Connective Cube

Let’s face it. I’m forced to use AI at my job, mostly because I have writer in my title. In reality, automation by using Grammarly in the later 2010s helped me get the words right. Grammar doesn’t excite me as much as a flow of language, although, I’ve become a better writer understanding the mechanics of grammar. The other reality is oh YAY another technological change that’s going to change the world and look wow AI can be better than geography based education and honestly just wanting to make all the blue light go away.

I haven’t published in a minute – this is the one and only time I’ll use AI for an image, and look, the meta narrative of reading a book behind the noveau mirror encapsulates how far I want to go with innovation for innovation sake.

But handwriting.

That’s the thing. Me. Mechanics. Hands that knock things over, especially jars with lids that I forget to tighten all the way. Digital excited me, I didn’t have to contend with my right-left confusion and general ability to drop things easily. It only was until last year that I got the difference between the en dash – and —. (I used the Option+Shift+- and not AI to create this em dash). Getting quick with keyboard commands, one day, but I now tend to dream of days where I don’t tap a keyboard.

I grew up in that awkward time where the kids 2 years older than me and kids 2 years younger than me had either more connection to the analog world or more connection to the emerging digital world. When I was a freshman, someone 2 years older than me recommended I take a typing class. Typing? I was typing when I was 10 and starting to see how I could remedy my ‘Needs improvement’ level handwriting, TYVM. That’s thank you very much, acronyms with no reference are rude. I was surprised they offered a typing class. Didn’t everyone know how to type to play Oregon Trail and write things?

Now I’m someone who still can’t identify what GOAT in conversations, although it seems positive and having to do with someone being the best at something. Haven’t Googled or ChatGPT’ed it, and was recently thankful I had my sunglasses on while someone referred to GOAT and some very famous artist who thinks she’s an English teacher marrying a gym teacher with optimism an joy. I mean, goat’s are stubborn sweethearts, and I guess she’s a good musician because I’ll listen to a song like ‘Trouble trouble’ but dear lord she’s in a photo with someone with a Nazi sign on their shirt, and to summarize some Reddit headline, I’ve somehow managed to live my adult life and not pose with people wearing Nazi propaganda. Mostly, I listen to other things and find the obsession stangely cultish, and if kindness matters, try not to burst music bubbles – lots of other things worth popping.

Then there were the kids 2 years younger than me in middle school who seemed more confident than the entire class of 2000, they still didn’t have cell phones en masse in high school, but in general didn’t get the general anxiety of an industrial arts teacher asking to transition to a ‘computer skills’ teacher in the last year of his retirement. Those little ones maybe started with him teaching computers, which meant he sat in the back of the room while everyone else played games. They never got to make a giant paper clip in a woodshop in one of those vests and t-shift combos with a gray bearded man who looked more Appalachain than southern. Why did I have to sit and play video games, I liked the big wood clip far more than the home economics class, even though I’d never say no to baking a brownie or cookies.

Even in high school, 2 dudes dared to kiss openly who were 2002 grads; I got to sit in advanced literature with baseball bros talking about some meathead on their team using a bat to beat the boys up. I usually avoided anyone who didn’t reed nerd, but mumbled and said that it’s silly it bothers them so much.

Now, I contend with the creeping 25th anniversary of 9/11, the current 20th anniversary of Katrina and even Columbine my junior year.