Author: mirandala_grfdz0

DJ Pandemic

Posted on by mirandala_grfdz0

We have been 100% remote at my job since March 13, 2020. It has been ok and terrible and depressing and fine and boring and sad and weird. The work-life divide is non-existent, but that’s been manageable because there hasn’t been much on the “life” side to balance. When you can’t go anywhere or see anyone, it isn’t as important to carve out time to do those things. Go figure.

Now, things are opening up. Opening up on a different world, for sure. Some things are coming back, some things are gone forever. There’s less risk now! Except that there’s more risk, too! I can see you again! If you meet the criteria, that is. And we still don’t know how long we have antibody powers or whether some densely-populated pocket of the earth will launch a wily new variant into the world.  Uncertainty! Adjust your tolerance and live as best you can.

One thing that has helped me stare at too many screens for far too long this past year (and probably for a few months longer) has been my YouTube playlist of downtempo compilations and DJ sets. Mood lifting and mood stabilizing. Meant for both a pulsating crowd of beat-loving people and for me, alone in my home office. Maybe in the Sometime Future I’ll get to a live set – either way I’ll definitely keep my headphones on and bounce along solo. 

Enjoy.

What does it mean to be ok right now?

Posted on by mirandala_grfdz0

This is fine.e

This is fine. We are drinking fancy coffee in the middle of The Fire that Consumes All  before It. Welcome to Iliam.

We are ok. And we are not ok. Some of us will never be ok again, and some of us don’t know what ok means anymore.

None of this is new. This condition has always existed on the planet, in ways large and small. Tragedy happens. War breaks out. Disease burns through towns. Violence catches us unawares. People are not ok. And then they are ok. But not like before-ok. Like now-ok. Like new-ok.

Is anything actually different? Maybe just that the whole globe is suddenly trying to extinguish the same fire. We are all talking about the same ok-not-ok conundrum. We are in a literal world war.

I keep saying that anyone who can’t figure out how we move forward in the face of a global pandemic is someone who hasn’t read enough genre fiction. No global pandemic, no world-wide catastrophic event = no science fiction.

Anyway, some things I’ve been pondering lately:

The Obsidian Virtual Concept House.

Educational videos on social topics. How to judge facts! 

The brilliant Charlie Jane Anders on story and survival.

Plus ça change

Posted on by mirandala_grfdz0

Somehow, I always return to this. I started “blogging” in 1998 on a little AOL Hometown website (RIP Miranda’s Web Café). I moved on to a salon.com blog a few years later, when mirandala.org was born as a way of documenting my move from the East Coast back to Chicago. I blogged pretty regularly from about 2002 to 2009, then barely at all after that. (see, wayback machine)

I do still feel compelled to share – or maybe not so much “share,” as “express.” Expression as a way to document experience – either personal experience or just the experience of being a person in the world. 

Blogging has changed. Mostly replaced by the million other ways that people create and share their lives. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. No one needs a blog anymore. My RSS Reader and I are digital dinosaurs. But I keep coming back to this concept of mirandala.org. 

It’s not for an audience – this site has never had much of that over the years. And it’s not for something to do – the truly empty time in my life has been reduced to almost nothing by now (don’t get me wrong – that’s mostly a *good* thing). So it must be for me. To share and express. To document. To bookmark. If you tune in every now and then, please engage if you wish! Or, please uphold the distinguished tradition of lurking. Either is totally fine.