heal fairly quickly. I was filling my hot-water bottle for my back(it is helpful that time of the month) when a drop of it spat sideways, defying physics, and hit some exposed abdominal skin. My pouring hand jerked in reaction and boiling water flowed down my hand/arm instead of into the bottle. It was so odd, it was like I could not move my hand and it kept pouring, even though it HURT SO MUCH. Maybe it was the shock of it? I normally have very good reflexes with that kind of thing, and I am normally really steady/careful with pouring hot liquid despite distractions. I seemed to be in a daze but was dead sober. The burn ended up being more severe than just a splash would be. It felt terrible last night...I had to pour cool water on it every couple of minutes: I eventually just kept my hand in a bowl of cool water. Nothing worked, not ibuprofen, not aloe(plant and gel), not a cool cloth, nothing. It was very painful, it BURNED like it was still being scalded if out of water for 2 or more minutes. Today I have Polysporin ointment with pain relief in it and my hand hurts less than it did yesterday.
For supper tonight: Chicken with veggies, baked all together in a Pyrex dish. (garlic, sweet potato, some home grown shallots/green-onions, carrot, peppers, and mushrooms, fresh from the garden potato and sugar snap peas.).
I have not been writing as of late - I have been stuck on my plots and where to go with them next. Especially with the alien one -it's as if the algorithms detected I was writing about them and started inundating me with alien imagery- it's everywhere, in ads, social media memes/posts, news articles...even on streams. LOL. I want it to be borne of my own creativity, not influenced in any way by what I see online, so I have placed my alien story ideas on the back burner for now, at least until all the tabloid-like hype dies down.
The mind control tech books have also been placed on hold, as have shapeshifter ones. I'm stuck on those so I thought I would let them simmer for a bit.
The scientific experiment one with the AI benefactor? I have been throwing some ideas around, I am just not sure where to go with it. Do I write them into a matrix like world, or is that too cliché/risky? Do I combine it with the mind control tech story and let one be a spin off of the other?(I'm leaving aliens out for now, the alien angle will come up in another story).
I'm off to do some cooking, I hope you are well.
Take care...and try to do right by those you encounter. Remember, no matter how we get to where we are going, it will all come out in the wash. That's what my old electrotechnology instructor used to say about equations and theorems. He was brilliant, it is too bad his cognition seemed to be slipping, as his memory was amazing....after years of teaching he did not even need to look at his notes to write them on the board, and he understood electrical technology like a person understands their native language. There is no book or computer program that can teach you as well as a good instructor with that kind of knowledge.
Be the light...and forgive yourself and others when you realize you/they were wrong/misled.
Sheila Pike/Shy