The Knot-A-Verse : (K/not)(_/-)(A/_/-/‘/Verse)

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Knot-A-Verse Text over sunset and ambiguous human and mountain faces

  • The Eldest of Three

    Hello again ‘Verse! Been a lil’ while and I’m as yet uncertain when life will allow prioritizing this website. A little check in though, a (true in this case) story, and maybe a few pieces of art if I get to it. It was Eldest and Youngest’s first day of school today. It went both well and poorly, for reasons I shan’t get into overmuch. However, I’m struck by how different yet the same the world is for them

    It’s the same for classrooms bedecked in construction paper apples and frogs. And for the vague sawdust smell from the shavings of fresh No.2 pencils. And children hanging off their parent’s coattails in a sometimes very literal fashion. Except that it’s still too hot for coats. And Youngest totally wouldn’t do anything like that ever.

    It’s different in that when I went to pick Eldest up half an hour after his bus was supposed to arrive, he and the other two kids still waiting there were all ignoring each other in favor of their cellphones. Apparently none of them spoke the entire time and this was normal.

    Eldest is introverted, but I have to believe that in a world where his specific friends and games and interests weren’t so immediately available, he would be bored enough to talk to other people in his immediate vicinity. Either that or he’d be making something out of blades of grass or pacing around and more intentionally ignoring the other kids while they talked, or something.

    Humans didn’t evolve to interact with a screen all day, ignoring the people and nature around them. Research shows even the introverted derive happiness from small, ordinary bouts of real life human interaction. And yet all three of them–nothing! For half an hour! I feel slightly less guilty that those other two kids with other parents were also glued to their devices when left to their own devices. At least they didn’t steal each other’s. I suspect COVID played a part in their vices and theft does not appear to be one.

    I suspect my other two kids would also stick to their right to remain silent given the chance unless they were with each other. Then they would be glued to screens except when engaging in loud, animated…debates… punctuated with an oddly high number of sentences with phrasing “You might expect A but B”–I really don’t know how you distinguish AI from young children learning from bots. Other than the smells, the piercing shrieks, or other indications that they are not themselves robots. We do have a family password now for situations in which our voices might be cloned to scam us into paying bail money.

    It’s possible one might be lured into a life of IRL crime if someone not of their generation decided to steal one of their devices, so I periodically check if they remember the password. Though that makes me realize I’ve not checked in a while to see if they still remember my phone number since they got devices that remember it for them. They’d need that to call me from jail. And I guess I don’t really know if their generation is theft averse since no child at the bus stop had run out of battery life to test their penchant for assault for battery. I doubt it, honestly.

    Though it’s another screen, I enjoy watching Miyazaki movies with Youngest and am surprised at how much he understands of the convoluted plots and how willing he is to sit through the slowly-moving portions. Yesterday we watched Howl’s Moving Castle. I was reminded that the book begins by explaining that in their magical world, “it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”

    The protagonist of that book is, of course, the eldest of three. Eldest wanted to read the book when he was younger because of that beginning and we both suffered through the whole thing (me because I made Sophie’s old voice very scratchy and my throat would be sore after most chapters, and him because he was still too young to appreciate the convoluted plot with a bit of romance). The movie’s pretty different, but it’s Miyazaki and I like it anyway.

    I hope I didn’t fail Eldest by not making him real life enough after Covid forced allowing screentime interactions for any interactions IRL besides with his brothers. They are ridiculously good siblings though. And Youngest and Middle (Mid-est or Middlingest sound like insults?) would support him should he fail. Not without demanding the family password and a new version of Linux first, though. So if you’ve read this far and haven’t read the story yet, you’d probably like it. It’s mostly about Eldest and how he didn’t die as a toddler. It’s called “My Toddler Fell Off An 8 ft Playscape and It Made Me So Happy”

  • Not Neutral

    Hello again, ‘Verse. I’m writing this post because even though I don’t entirely know what the Knot-A-Verse should be, I’ve spent too much of my life not creating. Not sharing writing and art and ideas. And not speaking out even when I should. I’ve been too risk averse to write that verse.

    No more. What’s been going on in Minneapolis is heartbreaking. It makes me fear for our country and for my kids. The tyranny of this current administration and its wielding of ICE is disturbing. So is the large subset of people who seem to shrug off how mind-bogglingly far off the rails we’ve gone. I miss the days when Mitt Romney’s “binders full of women” or Obama’s tan suit were considered scandalous departures from the norm.

    I’ve only followed the news to a pretty basic degree lately, partly because I have kids and they are my number one priority. And partly because I don’t think I currently have the capacity/ability to change much myself. I can, however, go on record that ICE should never have been in a place to kill peaceful protestors. I may add links here later to resources I’ve found for what an average person can do to change things, though most are on a more local level. However, many people changing things on a local level can effect change on a broader scale.

    I wrote the following poem for more personal reasons–both a conversation with a friend and for a diplomat character in my novel-in-progress:


    Grown Ups

    Be diplomatic
    thoughtful, careful, and mature
    not neutral or false.

    At the risk of overexplaining (see my Writing page haha), being diplomatic is not the same as neutrality. And it’s definitely not the same as even white lies to keep the peace. Sure, sometimes those are actually necessary for safety. There’s a reason I don’t have bumper stickers on my minivan I use to drive my kids around.

    But one can be diplomatic and speak out thoughtfully with proper regard to the context of a given situation and the people involved. At the very least, others who might be on the fence will see how many people stand on the side of, in this case, IMO, humanity.

    I’d say more if I had time, but it’s after midnight. I listened to a podcast that we often work through problems in our lives in our sleep. While I doubt I can solve our country’s knotty problems tonight, perhaps I’ll find a seed of hope.

  • Hello ‘Verse!

    Welcome to the Knot-A-Verse, where I knot (‘)verses into stories, poems, and art! Eventually, I hope to publish my speculative fiction novel-in-progress, Earthmothership, which will be set in the Knot-A-Verse. My amazing critique group (www.quicksilverquills.com) is helping me with this. Check out their books (possibly from the library)!

    For the time being, I’ll stick to some art and a few of my shorter works that I’m not currently submitting to litmags. Frequently these includes various twisty forms of wordplay and ambiguous figures. Hopefully if you are here you are not knot averse! 😛 At least not in the way of puns or double-meanings both aural and visual.

    As I have said in cover-letters to the aforementioned litmags: I enjoy playing with the inherent ambiguity of language to find unexpected interconnectedness, though I often find sadly expected misunderstanding instead.

    In my opinion, double-meanings deepen rather than cheapen writing in much the same way as metaphors. Metaphors are just more societally respectable. Ok, and sometimes puns are just bad. Or make things funny when perhaps the tone should stay more serious. Even then, I believe humor often provides a powerful juxtaposition with the pain of being human. Or sometimes facilitates escaping humanity via cozy alien stories instead. Whichever.

    It may take me some time to figure out what to put here. I’ve also started a sister-site: Ambivalentine. That’s got a link to my Ambivalentine threadless shop, which I really need to update but does have some of my fun designs from a decade ago that can be printed on t-shirts, other apparel, and home goods. ( www.ambivalentine.com ).