Wednesday, September 3, 2025

September...

September 3, 2025 


I’ve reached that point in my life where I close my eyes and take a deep breath every time I’m confronted with new technology. Okay, well, maybe I reached that point a few years ago. Truth to tell, the only time I did well with “new modern tech” was at one of my jobs (in the 1990’s) when my department manager said to me, "here's a computer. Tomorrow, I'm going to show you how to use it. Today, just play around with it and see what it and you can do."

I worked in payroll at the time, and my manager wasn't too happy with what our boss did, but it more or less worked out well in the end.

The first word program I ever used was Word Perfect, and while I don’t recall the details of it, I do remember that it was easy enough for me to navigate. I really liked the part about not having to retype an entire manuscript from beginning to end in order to produce a second draft. And the keying required less strength of finger compared to using a typewriter.

In this day and age, the boogey man for me, technology-wise, is AI. I have never gone to Chat-whatever the hell it is. Nor do I intend to. The first thing I do when I open a new word document is to close “Copilot”. I’m an author for goodness’ sake! My words must all be my own, or they are worthless. Hard line. Full stop.

I do however kind of like the application of AI in the search engines. I can ask a question, and I get a better result than I did before AI. As long as the AI applications are happy to shut the hell up and stay in the background unless I speak to them, I’ll be content.

Writing continues to be a slow process for me. A combination of the changes that getting older have brought to my mental as well as physical capabilities, and believe it or not, a second round of Carpal Tunnel on my right hand. I will eventually undergo surgery for this, but until then the funny sensations in my fingers impede my ability to type as quickly as I’m used to. I can’t necessarily feel when a finger is on two keys instead of one. But it is what it is, and I shall carry on.

September is upon us, and as I mentioned in my last essay, the last couple of weeks have been chilly ones, comparatively speaking. I keep reminding myself that sixty degrees Fahrenheit on a day in mid-February would be considered incredibly warm. However, the one good thing about September officially arriving this past Monday was that it was no longer August, and I could therefore, in good conscience, turn on the furnace for an hour in the morning.

I know it wasn’t my imagination that my husband cheered when I did so on September 1st.

These last two coolish weeks have slowed down the ripening of our tomatoes. The last couple of days, however, turned a bit warmer so I am hoping that those many green tomatoes on our plants have had the opportunity to grow some in size, before ripening. We’ve already had more tomatoes this year than last but are nowhere near the bounty of the summer of 2023.

I have a countdown happening in the background of my mind, ticking down the days until some of our favorite television shows return. One of our favorites returned mid-summer. We have really been enjoying Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, this season. Considering that it’s been a couple of years between season 2 and 3, once we watched the first episode, we were caught. I still feel cheated that a television season is only ten episodes instead of the fondly remembered twenty-plus. But that’s life for you.

I look forward to the new major-network fall television season so that I can fill up my viewing hours with entertaining programming instead of news. It’s getting bad out there, folks. I’m content being vaguely aware of events. I do not want to obsess. That’s life for you, too.

At least, it should be.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury


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