I've been helping my nephews with their homework for "To Kill A Mockingbird". I'm convinced schools teach it all wrong. I present it as murder mystery. My opener was: "Picture this: In the pitch-black darkness of night, a young boy is unconscious on the ground under a tree, his arm broken. There is a little girl there too, dressed up as a giant ham. Between them, a dead man lies in the dirt; a knife buried in his chest. Can you figure out who the killer is?"

Also I tell them to keep track of how many times Scout hands someone their ass. Physically and verbally. 

I didn't care for the book the first couple times I read it, but I blame the way it's taught. I love the book now. Yes, there's all kinds of meaning in it, but can't we just enjoy it on the surface level first before we start dissecting it? You know this book's got jokes.

Tonight we will waltz, the steps the same, the songs on shuffle. 

I've been thinking about consciousness, but not really. My thoughts and my idea of myself as an emergent property of some cobbled-together biochemical components.  I don't feel it's necessary for me to understand the distinction exactly. It could be useful, certainly, but this isn't exactly a brains kind of operation.

Everyone has a secret place in their soul. So that's nice.

I'm running around thinking that if my brain was uploaded into a robot body I'd not consider it the same as the bio-me. Until someone writes a hangry algorithm.

I miss my dog. Even with three other mutts running around, the house feels empty without Watson. 

We picked up his ashes from the animal crematorium. There's a box sitting on a bookshelf with his remains. I don't like the idea of his carbon all locked up. His carbon should be out there causing trouble. 

The idea of someone using my skull for pranks delights me to no end. Maybe have it sitting on the bookshelf and when people come over just hand it to them. Obviously I won't be able to see the expressions on their face when they learn it is my actual factual skull but I can imagine it now. Maybe a robot-me would be useful to have around for that purpose, and only that purpose. I would want it to have a 1950's robot voice. 

"Careful with my skull, you jive turkey!"

Sunday Morning Ritual: The First

It's Sunday morning and I'm lying in bed. Oh, I've gotten up and eaten and went potty and now I'm back in bed to get my nothing done. It's a cold morning, which is perfect for that.

It's usually a slow news day. 

I am comfy but I don't want to just fall back asleep or anything. Just be cozy and peaceful. 

Nothing big planned for today either. Sundays I do my walking, and I do my laundry. The rest is just icing on the delicious cake of laziness. 

Writing on my phone is different. I use a tracing function on my phone's keyboard (as opposed to tapping individual letters) which can lead to some interesting errors. There's also the predictive text that will suggest the next word I'm likely to use. Which is irksome in its own way, despite being helpful when I'm replying to small talk. 

Which defeats the purpose, I think. Small talk is a *unobtrusive way of checking on someone. There's subtle clues to one's mindset. For me (to use the closest and coziest example), I have different small talk for work then I do for the rest of the world. I almost never volunteer any personal information. I also don't inquire about the personal activities of the other person that they didn't bring up first. 

I'm not sure when I started doing that. Probably sometime after working at the animal rescue.

* Oh that asterisk I made. That was to remind me to look up the style rules for using "an" before a word that starts with the a similar sound. I feel like the rule is based on the spoken aesthetic, but grammar. Like when I was studying Italian and there are rules just to make the language sound more musical.

I pronounce "an" like "uhn" so when I say "that's an unusual thing to say" the words start with the same sound and I don't like it. 

I could start pronouncing "an" like the beginning of "and" so it sounds different... But I ain't changing my phonemicals fer nobody.

It also annoys me when people say "It's truly a honor" because yes, there's a written consonant but it's a vowel sound so throw the "an" in there dammit. 

And the cosmic ballet between prescriptive and descriptive grammar goes on.

I am getting too worked up over this on a morn-

It's noon?! Okay that's lazy even for me. Time to shower, have second breakfast, and hop on the treadmill.