Memory Lane...(Part Nine)

"Authorities are calling it a case of mistaken identity with a deadly twist. I'm Jenna St. James with Action Six news reporting from outside the former home of Samantha Johnson, a single mother trying to find her way in this world working two jobs and supplementing her income by selling something no one should ever have to sell...her memories..."

"AND roll background reel!"

Jenna watched the monitor as her location shot faded into the pre-taped package they had been working on all week. What a crazy story. And of course they were going to do what they could to make it even more dramatic. It was sort of her signature storytelling motif. But honestly with this one there wasn't much to add, just some dramatic music, a few fade outs and a shot of the children at the funeral that she was particularly proud of. Very emotional without being exploitative at all. At least in her opinion.

The trial was going to be a whole series on its own, she hoped. Right now the killer was still being evaluated for mental fitness, but Jenna was hopeful there wouldn't be a plea deal or guilty by reason of insanity pre-trial motion. She already had the courtroom scenes planned out in her head. She had the perfect black business suit to wear. Serious, yet still very sexy. Not that she thought she needed to be sexy, but it was television, it didn't hurt to be sexy.

She turned her attention back to the monitor and heard herself...."Samantha arrived home after a long day at work to find Alicia McGovern sitting on her front porch. Security cameras show Samantha approaching Alicia appearing to ask her if she could help her with anything...then the encounter escalated..."

Of course they didn't know how friendly Samantha was, there was no sound on the tape, just a grainy image. But there was no reason to portray her as anything less than a saint. Alicia was the villian. Just waiting on Samantha's porch for her. Calmly drinking a cup tea. Samantha's favorite brand of tea. Wearing clothing that looked like it could have been taken out of Samantha's closet. If Jenna had seen someone at her house doing basically a cosplay of her she wouldn't have been friendly that's for sure. But Jenna had cultivated a distinct look for her career. To see someone else mimic that? She would have...Oh here was a good part, she really liked how she had cast her voice just a touch lower here she felt it gave her more gravitas.

"When the police arrived Alicia McGovern had not moved. She was sitting on the porch with the phone she had used to call 911 in her hand. The gun a few feet away where she had calmly placed it after brutally murdering Samantha Johnson, mother of two..."

She loved that part. Brutally murdered. Not that there was any other way to murder someone, really. Brutal and murder sort of went together. But it still gave a good punch to the story. And adding again that Samantha was a mother. That was important. There were people who were very uncomfortable with the idea of selling memories, and she didn't want them to turn on her victim. Not when there was a News & Documentary Emmy in play.

She watched for awhile longer waiting for her big moment.

"...this sleepy California suburb was about to be rocked, not just by the brutal murder of one of their own but by the claim from Alicia McGovern that SHE was the real Samantha Johnson and she had shot the imposter in self-defense and she had the memories to prove it..."

She was pretty positive this was her year. She might as well start shopping for her award show dress right now.

May Recap!

The end of May already! Can you believe it? This part of the year always feels like the downhill part. Even more so than the end of the year for some reason. It's like one day it's winter and the next summer is over! But...here we are...end of May. Time to see where I am with the goals.

Let's start with Fitness/Weight since that's my struggle point and the one I was the most disappointed with last month. We added Saturday back in to the rotation as a "when we are not busy" day. By shifting it to the late morning instead of trying to go at 8 when they open we actually made it easier on ourselves. So on Saturdays where we aren't busy with other things there will be an added gym trip. And with that added gym trip I...lost a pound from the end of April which puts me back at flat for the year. So...yay?

I am at that crossroads still where the actual goal for 2019 is burning in my head but the reality of how hard it is to get my weight to budge from where it's stuck (except to go up, I was WAY up at one point this month) is making me crazy. I am not sure if I want to put a BIG push on in June to see if I can get it to move if I am really strict or understand that I don't want to live my life being really strict so just accept this. The problem I am having with the accept this portion is that we insist on having mirrors in the world. Especially at the gym where I spend 5-6 days a week, there are a LOT of mirrors. So...

So anyway. Fitness is good. Weight is still an issue. Mentally struggling with it is about normal, which is to say not normal at all.

Reading! I was three books behind last month and so made an effort to catch up and am now 4 books behind. Well, okay then. I'm sure I will catch up soon. I mean it's reading, how could I not? Especially when fall comes and we are flying more, I can polish a book off on a weekend trip easy peasy. The Discworld books I am finally caught up and on track with. I read a Rincewind one and a Witches one this month. Rincewind is not my favorite character, I don't know why but I don't enjoy his stories nearly as much. But the Witches are my favorite so it all balanced out.

Writing! Counting this blog and the one I am planning on writing right after this I am ahead by 4 total and 5 in my fiction. Not bad at all. I also did two submissions this month so I'm ahead there. Three out of four are done. One of them was a rhyming poetry thing that I did because I know I am bad at that (and it is truly awful) so I thought maybe lessening the hope would be good. But then I got notice of one in an area that I think I am good at and so I sent in two stories to them as well. They were things I had already put up here and the poem is SO bad so there won't be any extra blogs out of them, but there are done so that's good. One more to go.

MasterClass! Took the Gordon Ramsay one I was talking about. It wasn't my favorite. He says "literally" as a verbal tic. Literally going to cut this open. Literally cook it for 30 minutes. At least he doesn't mean figuratively, but it was a lot of literally. And every flavor is "to die for." He also didn't really seem to have a plan when he started as to what he wanted to teach. The parts where he talked about his personal story were very interesting. But I literally will never make sea urchin scrambled eggs that are to die for so...  BUT I did write 9 fiction pieces this month so we will see if it was watching much better writers talk about writing that was killing me. Next month is Judy Blume so if I fall in to another drought I will spend the balance of the year watching randos.

Monthly Museum/Attraction! We went to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center, The Natural History Museum and The Zoo while we were back in Albuquerque so killed it. The Pueblo Center was the most interesting. I recommend it. It also gave me something to think about concerning that cultural appropriation hurdle I talk about. The Zia symbol that is on the New Mexico flag, and on a large percentage of New Mexicans was lifted from the Zia Pueblo and they were never consulted on how they felt about their religious symbol being used like that. And it's everywhere in New Mexico. I am not kidding about it being on New Mexicans. I have considered getting a Zia tattoo myself. It's a cultural touchstone for New Mexicans. But it was stolen. So what is the statute of limitations on appropriation? And when does it become broader culture than its origins? And does that matter? Like I said, it was interesting.

Long Term! Got that deck work scheduled. Whew. I was going to count it as a win anyway because I sent in requests for estimates (which were ignored) and Brent actually got three people to do estimates (trying not to think it's because his email was from a man, but this is the second time it's happened) but then the guy today actually came in with a great price so I got it scheduled. Hopefully the weather will co-operate and we will get it done next month.

What's on tap for next month?

I don't know. I need to schedule some long term stuff but I've not thought about it!

Deck work done (weather depending)
And...well I guess I've got a few hours to figure it out and put it on my calendar! Wish me luck!

So there is May. Hold on tight, kiddies, we are rushing on through the summer now!

This Is My Worry Blog...

I'm almost convinced that Donald Trump will be re-elected in 2020.

I watched Robert Mueller this morning give his very carefully worded because he's a lawyer speech and then watched "the other side" react to what I had listened to in the comments sections of three different news sources. And let me tell you...they did not hear the same things at all. It's kind of crazy.

And I don't understand it.

When Barr gave his speech after he got the report I posted that we should all be glad that there was no collusion and no obstruction and that I really wanted to see the report (which I thought that there was no way it would be released) to see what happened, because I didn't understand how there couldn't be obstruction at least. But I trusted that Barr was telling the truth.

I was wrong. I mean really wrong. He wasn't telling the truth. Not even a little bit. He was telling what he wanted to be the truth. So I changed my mind about what the Mueller Report actually said, because now I could see what it actually said not what Barr and Trump want it to have said.

Now, to be fair, I've only read about half of it. I've read the summaries that the Mueller team provided, which are incredibly handy. I've read specific parts when people have referenced them to see if they did in fact say what I was being told they said. Fool me once... But I haven't read every word. The redactions drive me to distraction.

What I read first were the quotes that Barr pulled out to put in his summary. Because even when I believed what he was telling me I said it bothered me that he pulled half sentences. I wanted to see the other half. Now I understand why he pulled half sentences, the whole thing made what he was saying seem like...well...wrong. Which it was.

And you add that to the chorus of voices still saying that his taxes don't matter, and the money he is making off of his private companies doesn't matter, and the campaign finance fraud doesn't matter, and the history of tax cheating (really good article on that that NOBODY read), and ...well...

So there is that part. The whole Donald Trump is incredibly dishonest and you can't see it or don't care part.

Then there is the part where I see fear mongering as a bad thing and there is a whole segment of our population that sees it as a reason to vote for him. They are scared, he made them scared, and somehow they think he can make them safe? I just don't understand it.

Then there is the part where all certain voters care about is Roe v. Wade. I tried SO DAMN HARD last cycle to make people on the left understand the importance of the Supreme Court and got nowhere. And we've lost it, folks. If we make it through 2020 with just this much damage to the institution (and yes, I LIKE BEER and I WILL HAVE MY REVENGE is damage) we should count ourselves lucky. IF we get a Democrat in office and don't get McConnell out of the Senate...well...do you think he would let a justice get approved if he could stop it? Spoiler alert...we already know he won't.

So anyway...Roe v. Wade means conservative voters will vote for the Republican no matter what. They feel like it's a holy thing to do. Who the fuck cares about all of the other hateful and hurtful things if they can get that done?

And then there are the voters who feel about regulations the same way. Get rid of them. All of them. Who cares about safety, the environment, people? Honestly folks, there is profit to be had here and how are we supposed to maximize it if you can't underpay, overwork, drill in the ocean without inspections and cut down all the trees? Who cares about the future when I can make a buck today?

So yeah...

I'm worried.

#VoteBlueNoMatterWho
#2020AnybodyButTrump

Memory Lane....(Part Eight)

"Dr. Lane, was it your decision to keep Ms. Firestone in the dark about what you were looking for?"

"Yes. It was my decision. It was the correct decision if we wanted to be able to get an accurate read on the situation."

"Yes, I saw you said that before. Can you explain to me why that is?"

"If we cloned a few other memories and they were normal run of the mill things then we would have one problem to look for, if we saw the same issue with those memories we would have another. But if she was aware there was a potential problem then there is no telling what we would have seen."

"Why is that?"

"Memory is malleable. Everyone thinks that what they remember is what happened, but it's not. And the more often you recall a memory the more it's changed from what happened to what you think happened."

"I find that hard to believe."

"Most people do. But that doesn't make it any less true. For instance this right here? If you were to write down your memory of this session right after it ended you would get it mostly right, but even then it would be slightly different than what that," Dane pointed to the camera, "would show as to what really happened. And over time? It would change more and more. You might change who asked what question. You might bring in another person who wasn't actually here but who you thought of at some point while recalling this memory. And you would swear that what you remembered was the truth. Even in watching the video replay, you would be confused because it didn't match with your recall. Memory shifts each and every time you recall it. It's why someone might not think they are lying when they are clearly lying and why eyewitnesses to crimes aren't actually all that reliable."

"That seems to be a cynical world view."

"It's not. Not at all. It's been known for a very long time, people just don't want to believe it about themselves so they don't want to believe it about other people. We all like to think we are good drivers and have excellent memories."

Detective Green shuffled through some papers then slid one across the table to Dr. Lane, "Do you recognize this?"

Dane glanced at the paper, "It appears to be a printout of email correspondence with my office manager."

Detective Green read from one of the sheets, "'Dane, I think we are morally obligated to tell Jean what we suspect.'" Detective Green looked up from the sheet, "Your name is really Dane Lane?"

Dane nodded and smiled, "Yes, my mother is Jane and thought it would be fun if all of her children also rhymed. My brother Zane goes by his middle name and my sister Elaine goes by Elly. I'm the only one who embraced it."

"So the company name..."

"Is a play on words. It's my company and it's a common enough phrase that it is easy for people to understand what we do and to remember it."

"Hunh. Okay. So why did you not agree with..." Detective Green made a show of looking at the paper for the name though Dane was pretty sure she had all of those conversations memorized, "...why did you not agree with Gloria's assessment that it was your moral obligation to tell Ms. Firestone what you suspected?"

"As I told you before I needed to know what our real issue was. Or more correctly what the real issue was. Was it a computer issue? Was it that Jean had not been truthful with us about her history with memory cloning and experiencing or was there something else going on? The only way to get good data was to not corrupt the experience of remembering for Jean."

"So what did you tell her?"

"We told her that there was a glitch in the system and we were trying to track it. Because she had just done a trial memory clone and worked for the company she would be able to help us out."

"And what did you find?"

Dane smiled, "Exactly what you read in those email exchanges. The three memories we had Jean share, ones she chose at random, were all tagged the same way. They weren't normal memories, they were given to her."

Detective Green tidied the pile of papers in front of her. "Tell me, Dr. Lane, do you regret what happened next?"

"No."

"A woman is dead, Dr. Lane."

"I understand that. And I am deeply saddened by that. But regret would imply that I did something wrong.  And in going over what happened hundreds of times trying to see what we should have done differently, I cannot say I would have changed anything I did."

"Even being familiar with the California case?"

"At the time I did not think there was a connection. They are very different after all."

"Memory manipulation leads to death of a woman. I'm not sure that's all that different."

Dane leaned back in his chair, "Do you want my help or are you just trying to make me flustered? Because I am willing to help, but I don't fluster easily."

"I'm sorry you think I am trying to fluster you. I just am trying to get to the bottom of all of this."

"And I would like to help in that regard."

"Then shall we continue? Tell me what you know about the California case."

Don't Make It Worse...

I'm allergic to bandaids. Or more accurately I'm allergic to the adhesive in bandaids. For a long time I thought it was a latex allergy. You hear about those and there are a ton of latex free products out there so you think this is the common thing it must be this. But it's not. It's the adhesive. If I use a bandaid or medical tape on my skin I get an itchy, oozy, raw, wound in the shape of the bandaid.

Basically I make the original problem bigger and much worse.

So anytime I get a cut that needs covered it's a complicated process to protect it. For instance when I grated my knuckle a few weeks ago I had to wrap the finger in gauze, not just place a square of it on the wound but wrap the whole finger tip then wrap that with the cling tape to hold it in place then wrap all of that with medical tape once I had the four or so layers of gauze and cling to protect my skin and I had to make sure that the tape did not go to the edge of the gauze, there has to be a protective edge so the adhesive from the tape doesn't touch my finger even a little bit or yep, itchy, oozy, raw, wound. A medical tech called it a bandage sleeve once. And that's what it is. A bandage sleeve.

It would be much easier to just pull a bandaid from a box and slap it on there. And cheaper. And less of a process afterwards to make sure I have all of the supplies I will need for next time. Gauze, gauze pads, cling wrap, sensitive skin tape, tape. For awhile I could use NewSkin. Which burns like a mother fucker but works really well. Then my Borg allergies were like...oh no...we got this too. And now that's out.

So I'm careful. Or as careful as someone as easily distracted and less than graceful as I am can be. I have Kevlar gloves that I generally wear when cutting things, especially butternut squash. Seriously butternut squash is TOUGH to cut without nicking yourself. And by nicking I mean slicing your fingers to shreds. Thank goodness for Kevlar gloves. And I'm careful because I know that a bandaid isn't really a solution. Even a bandage sleeve. If I can lessen the chances of a cut I lessen the hassle of treating it.

Did you know when we (using the USA we here) last hardened our borders our government knew what they were doing was a bad idea? They understood that adding fencing to certain areas where crossing was easier was not going to stop the crossings it was going to funnel people to the more inhospitable areas of the border. There were studies and reports done showing that people would die in the desert and they still went ahead with the fencing and the hardening of the easy areas because SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE! So it got to be harder to cross the border which led to 1. People just staying in the US instead of crossing back and forth because 2. You were much more likely to die on the trip.

People still came. They just stayed. Or they died trying. It didn't fix the problem. It just made it worse.

The new proposed wall will do the same. It won't stop people from coming. We have armed guards who do not view those crossing as actual human people deserving a baseline respect of human life (see recent news stories) at the border right now and people are still coming. We have horrible facilities where those that are allowed over are jammed in to and people are still coming. We are forcing some of them to stay in tents in Mexico and People. Are. Still. Coming.

Clearly there are bigger issues here. I've talked about it before, we need to figure out why they are coming (hint, the violence and poverty in their countries) and we need to try and stop that flow. Why us? Well because we are responsible for a large part of it. The drugs they are growing and manufacturing is leading to the violence. The drugs that are being shipped north to us. Our demand. We also played around in the politics in Central America for years. We've not helped. Now we need to. We need to see what can be done to make them not want to flee their own countries. Because honestly you know they would want to stay there if it was safe and they could find jobs. Right? Who would walk the thousands of miles, risk their health or life, to come to a country that vocally wants them to leave?

But the Trump administration wants a wall. A BIG BEAUTIFUL WALL. So much so that the president hung a plaque commemorating the first section of HIS wall on a section of repaired fencing authorized by Obama. You can't even make this shit up.  And while fighting for his wall he also cut funding to programs in Central America that were designed to help keep people there. The reasoning being that people were still coming. So if the people we are helping aren't enough we won't help anyone That's the message.

Fixing the border issue is complicated. We have a huge backlog of people waiting to have their immigration hearings. Which the Trump administration is changing the rules about who gets in so people who have been waiting for YEARS can now find themselves shuffled to the back of the line, or out of the line all together. It's a mess. But there isn't a quick fix. We need to find the root cause and start there, then we need to clear up the peripheral damage that has been done over years and years of issues. Trump didn't start it, but he is actively making it worse.

Did you know that the best way to prevent abortion is to prevent unwanted pregnancy? Seriously. Why are there unwanted pregnancies? Well there is lack of education about birth control. A lot of people don't understand their options. And there is lack of access to birth control. If you have good birth control you have fewer unplanned pregnancies.

Another reason a pregnancy might be unwanted is money. It's expensive to have a child let alone raise one. Better health insurance can help. Also better wages. Lifting people out of poverty would help a lot.

So how can we limit abortions? Well, go back and read those things again. Better education, better access and better wages. Is it easy to get all of those pieces moving? No, not at all. It's not a simple fix. But we can work toward that goal without making the problem bigger than it originally was. Teach our kids about options that are not just abstinence based. If you want to teach your own child that abstinence is your religion, then go ahead, but let the schools teach the full spectrum. And honestly you should as well. You can frame it around "when you are married" if that's your choice, but tell them what they will need to do to prevent a pregnancy.

Insurance coverage for birth control. We had that. Then the religious groups said no, we don't approve of that so you can't have that. Which is what they are doing with abortion as well. We don't approve of abortion and also we don't approve of giving you access to a way of preventing it before you ever would need one. You know, by not getting pregnant in the first place.

Living wages. Raising people out of poverty. Having an unexpected pregnancy when you can afford to add another child to your family is a life change, having one when you can barely afford what you are already dealing with is a potential catastrophe. If you have kids right now that you are already raising and you are on the fine edge of poverty an additional mouth to feed can tip you over. Which means the children you already have are now facing a whole added layer of problems. And the mantra of "don't have kids if you can't afford to feed them" should make you glare at that pro-life poser. Because if they are in that camp they don't care about the lives of these kids, they only care right up until they are born. That is pro-pregnancy, not pro-life.

And making abortion illegal doesn't actually stop abortion. There will be unsafe methods of terminating a pregnancy that will come back around. The home methods, poisons, "accidental" falls, untested internet drugs. The wealthy will be able to afford the fees that doctors here willing to take the risk will charge or just fly to someplace else where it's legal and have it done. So rich women will be fine, poor women will be faced with taking a risk with their health or having a child they don't want and can't get help supporting after it's born. It will just make the problem worse. Not better.

Now there will always be some cases where a pregnancy will be terminated. For a multitude of reasons that aren't any of our business. But one of the saddest things ever is when a parent has to end a very much wanted pregnancy. Making it illegal to do so won't make that better. Forcing a family to continue a pregnancy that is not going to result in a living child? That's just cruel beyond measure in my opinion.

Big problems have complicated solutions and ignoring what the root cause is doesn't help. And putting a patchwork of quick fixes that actually make it worse? That's crazy.

If we want to fix the problem at the border we need to fix the problem before it ever reaches the border.

If we want to reduce the number of abortions we need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.

I'm allergic to bandaids.

We should all be allergic to bandaids.

Memory Lane...(Part Seven)

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Alice and Dane stood near the computer screen while Gloria leaned in the door frame listening to their conversation.

"There, that. Is that what I think it is?"

Dane leaned in and looked at the code on the screen. "It's definitely extra isn't it?"

"Yeah. That's a marker right?"

"What does that mean? A marker?" Asked Gloria.

"You know how this works right? The cloning of memory?"

Gloria gave a sort of circular nod, "Pretty much. The brain works on electrical impulses, when you clone a memory you record those impulses and the program converts that to code to store. Then when you have someone who wants to have the Experience it converts the code back to electrical impulses which are close to but not exactly like the original memory. Right?"

Dane nodded, "That's pretty good. This part here," he tapped the computer, "is an extra bit of coding I programmed in to the formula. It's added when you save the files. It's a way of marking it as a cloned memory. It doesn't affect the way the conversion happens, but gives a proprietary marker on these files."

"Okay. So?" Gloria was lost now. Why were they in the lab with a nervous Alice looking at something that was automatically done by their computer systems? "I don't understand what the issue...oh wait." Understanding suddenly came to her, "These are the California files aren't they? They shouldn't have those markers because they weren't our files."

Alice shook her head. "No. I mean, yes, I mean no. The California files all have the marker as well. Just a different one. All of the companies that bought our system have a marker that shows the technology is ours but the company doing the cloning owns the file. Every company that bought the system from Memory Lane got a custom marker included in the algorithm."

"Wouldn't all of that extra code cause trouble eventually?"

"No, not really. It's not actionable code. See here, look," Alice pointed to the string of code on her computer again, "See that symbol? That's the end of the memory. Everything before that would be an experience, everything after it is basically just record keeping. When it's converted from code to an experience the extra part works sort of like transitional time. The experience stops and the Experiencer comes back to their own reality. That's this marker code firing. The brain doesn't process it as memory or anything but time really. It's just there as a buffer."

"Okay, then I'm still not seeing what the issue is. If these files are marked with the California code and we purchased their entire catalog then we just need to add a note somewhere that these markers are now our markers, right?"

Dane nodded, "We're actually deleting the end code and resaving the files with our own codes. That's been part of the sorting process. It has also given us a chance to weed out substandard files. They weren't always the cleanest with their copying. I would have been embarassed to offer some of these files as experiences."

Gloria shrugged, "Okay, but I'm still not understanding the issue here. The file has a marker, it's not our marker but it's not unexpected, you've been cleaning up all of these files anyway and..."

Dane held up his hand, "You're right. The California files having a marker isn't unexpected. This isn't the marker from the California company."

"Oh... crap. You mean they have files they didn't clone themselves? Crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. Now we will have to figure out who owned them and how they came in to our possession and if we even have a legal right to them and if we are liable for..."

Alice was shaking her head, "These aren't from the California files."

"What?"

"Look at the screen again. Not just the code."

Dane peered at the screen closely then took a step back to take in the whole thing. "This is an unsaved file."

"Yep."

Gloria held up a hand, "Hold on, you just told me that the marker is added when you save the file."

Alice nodded.

"So how is that possible?"

"There have been instances where a memory was accidentally deleted..." Dane started.

"Oh yes, of course, and then the donor just gets the memory as an experience without the 'this isn't real' lecture, I knew that."

"Except...that should happen from the raw file. We know if there is a problem before they ever leave the office. They wouldn't get a tagged file, it wouldn't have ever been saved. If there is a problem with donation there can be a problem with the experience so we just give it back, so to speak."

"Okay." Gloria was trying to process everything they had talked about. They were looking at a file that had a tag that had never been saved. It wasn't theirs and it wasn't from the California purchase so..."Where did this come from?"

Alice grimaced, "This is why I think we might have a bigger problem. It came from someone who swears they have never made a donation or even had an experience. This is from Jean."

Memory Lane....(Part Six)

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"Gloria? Do you have a minute?"

"Sure, Alice, come on in."

Alice sat down in the chair across from Gloria's desk. "I'm not exactly sure how to say what I need to say."

Gloria closed down the spreadsheet she had been working on and gave Alice her full attention, "Well that's one heck of a way to start."

"I think I might be in an ethically gray area here. There is a confidentiality agreement around donations but at the same time I have a blanket permission to talk about training items so I'm not entirely sure where this falls."

"Okay. Would you feel more comfortable speaking to Dane?"

Alice chewed on her bottom lip for a moment, "I think when he gets back he will have to be brought in. Because I'm not entirely sure that what I think I saw I actually saw. But, I also feel like you should be made aware of what I think I saw because if it's true, well I'm not entirely sure what it means but I don't think it's going to be good."

Gloria sat quietly for a moment. Then she checked her watch and pulled out her phone and double checked her text messages. "Okay, so, answer one question before we go any further. Will it hurt to wait for two more hours? If Dane is going to need to be brought in anyway we should probably wait and have you start with him."

Alice kept chewing on her lip. "Probably? I guess? I mean, that makes sense I guess..."

Gloria was starting to really get rattled. Alice was one of their most competent and qualified Memory Techs. She had been in research labs studying neurological electrical impulses for a decade after medical school before coming to work for them. To see her this bothered was unsettling.

"Okay. That's what we will do then. Do you feel like you can work this afternoon or would you rather take a break until we can meet with Dane? I know you have to be really focused during donations and..."

"I think I might need some time. We've only got one appointment this afternoon anway, it's why I was working with," Alice paused and then shook her head, "I'll tell you when Dane is here."

"Okay, you take a break. I'll get Claude to handle the afternoon and you and I can meet back here with Dane at," Gloria looked at her calendar then opened a program on her phone to look at Dane's schedule as well, "Let's say at four, how does that sound?"

"That's perfect. Thank you."

After Alice left her office Gloria called the lab to ask Claude to cover the afternoon appointment. "Alice has some personal business to attend to so if you could handle the donation that would be great....Oh...and Claude, what was Alice working on before she had to leave, do you know? Is it anything that needs finished? Oh...okay. So nothing pressing. Thanks."

Gloria hung up the phone and tapped her pen on her desk thinking. Alice had been working on training Jean in lab procedures. What had she stumbled upon that was so bad? Maybe something related to the catalog they got from the California issue? That would make sense. They were still cleaning all of that up.

Well nothing to do but wait for Dane to get back.

She reopened the spreadsheet on her computer and got back to work.

Memory Lane....(Part Five)

Gloria turned off the television and sighed. Dane's second day of testimony had been a repeat of day one. Senators making speeches more than asking questions. They already knew what they wanted to say, what they wanted to happen. Having Dane in the room had just been for show. It had been so frustrating to watch she was sure it must have been infuriating for Dane to have to go through.

If only they had gone in with open minds. If only they had really wanted to understand what they did. What Dane created. It was almost miraculous really.

Gloria knew that people in the company made fun of her for being so relentlessly positive about what they did but she really did feel like it was a gift they were offering the world. A gift that could make positive changes if people would just let it.

When she was in school a teacher lecturing on social norms in society had said that books, television and movies were drivers of change. Because reading, watching, seeing a different experience was often the first step in making changes in the world. If you only lived in one town, only knew one set of people, only saw one outcome for your life you didn't realize there were more options. But books? Well you could go anywhere, do anything, live any life. Television and movies gave the same experience, though not as immersive, Gloria always felt. She thought imagining the scenes in books made them more real than passively watching them on a screen.

But what they did at Memory Lane? That was a step beyond. It was as immersive as a book but as visual as a movie. It was as close to real as you could get without having done it yourself. And yes, most people chose things like seeing Niagara Falls, but even that could broaden your life she felt. If for no other reason than seeing the other faces around you at Niagara Falls. The variety of people in the world.

Imagine if people chose to experience what it was like to be there when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke? They had 6 experiences from different speeches for that one. Or what if you chose to experience what it was like to be a Drag Queen at Stonewall? Or just to spend a day as a man instead of a woman or a woman instead of a man or a person who was a different color than you are? Just to feel the world from their perspective? That could bring so much change to the world. Positive change. She really believed it.

Though it was hard to hold on to her optimism when you had people who were only interested in the specialty catalog. She had argued against that until she was hoarse. Why would you want to experience being the victim of a brutal crime? Or worse committing one? But the amount of money that could be made from that area meant she lost. Though the ethical argument on harvesting the criminal experiences gave her at least a partial win. They would only use experiences from people who were caught and punished and part of the experience had to be the moment they were caught or when they were sentenced. There had to be a repercussion experience as well. It wasn't much of a victory but it was something.

Dane would be back in the office tomorrow afternoon and they would discuss what he thought about the hearings then. She was uncharacteristically pessimistic. Even if they wanted to give their technology over to law enforcement she was sure they wouldn't want to go through the weeks and weeks of training that even their entry level employees did. She knew they wanted to be able to open a mind and read it like a cheap paperback. If they had taken even a moment to listen to Dane's testimony they would understand it doesn't work that way. And as far as regulation went, they were great at handling that themselves. Hundreds of locations, thousands of experiences cloned and thousands of satisfied experiencers. But they were only interested in the California case. Which was definitely tragic but it wasn't even their company. They had a pristine track record. Of course they didn't want to talk about the successes.

Grandstanders.

That's all they were. A bunch of grandstanders. She'd like to make them all sit down and experience what it was like to watch them, to see themselves preening and posturing through the eyes of their constituents. To see how disgusted people were with that particular show! Maybe then they'd stop. But she had a feeling if she could get them in to the store most of them would want to be specialty catalog experiencers.

She shivered a little.

Weirdos.

Impeach Me? Impeach you!

So after actually reading the Mueller Report Justin Amash came out and said, "yeah, it's that bad." or something close to that.

And Trump clapped back with, "you're a booger face!" or something like that.

Look, I'm not a Libertarian. Mostly because I don't think government in and of itself is a bad thing. I think that there are things good government could accomplish. I also think that more and more it's libertarian, lowercase l. Meaning that it's really Republicans that don't want to align with Trump anymore so they've infiltrated the Libertarian Party.

But I often find myself in alignment with Libertarian philosophy. A lot of what I believe socially comes down to "don't be rude" which is actually in line with the Libertarian founding belief of "mind your own damn business" so really I can find a lot of common ground there.

But like I said, I don't buy in to the idea that large groups of people will do the right thing if you call them a business and the wrong thing if you call them government. I think large groups of people will do the right thing or the wrong thing depending on who is leading the group and what the objectives are. Businesses are designed to make money. The libertarian belief is that the market will control their behavior by purchasing power. If they make bad moral decisions the market will punish them. I believe in regulation because I think that hiding bad moral decisions is the more likely outcome than not making them.

So I am not a libertarian. Or a Libertarian.

But man I wish some more Republicans would get some sort of libertarian back bone wash off of Amash. Who actually is a Republican, by the way, not a Libertarian. He's just a libertarianesque Republican. Rand Paul used to be my libertarian-like lifeline in Republican presidential debates. He was the one who would say things like "Wait! Why do we want war? Hunh? Good God, y'all what is it good for?" But now...well maybe there was only one spine to go around and Amash got it?

But anyway, Amash came out and said that there were impeachable offenses committed and that something should be done. He tweeted out a list to his maybe 200,000 followers. The main stream media news picked it up and said..."Ooooh....someone's gonna get in trooouuuble." and this morning Trump tweeted to his million or so followers that Amash is a loser because he thinks Trump should be impeached. All of those followers who do not watch the mainstream media. Who wouldn't have any idea that a Republican read the report and came away with the belief that Trump should be impeached if Trump himself hadn't amplified the message.

But he just can't help it.

He cannot let things pass.

So Amash is a lightweight and a loser.

Fine.

But he's not wrong.

Russia interfered.

Trump obstructed.

Indictments.
Guilty pleas.
Guilty verdicts.
More cases still pending.

It wasn't a witch hunt.

He wasn't fully exonerated.

No matter how many times he repeats it, it's not true.

Vote in 2020.

#BlueNoMatterWho

#AmashIsRight

Owe No!

You don't owe me anything.

I just want to make that perfectly clear. You don't owe me anything.

Of course the flip side of that is I don't owe you anything either.

I can choose to give you something. You can choose to do something nice for me. And I hope you do choose to be kind and generous. But you don't owe that to anyone.

Now, I'm not above telling C about his birth story which starts at the 24 hours of labor that actually happened and progresses to about a week of solid hard time by the end of the story. But it's always teasing. He knows this. Because the "YOU DON'T OWE ME A FUCKING THING!" is said with much more passion. He knows that just because I'm his mother and he had shoulders the size of Buick doesn't mean he has to spend time with me now or ever.

I see this so often. Parents who use the "owe" mentality with their kids. No. Your kids don't owe you for anything. You chose to have kids. Everything you did raising them was your choice. I'm grateful that my parents made some of the choices they did raising me but that doesn't mean I'm indebted to them. I am always pleased when C chooses to spend time with us but he doesn't owe us that either.

If someone does something for you it's a nice thing to do, a polite thing to do, to be able to return the favor. But that's it. It's returning the favor. It's polite. It's not owed.

When we got out of the Navy and transitioned to civilian life we stayed with Brent's parents for awhile and then with my family. They didn't owe that to us. But I'm grateful they were able to help us out. And while we stayed with them we made sure to clean house, cook dinner, pay rent. Things to help out and make us not a burden because they didn't owe us the favor they were giving us and we wanted to make sure they weren't put out too much by it.

You make your choices in life. Don't let people tell you that you owe them something. You don't.

Again...you can choose to be kind and generous and helpful and all of those good things. And I believe they are good things. I try really hard to be kind. Which makes it sound like I'm awful and struggle with it, which isn't exactly right. But I do know how easy it is to get wrapped up in your day and ignore the person struggling with the door. Or the child who is wandering in Target. Or the person who has a lost look on their face and could use good directions. Which I will not be able to give without the use of my phone and maps, but I will at least make you feel better about being lost. I try to be kind. I try to notice these things. I try to help where I can. I try to give when I have the opportunity. But I don't owe that to anyone and the ones I help don't owe anything to me.

I feel like this whole, "you owe me" mentality is just trying to use guilt to power trip someone. Which makes me so mad. Don't do that. Don't try to guilt people into doing things for you. Don't try to put yourself above someone else, they OWE me. No they don't. You chose to give them what you gave them and now it's all done. End of story. The next piece starts a new story.

Owing is for business transactions. If you want someone to owe you something make sure you get the contract signed before you hand over the goods.

And if you don't want to have your personal interactions feel like business decisions then scrap the "owe me" mentality right now.

You don't owe me anything.

I don't owe you anything.

But you could bring me a brownie and I would be grateful.

Second Quarter Submission...

Okay, I haven't done it yet but I've picked what I'm going to do. I'm going to submit a rhyming poem. I can hear Skippy groaning from here.

Poetry is hard and I'm not really good at it, especially rhyming poetry AND because of all of these things I'm not super invested on if it gets published.

I kind of need that right now. I am just not cut out for the rejection thing. No matter how much I try to reframe it to submissions not publication or how often I remind myself of the sheer volume of things out there and the massive amounts of luck needed. No matter how many times I soothe my shattered ego with saying things like It has to be worse for Dana because she's REALLY good at this. It just doesn't matter. I hate submitting. I hate being told I'm not good enough. Or worse being ignored. I hate it.

But...it's still a goal for this year so I will finish it out.

So that means this quarter it will be a rhyming poem. Something I can do, but not well. So when it's done and submitted I will not feel so badly about it being tossed to the side.

I also have the next submission picked out.

It will be a short story. Trying to decide which genre I submit, romance or science fiction/fantasy. I could get bold and do horror. But I will probably stick with my wheelhouse. The things I'm good at...

So yeah, that one will be much harder to take when it's rejected.

So I need this. The break. The who cares piece. The do it just for a lark. The stretch myself a little but not expect anything good out of it submission. The...


Are you buying any of that? You know as soon as it's finished and submitted I will WANT it to be chosen for publication.

Oh well...

So now I have two weeks to write a rhyming poem.

Hmm...what rhymes with fear of failure?

Memory Lane...(Part four)

Dane was exhausted. He had spent the day trying to explain memory cloning and mapping to a group of not even pretending to listen to him as they made their political speeches Senators. And he was going to have to do it all again tomorrow. It had been supremely frustrating. He knew it was just political theater. That they all already knew what they wanted to do about the pending legislation and talking to him was only for show.

It might not have been so bad if they hadn't been so proudly ignorant. So dedicated to holding on to the wrong information. One Senator had referred to the memory cloning process as "watching the movies of someone's life." When he had tried to explain that it wasn't really like that the Senator actually yelled at him about wasting his questioning time. But wasn't the purpose of the questioning time to get answers from the expert in the field? Apparently not.

And Dane really was THE expert in the field. He was the one who had discovered how to access individual memories. He was the one who had perfected the original process. He was the co-founder of Memory Lane, the first and best memory experience company. He didn't make a big show of being the owner, he preferred to just run the lab. But it was his. From the first discovery through the first cloning and first erasures. That was all him. He had patented the process and was now a very wealthy man making money not only from his company but from every other company out there using his methods. Or methods built from his.

But none of that seemed to matter to the Senators questioning him. They weren't interested in learning how the process actually worked. They weren't interested in understanding why it was not just an invasion of privacy to open it up to law enforcement but that it wouldn't actually do what they wanted anyway. The Democrats wanted to regulate an industry they didn't understand and the Republicans wanted to hand it over to the police without limits. Which terrified Dane.

What if there were someone suspected of terrorism that the CIA wanted to question? After discovering that memory mapping was not going to work they used "enhanced interrogation" methods, then erased that memory from the suspect. You would be able to bring back torture without consequence because the victim wouldn't remember. Only the possibility of echos. Nightmares about being tortured. Dane tried to be more optimistic about what his government was capable of, but he had just spent a day in questioning with the Senate and that was definitely not working right now.

Dane paced around his hotel room. He really should be reviewing his notes for tomorrow but felt like it was a waste of time. They weren't going to be any more interested in hearing what he had to say tomorrow than they were today. The great irony to him was that if he had found what he was looking for when he discovered memory mapping none of this would matter anyway.

The original experiments had been designed to expand knowledge. Real knowledge. Like a quick way to learn a new language. Or to understand calculus. Or to know all of the works for Shakespeare without having to read all of the plays. If all thought was just electrical impulse then couldn't they just implant those impulses? He had spent years trying to perfect the capture of them. Specially designed headgear to capture the electric impulses of the brain that happened while learning. The problem was each brain was unique. He could not capture a pattern that was learning because that pattern changed within each brain.

But what he did discover is that he could capture the memory of learning. Not the knowledge itself, but the memory of sitting in the classroom. He could capture the electrical patterns that formed the memory. He could copy those into a computer program which turned them into code that allowed him to watch the memory unfold. See the world from the eyes of the person who held the memory. Then the next step was to clone that memory, to change it back from the computer code to electrical impulses that could be experienced by a different brain. An experience. Not a real life experience and not their memory, but just as real to the new brain as reliving it was to the original brain. You could experience the memory of a white water rafting trip without ever leaving Hoboken. It was amazing. And then he discovered that if you could isolate those particular memories you could overwrite them. Erase them. Clear that electrical pattern from the brain.

It was incredibly delicate work. There had been a few unfortunate accidents but they had perfected it as much as possible. And they had had years of success with the companies and with the user experiences. He should have known it was too good to last. Once law enforcement got the idea they should have access to their technology and the press grabbed hold of the California case it had all started to move very swiftly.

One more day of testimony. He wasn't sure he was going to make it out without losing his cool. At least the good news was if it was too terrible he knew a guy who could make him forget the whole thing.

So far...

...so good.

I mean, sure, I did have that pile of things that I waited to send to Goodwill so I would have some low hanging fruit. And I did leave the mess in the garage to take care of when we got back as well. And even with that I'm still thinking I should probably get rid of everything we have stored in the garage that we don't use at least yearly. And okay, I might have bought a Fitbit but...

So far, so good really.

Not too terrible.

I mean, I have actively NOT started a few of the other tidying up projects I have in reserve because I can FEEL the urge to throw all of the things away just bubbling under the surface. And though I was going to switch over my winter clothes this week I'm pushing it another week because I don't want next winter to come and discover I have zero warm clothes left because they all went to Goodwill.

And yeah, of course, I've made sure that there are protein bars in the house to ensure that I eat something for lunch even when there is a part of me that is like, nah, I'm good, thanks. While simultaneously battling the urge to buy baked goods and face plant in them.

And yeah, sure, I've held my tongue in a few conversations because I want to scream WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU? HOW CAN YOU LIVE LIKE THAT? But you know...so far, so good.

So you know the trip home went well. 

No really, it did. We've had so much worse. It just makes me tense to be there. I know that. I also know that I make my family tense as well. I don't know if they know that I know that but I know that. I'm just really different than everyone else, while at the same time being really alike.

I mean we are family.

I was raised by the same parents.

I have a lot of the same mannerisms.

I have similar "catch phrases."

We all say mmmmbye.

So really same same.

Except where we are really different.

Like, for instance, my sister was telling a story about being at a conference and being by the pool smoking and drinking and one of the ladies she was with was like, "Aren't you worried about cancer?" and she was like, "Look my mother has cancer, my aunts had cancer, it's coming for me so I'm not worried. And the women in my family live to be like 90 plus so I want to make sure I knock a few years off of that. I don't want that at all." And I'm like, "Yeah, we have a family history of cancer and heart disease and I'm planning on living to be 100 so I'll see you at the gym." So you know...a little different.

But that's good. It was all by choices. And I am super happy with my choices. And they are happy with theirs so it's all good, no?

And I really did prepare mentally for this trip back.

I was prepared for comments about my weight. I am about 10 pounds heavier than I was a few years ago when we were home. I was ready for comments about my hair. I am SUPER red right now and actually got it colored the morning we flew in so it was at its brightest. I even debated not coloring it this month but then thought, well, I love my red and if they are talking about my hair being a different color maybe they won't mention my ass being bigger?

So I was prepared.

And it was so you have no pets? None? And you don't work? At all? How do you even...

Ah...okay. Right. There is no way to prepare. I forgot that.

So I had a little "Maybe I should go back to work" existential breakdown when we got home. Which to be perfectly fair I have every once in awhile anyway. I started working when I was really young. I mean I cleaned bathrooms and windshields and stuck the tanks at the gas station when I was like 6. And I helped Jeff with his job from the time I was 10 until like 13 or 14. Got a paycheck job of my own when I was 15. Working is a thing we do in my family. But I really like not working. I like taking care of the house. I like writing. I like not dealing with bosses and co-workers and...but it's not fair to Brent to be responsible for everything though anything I would make would be pretty much a joke but it would go into the retirement account and we would be better off probably but I would have to pick up a few more expenses like a housekeeper because I am not working all week and then cleaning all weekend and....SO yeah...maybe that breakdown isn't quite over yet. Lots of repeating "I really like my life. I am so much happier than when I had to work. I'm a better person living this way." But I'm getting there.

The pet thing was odd to me. I mean, I guess I get it? We all grew up with animals and we've had cats for ages. But we also travel a lot (see other reason I don't want to work) and I like not having to deal with finding people to watch the pets while we are gone. I also like how much easier it is to keep the house clean and how I don't have to go out for a walk in the rain or pick up anyone's poop or vomit. BUT yeah sure, we've talked about getting pets again and if we do it will all be fine. But stop harping on it like I'm a freak for not having a pet!

*deep breath*

Even though I chose and continue to choose to be different from the rest of the family there is still a part of me that wants them to approve and is ready to get defensive when they don't. I think that's probably normal. I mean the approval part is built in from when you are a kid. The only people you care about in the beginning are your family members. Everything you do is for that audience. That approval. When/if you decide that you don't need it and move on I think there is still a part that craves it. You just have to talk yourself back down when it shows up.

The defensive part is easy to understand as well. I mean it's hard not to take it personally when it's personal, right? But I'm pretty solid with that now too. Just a flair at the end and I held that in check and just blasted the boys in the car with a generalized AND ANOTHER THING rant...but it wasn't bad at all.

And it was also much easier because we had the human meat shield there with us. Anytime a conversation headed off in a bad direction we could just wave C in front of them and by the power of the visiting grandson all was fine. Appreciate you, son.

So yeah, the trip wasn't bad. Dealing with a little residual clean all the things fever. A little obsessive about health issues. A little I don't want a job so stop it. A little if I get pets it's because they are great not because it's weird not to have them. And a little guilt trip residue that got flung my way sideways. And a lot of cheese and green chile smothered goodness. So all in all pretty decent really.

And now that I've written this I've had a little brain cleaning session so it will keep me from ransacking the kitchen for another day.

Hey, it's a system...

Memory Lane....(NJ part 3)

"Excuse me, I have to answer this call."

Dane had been giving Jean a tour of the lab and explaining the donation process.

"Yes, I understand. No, that's fine. I will clear my schedule for the next two days...Okay, what time will the plane be leaving?... Oh...okay. Will there be time to stop by the house and...okay...Okay...I'll be ready then. Thank you."

Dane held up a finger to Jean with an apologetic smile and made another call. "Hey, is there anyway you can pack a bag for me and drop it off here at the lab in...umm...well an hour?... Yeah, they've moved the testimony to tomorrow and they are sending a car to pick me up here at 4. I just don't have time to wrap things up here, go home, pack and be back here in time....Thanks I really appreciate it...They think two days, but pack for three just to be sure....Yeah, the charcoal suit with something sort of plain. Not the zombie brains tie for sure...Thanks again. I'll see you soon."

Dane smiled apologetically at Jean. "So, sorry about that. Apparently I'm testifying before a Senate subcommittee tomorrow."

"Wow."

"Yeah, wow. They have decided to hold hearings and possibly start putting extra restrictions on the industry. Of course they know nothing about the industry but that's never stopped them before. They just can't resist. The California case is like catnip to them. Lots of television time and bloviating about 'obviously' and 'of course we should' and whatever else makes them look good without having to take the time to actually know what they are talking about. And once they start the hearing they can just add on the law enforcement pressure as well."

Jean was shocked, "Law enforcement pressure?"

"They are saying they want mandatory reporting of any crimes we uncover, but what they really want is access to our technology to use when questioning suspects."

"But..."

"Yes, but... It doesn't work that way. We've explained it over and over again but they are sure we are hiding something. And we already fall under the reporting guidelines of mental health practitioners. It's why we only use licensed therapists and MDs for donation services. There is a confidentiality agreement in place, just in case there is overlap of the memory they are donating and one that they would rather not have seen. And the disclosures they fill out do let them know if we see evidence of certain crimes we are obligated to report."

Dane was pacing the hallway, "And it really should fall under privacy laws. Or unreasonable search and seizure. I mean if you can't force someone to unlock their phone you sure as hell shouldn't be able to force someone to open their memory banks right?"

Jean nodded.

"I'm sorry. It's just so frustrating. They have no idea what they are talking about but it won't stop them from making laws around us."

"Well I guess you'll just have to do a really good job in your testimony explaining why they aren't needed."

"I am going to do my level best, that's for sure. And with that, I hate to do this to you but I'm going to send you back to Gloria and reschedule your lab training with someone else tomorrow."

"Oh no, I totally understand. Good luck. And, Dane?"

"Yes?"

"Make it memorable."

Dane groaned, "It really is a terrible joke isn't it?"

New Job.... (Part Two)

Jean spent the morning learning about billing structures and sales techniques. Though there really wasn't much technique needed. Most people had already decided to become Experiencers when they walked in the door. It was up the the Experience Expert to go over the process and answer any questions. The three billing levels were easy enough to understand, and Gloria stressed again that most people do not choose the most expensive one and that you as an Experience Expert were not required to try and upsell anyone to that plan. In fact if someone did choose it you had to go over all of the potential side effects and why you did not recommend it.

"Why is it an option if we don't recommend it and actually seem to actively discourage it? Why not just not offer that level at all?"

"It's actually a safety precaution. There are people out there that will over use the service. You can't completely prevent everyone from choosing that level but by making it very expensive and really emphasizing the potential complications we do prevent quite a few."

"But couldn't we just put a policy in place that limited the number of experiences you could have in one month?"

"They tried that but Experiencers were using multiple locations to get around the limits. Which meant that the Experience Experts they were dealing with had no way of knowing if this was their first experience of the month or their 20th. It was..." Gloria glanced away from Jean and looked around the room as if the word she was looking for would be written on one of the walls. "...it was not optimal."

"Can't they still use multiple locations like that?"

"Not with Memory Lane. We've location locked users as well as encoding all usage information on their membership cards. We not only tie them to one location we try to make sure they work with the same Expert as well. Consistency is important for our monthly users. We need to be able to recognize any potential problems quickly. So the only way to get around the system would be to have memberships at multiple companies. Which I guess someone could do, but we like to think that once you try Memory Lane you would never be happy with another company."

Jean made a few notes in her training materials. She thought it might be a good idea to do some research in to other companies and what their practices were.

"Okay, are you ready for the lab? You'll be trained as both an Experience Expert and a Donation Expert. Most of us work both sides of the house, so to speak, it helps break up any potential boredom. But there are people who much prefer one side or the other and we accommodate that as well. So if you find that you really only want to work Donations or only want to work Experiences just let someone know. Though to be perfectly honest, there is more chance for advancement in the company if you are adept at both."

Gloria led the way from the catalog rooms, through the Experience Areas, through the employee only areas and then in to the labs. "You can see that though everything is in one location we keep the Experience and Donation areas quite separate. They even have their own entrances. It would be a little awkward for an Experiencer to run into their Donor at the door, right?"

Jean looked around the lab. While the experience areas were done in bright colors and had almost a cozy feeling the lab was all bright whites and clean lines.

"This is the hub. Our Donation Experts check in here and get the information forms that the potential donors filled out online before coming in."

"I did have a question before we go further. Donations?"

Gloria smiled, "Yes, I know. It's not really a donation per say. They are paid for their services. There were studies done that showed people were more comfortable with the whole industry if we used words like 'Donation' and 'Experience' every industry has their own language right? You'll get used to pretty quickly. Here." Gloria handed Jean a large stack of papers.

"This is all of the information that the donor will have read online before they come in. Or at least what they were supposed to have read. You will be surprised the number of people who just skip to the last page and click yes. One of your most important jobs as a Donation Expert is to make sure they've actually gone over all of the paperwork and are well aware of any potential side effects."

"How common are the side effects? I saw the list in my manual but it didn't really say how often each one happens."

"Almost every donor gets at least one side effect, usually just some fatigue. But the more severe ones are pretty rare. At least for the superficial donors, which is the majority of our clientele. Part of your job when you go over their paperwork is to talk about the potential for more severe side effects while also reassuring them that they rarely happen. The most common cloning error is when the base is corrupted and they lose the original file. When that happens we just give them their own experience back, but without all of the lecture about it not being real. Because for them it was real. That usually fixes that problem right up. It might not be as sharp or as crisp but it's still there.

The opposite can also happen. When you are dealing with the donors who don't just want to clone and donate but want you to clone and then erase. Sometimes the erasure isn't complete. We get the main file but there is a ghost image someplace else that comes out in the subconscious. When they are dreaming. You can see how that would be a problem if it was something from the specialty catalog."

Jean made a face, some of those experiences wouldn't be something she would want visiting her in the dark.

"But the technology advances every year and we get better and better at cloning and erasing. We are on the leading edge of all experience technology."

"Our resident cheerleader is bringing you up to speed?" A man had joined them. He was dressed in pale blue hospital scrubs.

"Jean this is Dane he runs the donation centers. Dane, this Jean, she is our newest Expert in Training."

"Nice to meet you, Jean. I hope your time here will be....memorable."

Gloria groaned, "That joke is never funny."

"Well I will keep trying until it gets there."

"Lucky us." Gloria tried to sound disgusted but she was smiling. It was obvious they had worked together for a long time. "I'm going to hand you over to Dane for the rest of the tour. Please don't judge us all by his terrible jokes but do know if they get too bad, we can always clone and erase the experience for you."

"Oh I'm wounded!"

"No you aren't. I'll see you before you leave, Jean."

And with that Gloria left the lab.

"Okay, where should we start?"

New Job... (Part One)

Jean had her notebook open ready to add any notes to the training materials as Gloria took her on a tour through the catalog room.

"The Experiencer logs in to one of these terminals and makes their selection."

Gloria tapped the screen on one of the terminals bringing up a login menu.

"You as an Experience Expert are available to guide them if they need any help. You have a list of questions in your training materials that you might find helpful."

Jean looked at her notebook, there was indeed a list. "Do most people need help or do they come in looking for something in particular?"

"It's actually split. Some people have something really specific in mind and some are almost willing to hit a random spin and see what comes up. We used to have issues with 'readers' but once we changed our catalogs and billing structure that stopped."

"Readers?"

"Oh, that's what we called people who would come in and go through pages and pages of the catalog just reading descriptions and never actually choosing an experience. We changed the billing and shortened the descriptions and that helped. Now if you spend a half hour reading you are still going to pay the same as if you spent a half hour with an actual experience."

"Is that the standard billing then? By time?"

"We have three levels, it's in the next section of your notes. We'll go over that more tomorrow when we talk about sales, but basically you have the trial rate for those that aren't sure about the experience. It's a shortened experience from a limited catalog just to see if you like it. Then there is the hourly rate. Most people choose that one. You pay your initial membership fee and then only pay for the time you actually use. And there is also a monthly rate where you can have as many as one experience a day. That one isn't very popular, it's quite expensive and really more than a few experiences a month is a little hard on your own equilibrium."

"Your equilibrium?"

"Maybe that's not the right word. But, you know, if you were to come in every day and pick an experience you would feel a little off. Like out of balance?"

"Oh, I see. Got it." Jean didn't really get it but she figured she would after working here for a few weeks.

"And here are the private catalog rooms."

"Private?"

"Well, semi-private. Any Experiencer using one of these rooms will have a specially trained Experience Expert with them at all times, even while searching the catalogs. It keeps the weirdos out. Or at least the weirdos who aren't paying out. No offense, but I think anyone who chooses one of these experiences is a weirdo."

"These experiences?"

"Right, let me backup. The private catalog rooms contain computers that are hooked up to a different catalog base than the main catalog room out front. These are the..." Gloria trailed off for a moment, "...these are the more intense experiences."

"Like R rated?"

"Sort of. Some of them for sure. Just much more intense things. Here..." Gloria tapped the login screen and put in her admin code. Jean stepped forward and began to scan the entries.

"Oh."

"Yes, oh."

"Why would anyone choose these experiences?"

"I don't know. Dane, he works in the lab, you'll meet him tomorrow, Dane says it's like scary movies. Some people like romcoms and some people like scary movies."

"But this isn't really the same as a scary movie, right? I mean scary movies aren't..."

"Real?"

"Well yeah."

"Neither is this. You have to keep that in mind at all times as an Experience Expert. Nothing that the Experiencer goes through here is real. You need to be clear with them before the experience and make sure you are even more clear with them after they are finished with the experience that nothing about what they saw or did was real."

"But it is real, isn't that the selling point?"

"Okay it seems real, and yes we charge a premium because it's so close to real that you have a hard time distinguishing it, but, it's not real. Not to them. You have to make sure you get that signed off from the Experiencer every single time."

"Don't they sign a waiver when they buy their membership card?"

"Yes. But they have to resign every single time they choose an experience. You have to give them the lecture and have them sign the form. It's really important to make sure the company is protected. You don't want to be the Experience Expert in the middle of a hijacking case."

"Oh, like that company in California?"

"That was the most famous one for sure. That company was a mess. They let their clients have multiple experiences in a day! Can you imagine? And they had way too many experiences from the same source. They were just asking for trouble really. I mean it worked out for us because we were able to buy their whole catalog for a song. But, you know for them, it was a mess."

Gloria logged off of the catalog terminal and they walked back out to the main room.

"Okay, I'm going to leave you to study your notes while I do some paperwork. Feel free to browse any of the catalogs as well. In fact I think that's probably a good place for you to start. Get used to our systems. You can get a feel for the differences in our company catalogs by searching for experiences you've done in the past at other places."

Jean smiled a little, "I've never actually had an Experience."

Gloria looked shocked but only for a second. "Oh! Well we will make sure you get a chance to try one out before we ever put you on the floor. You really should know how the whole process works. I recommend something basic for your first time. I know it sounds boring but it's a little easier to process things like 'Sunset at the Beach' than it is 'First Child Birth' as you can imagine I'm sure!"

With that Gloria left Jean on her own to study and browse the catalog. Jean tapped the computer screen and entered her login.

"Welcome to Memory Lane! What would you like to do today?"

Jean started to scroll through the pages of experiences. There were so many of them. How did anyone ever decide? She turned to her notebook:

"As an Experience Expert you might be called upon to help guide an Experiencer toward an experience they would find enjoyable. With over 100,000 donated memories in our catalogs and more coming every day you can imagine it could be overwhelming to a new Experiencer. Start with questions like: 'Is there a certain age you would like to experience today?' or 'Are you interested in a specific feeling?' these questions can help narrow choices for your Experiencer. Please see the following list for more ideas."

Jean started to scan the question list she would be using to guide her Experiencers. It was a lot of information. She briefly wondered if there was an experience she could choose that would be from a fully trained Experience Expert. She smiled to herself and started to review her notebook.

---------------

And Done...

I'm donating my massage chair today. I know that doesn't seem like a big deal, I mean I haven't practiced in years. It's just been sitting downstairs, first in the Room of Requirement and now in the garage. I've tried a few times to sell it. But those have been half hearted attempts. Letting go of this last piece has been harder than I thought it would be.

I know why.

Or at least I do now.

I sold my massage table a long time ago. When it became clear that I would never practice again my table was just taking up space. Not that I needed the space for anything, but it was there. Just there. Everytime I walked through the room. Now it was folded away in its travelling case, but still. There. Reminding me of yet one more thing I tried that I didn't keep doing.

I can't really say failed at.

I am fucking annoying about this so you can skip the next section if you want.

I can't say one more thing that I tried and failed at because I haven't really failed at much I've tried. Massage therapy was the same way. I was a damn good therapist. My shoulder injury forced the giving it up, but I had already decided to move on before the injury. Doing it for a living wasn't for me. But that doesn't mean I wasn't good at it.

But I do that a lot. I try things out. Sometimes for years. And even if I'm really good at them I get bored and move on. I'm a really good salesperson. I'm a really good store manager. I'm a really good bookkeeper. I'm a really good account executive. I'm a really good massage therapist. Or at least I was really good at all of those things. I'm a lousy stay at one jobber.

But anyway, the table I got rid of a long time ago.

I didn't like the way I got rid of it. It didn't sit right with me. I won't go into all of the story because it was a weird one, but the people that were going to buy it (even though someone else ended up buying it) weren't therapists. They wanted it for themselves. It wasn't going to be used the way I had intended it to be used. And it made me feel a little squicky.

Because as a therapist your table is an extension of you. Especially that first table. That is the table you buy when you are in school. It is the one you learn on. The one you haul around for exchanges. The one you first make a living with. It's so infused with your energy that different people's tables feel differently. I know that's very woo woo sounding for someone that practiced the Western styles pretty exclusively but it's true.

Prepping for a client. 

So every time I thought about how I sold my table it made me feel a little off. Wrong. And because of that I think I held on to my chair for much longer.

My chair was the cool toy I got when I went in to practice. Not every therapist uses a chair. Not every therapist even wants to do chair massage. But I had in my head that it would be a big part of my practice. Chair massage parties were a thing I did. Groups would get together for like a potluck lunch and I would set up my chair in the living room and work on everyone who wanted a quick massage.

Working out that midday stress.

I also did corporate events and worked on clients here at the house. If you only want upper body work chair massage is a great way to do it.

So anyway...My chair was a cool toy, but I had loved my table. But I had transferred all of that almost guilt over selling my table on to the chair without realizing it.

Until I did.

When I decided to donate my chair to the school I attended, just sort of out of the blue, I felt like a weight was lifted around selling it that I didn't even realize I had been carrying. Of course. Donate it. Give it to someone else who can use it to follow a dream. They can use it at the school to teach or they can pass it along to a student who can't afford one. This is exactly what should happen with it.

So then I got a little KonMari about it all.

She suggests that you thank everything that you get rid of. Yeah, I know, I pretty much rolled my eyes as well. But....

I am so grateful for my table.

I am grateful not just for the money I made using it, but for the time it saw me through school. I'm grateful for the people that I know I helped both physically and mentally while they were on my table. I'm grateful that if I got nothing else out of massage therapy (which I did get a lot) I got Stacy and Mari. I'm grateful for the exit from advertising that massage therapy provided and for the peaceful feeling I got whenever I would see my table set up for a client. Such a difference from the tension I would feel before a client meeting in advertising.

Thank you, table and chair for what you've given to me and to others.

And now you are no longer mine and I hope that you serve a purpose to the ones that will own you going forward.


I know, it's hokey...but I do feel a lot better about it.