Brain Betrayal

Since my very first computer, I've always been creating folders that have sub-folders, that have sub-folders, that have sub-folders, and so on and so forth.

They're my creations, so I can navigate them pretty well.

I've got a special folder where I keep my stories, and since one of my desk computers' motherboard died on me without warning, I always make fresh copies of my files on two flash-drives (at least).

When I'm away from my main computer, I use the biggest flash-drive to add my files on guest computers.

I was hacked once (whilst doing research for my fantasy book!), and I lost half a page of work. Since that day, I save a copy of my files before I close my computer down.

In my Sci-Fi folder, I have the file where I paste all my stories, nine files for each story I've planned in this universe, and the file that I use for the story I'm currently writing (I'd pictured big short stories, but Story #1 & #2 grew to be novels; I won't make any prediction about the others, I'll just obey my plot bunnies - it's safer).

In the past days, I've been reading again the second story to make sure that none of my characters's got an extra arm that I added to the plot. So... my brain was focussed on Story #2, and when I opened the file for Story #3, I was convinced that I was dealing with an old copy, and that I'd forgotten to save the few lines I'd started writing a week ago. I really thought that I'd made a mistake somewhere......

*cough*

Yea... erm... the file for Story #3 has the 'old' version of it, the blueprint for the plot. However... the file I use for the current story (and that would be Story #3, thank you not, dear Brain, for frightening me!) has the right text.

In the future, I'm not ruling out a mistake because of exhaustion or something, but I should give more credit to my OCD and check the right file before I start panicking and wondering what I did wrong.

I've got many plot bunnies to tackle, but when I'm in the mood to write a specific one, I should do that.

Pfft! Plot bunnies... and silly brain cells.

Ratty in the Garden

The few times I've had to deal with "Jerry" and his friends in town, I wasn't a happy bunny because I feel there's something that's not natural in their being in my flat (which is stupid, because I live above cellars where mice and rats live happily ever after).

In the countryside, I don't mind them. I rescue mice and other rodents from the cats and free them if they're not too chewed.

I recently had an unusual (to me) encounter with a field rat (if he'd been in my town flat, I'd still be hanging from the chandelier!!).

I was mowing the lawn behind the garden edge, and along the neighbour's wall, I saw that huge rat that looked at me. What I find extraordinary is that it was in a hurry to leave the area, but it didn't look scared. It looked straight at me as if to tell me, 'I'm just going home; that's all. Let's ignore each other, shall we?'.

I can be a nice biped: I stopped Tarzan (yep, my lawn-mower), and waited a couple of minutes to make sure that Ratty was in the neighbours' garden and away from harm by Tarzan.

Now, if any of the cats in the area spots it, Ratty's toast.

One Angry Bunny

Yes, I'm calling myself a 'bunny'. And why not?

Things are strange these days, and being growly and angry is getting more results than being decent and kind and compassionate.
Oddly enough, as far as I can remember, characters (from books, series or films) have been a kind of inspiration, and these days, it's Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, who is my model (she's my Rory - and if you don't know Cabin Pressure, you're going to be lost... and I recommend that you binge-listen to John Finnemore's creation[s]).

Basically, I've growled at bankers, thus treating them the way they tried to treat me, and that got them to change their tune. They look like bullies, who don't have the guts to face someone standing up to them.

Then... my Muggles. I snap back at them, and I've found a couple of ways to make them feel bad and inadequate <insert a Slytherin smirk here>. That's not much, but they're all confused, and just that is rather funny - and worth the time I'm somehow wasting because of them.

Last: DIY department stores. I'm absolufuckingly done asking men anything there. Since someone (yea, a bloke) had used my lawn-mower in such a way that Tarzan (yea, that's my lawn-mower's name) needed a new air filter (ta - muchly, by the way!), I went to buy one. Incidentally, I can actually clean the original filter, but that'll take me a bit of time (since filters are so cheap, the bloke who recommended me to buy one probably thought that cleaning the old one's not worth the effort *pfft!*). I know the kind of filter I need, and whilst Mother was asking the head of the DIY section where there are lawn-mowers' accessories, I found my filter and headed back to Mother right on time to hear the DIY bloke telling her that we wouldn't find that variety of filter in his section, and that we'd have to head to another section. Since I needed something else behind him, I walked past him, and never stopping, I showed him the box and said, 'Found it!'. From the corner of my eye, I saw him freeze. That bloke's working there, for Merlin's sake! But I did a better job all alone.

When I grow up, I want to be Carolyn Knapp-Shappey. ^_~

"Stoopid" Bankers 2.0

Crikey! Today's been a festival of stupidities - at two different banks.

First, I asked my main bank what they do to protect e-clients - and even though I told the manager that I've found an activity where I won't ask them to lend me a single penny - he didn't want to answer me until I told him what I was planning to do. The thing is, I'm not telling any of these hyenas what I have in store (pun intended) until they have signed a non-disclosure agreement (I do not trust them with my very good, original idea). I gave him enough info to answer me, but His Highness wanted to know what I'm going to do. From there, in my head, that went 'Sorry, Cupcake. Drop dead; I don't need you as you're not the only bank in town.'

Then, I went to my other bank, and I wanted to deposit a lovely and crisp £20 banknote on my account (just because I don't want to have to give them money because my "piggy-bank" account isn't used enough according to them). I was then informed that branches with an open welcome desk (ruddy all of them in their new architecture!!) do not accept cash deposits as it could be dangerous for the employees.

So:

Question1: What do you do when you want to deposit cash on your account?

Answer: You go to the other side of town to the main branch. [Yea... no problem! Got nothing better to do with my time whilst there's the branch with my account right down my street. Of coooourse.]

Question2: Why did the gal at the welcome desk dare to ask me why I wanted to deposit <insert fake gasp here> cash? She wanted to know why I had cash, and where it came from.

Answer: I'm not going to finance terrorism or a drug cartel with £20, Sweetie, and if I want to transfer money from Bank #1 to Bank #2, I'll do it any way I please. I'm planning to ask the gal in charge of my account to take my banknote - if she doesn't want to do that just the once (because I'm not going to let the welcome desk gal decide what I can or cannot do. Full stop), I'll have another chat with the manager, who's a delightful lady with a brain.

It's absolutely lovely how banks and their employees want to know everything about us and to control everything - and want to tell us what they want us to do.

Dream on, Cupcake, dream on.

Underestimating the Number of Sociopaths around

A look at the state of the planet will show us that the number of nutcases is quite high, but I fear we're kidding ourselves into believing that there are fewer candidates for Bedlam than we think.

Today's growl is brought to you because of the genitalia-deprived, decerebrated plonker who slaughtered one of our cats with his/her/its car right against our front door (ie: not on the ruddy road at all, but on our patch of lawn leading to the road).

At the slightest hint of tyre on the road (that's rather quiet), all our cats run home, to safety.

This means that one biped ambushed one of our cats and killed her for fun (perhaps that idiot is one sandwich short of a picnic, but one starts with pets before upgrading to fellow bipeds).

I will never understand drivers that aim at animals on the road, and if they were to hit a pole, I wouldn't shed a single tear.

It must be nice to believe in something above, and to ask for the victim to be avenged. As it is, I'll rely on the coppers, and the delightful guys in uniform had better do something quickly (though I fear they'll think it was 'just a cat'). Well, it wasn't 'just a cat'; it was a little, purring life that was nicer and more useful than the creature that killed her.

No wonder I growl so much...

First Portrait on Canvas

This post could also be entitled "Never Say Never".

I had never planned to show my latest painting to the disparaging Muggles with whom I share DNA, *because*.

But I hadn't planned that my flat could be invaded by the aforementioned Muggles, and that the painting couldn't be hidden because it's drying (and my cat could have clawed it to death if I'd put it on top of my wardrobe).

I got a 'Oh, it's not as bad as in the photo you sent' (of course, that photo just had the outlines of his face).

I know that this is no old Dutch masters' work, no Leonardo or Van Gogh, but my brother and a few good friends have told me that it's a good work.

Now, I'd really love the vast majority of you to break that awful silence, pretty please, and to tell me what you think of it...

This is inspired by a screencap from this.

Priorities

It's no secret that I loathe politicos - not because they're dealing with politics, but because they're a bunch of lying plonkers who treat all countries like companies that they bleed for their own profit, and their pals'.

I'm trying to think of any Earth politico who's a leader, with guts and compassion, and I can't come up with a single name.

Why am I currently growling now?
Piece of cake: in a place where, for over a century, there's been a strong separation of State and churches, I'm now seeing one church pointing its bony finger at a State company that refused to promote an ad that was partly religious (and concerned one specific variety of religion). And, cherry on the icing on that cake, local politicos (some of them very high-ranking!) are taking the side of the church - a church that, incidentally was very meek in the 1940s, but that is making comparison of the inaction back then with what's going on now, and with what they're trying to prevent today (so, basically, they'll be loud, but only seventy years after the tragedy or if they're under attack themselves). 

I'm not saying that the people the religious ones are trying to help should be abandoned to the wolves.

No.

I'm saying we must see beyond any religion and do something to help all those who are being currently massacred by demented bipeds. Religion, colour, or anything is irrelevant because all victims are fellow Earthlings and that's all that matters.

The churches (all in the same basket - again) should stop caring only about their brothers, and the politicos should stop doing election-marketing in order to pander to factions. We're all on the same planet, and when a group of plonkers blows a fuse, they should be stopped - not because they're attacking this or that group, but because that's the right thing to do.

We need global solidarity, not tribal divisions; otherwise, we'll regress as a species.

The Four Seasons, & a Dream

This is not the work I mentioned last, but I've been working on this one for months.

I wanted to create something with scenes from Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and I knew that I wanted to have a pink lotus in the middle (I had a very strange dream about a lotus years ago, and I've never forgotten it).

I call this one "Time".

Compassion & Empathy

According to my own version of the Dursleys, I'm too sensitive (because of my star sign that makes me too emotional - I'm not even joking; that's really what they believe!).

But this is just the way I am, and I won't try to change myself to please people who don't really care about me (I'm deeply convinced that I'm dealing with a bunch of manipulators who would like nothing better than turn me into a weather vane for their own twisted amusement).

I'm not better than them; I'm different. And one big difference between me and them is my compassion and empathy for most of my fellow Earthlings.

I don't have to know people to feel happy or sorry for them. I don't need to be friends with people to worry about them. I don't require to be related by blood to have feelings for someone.

These Muggles and I aren't wired the same way.

I don't know if my compassion and empathy make me weaker or stronger; it's not important - but that's who I am, and if my own relatives accepted that, perhaps that acceptance could spread. It'd be nice to not be mocked for being the way one is (and that would probably save time and energy on our lovely planet).

[Strangely, I don't see that happening any day soon, as most people seem to believe that the rest of the world must be and behave like them or they enjoy making others feel insecure and miserable and sad.]