Lucky – Writer, Author, Speaker

About Me,Birth,Chances,Identity,Life,Lucky,Time,Wonder

Where Are You From?

I am from the stars. Dust. Silver-striped meteorites blown to bits by a goddess’s rage at being shunned by her lover. He left in the middle of the night the day before yesterday in cosmic time, which could have been before the earth existed. Or it could have been a second ago. I am from the beach. Sand. Washed ashore with kelp around my waist, starfish nibbling at my toes. My scalp teems with tiny organisms that lived there until now. They try to scamper back to the salty sea, yet their microcosmic feet tangle in my hair. I am from the mountains. Rock. From high...

Adulthood,Chances,Choices,Fear,Life,Lucky

Changing Names

I listened to a Duolingo French Podcast today, and it talks about a young man who discovers that his grandfather changed his surname from a Jewish name to a French name during the war. The young man tried to change his name to his grandfather’s name but was told he could not because of the French laws at the time. * Spoiler Alert*: Eventually, he was able to change his name. Times and laws change. Photo by Djalma Paiva Armelin on Pexels.com Our names are particularly important to us – both our first and last names. I changed my first name from...

About Me,Adopted,Birth,Chances,Choices,Foster Kid,Grateful,Life,Love,Lucky,Past,Rant

Foster Kid

It might have been the right thing to do.

About Me,Choices,Life,Lucky,Time

Micro-Memoir

I went to a micro-memoir workshop this last weekend at the Southern California Writers Conference. What is a micro or flash-memoir? Short lives? No, Judy Reeves, author and memoirist actually says that mini-memoirs can be anything from sentences to short paragraphs, and combined into works of various sizes from small books to larger works, usually with a theme. So, I didn't even know it was a genre. It is! There are tons of people who write and publish micro memoirs. Beth Ann Fennelly, for instance, published Heating & Cooling--52 Micro-Memoirs (Norton & Co. 2017). There are dozens of others. Who...

Choices,Lucky,Plans,Rant,Technology

ROBOTS and AI

ROBOTS & ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE [caption id="attachment_media-11" align="alignnone" width="1880"] Photo by Matan Segev on Pexels.com[/caption] Elon Musk thinks people everywhere should be frightened of AI. Bill Gates told Charlie Rose that AI was potentially more dangerous than a nuclear catastrophe. Even the recently deceased Stephen Hawking said, “I think the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” What do you think? Here's what I don't like. I don't like that the first few volleys of conversation in the chat room are AI. Maybe from a robot. I don't know! "How can I help you today?"...

About Me,Chances,Life,Lucky

New York Is

[caption id="attachment_777" align="aligncenter" width="1880"] Photo by Fancycrave.com on Pexels.com[/caption] New York is: A state A city A harbor A county A cheesecake A cut of steak A baseball team A football team A hockey team A basketball team A stadium A newspaper A daily A magazine A book A song A historical novel A film A ship A typeface A TV star A pinball machine A state of mind But for me, New York is . . . The place where I was conceived but not born. Loved perhaps, but not kept. Transported from in utero To the left coast...

Death,Happy,Lucky,Time

Mrs. B

Mrs. B didn't own a computer. She had a cell phone for three months but never used it. She told her daughter to take it back. She had time to take long walks at the park, read, do crafts, and go to lunch with friends. She attended live lectures, went to the library, enjoyed museums, picnics, and face-to-face conversations with squirmy children who weren't used to 'talking' without a keyboard, a cell phone or a computer— even the little ones. She could see the kids' expressions, and help them understand social interplay the old-fashioned way. Sometimes she wore a clown nose. I want...

Birth,Chances,Children,Life,Lucky

Life’s a Crapshoot

Did you watch it? The storybook Royal Wedding? What did you take from it? That there's no predicting life. No one would have thought a Hollywood starlet would marry an honest-to-goodness prince. Well, not in real life. In stories. In movies. On TV. But not for real. But it was. Real. Rolling the Dice Back in 2006, I was becoming increasingly aware of egg donors facilities. Yes. I was pretty amazed that people were picking characteristics they wanted for their children and were buying eggs that they thought would make little people with those traits. What's cool is that it doesn't work...

Finishing,Learning,Living,Lucky,Starting

Starting

Oh, my goodness. I had this fine idea that everyone is great at starting projects and that finishing is the problem. I forgot that many times people fail to start because they fear they will never finish. So finishing is still a huge challenge, no doubt about it, but the more pernicious problem is that a finely honed track record of non-finishing keeps people from the unbridled giddiness that comes from starting something. That, and fear of looking really dumb. I hope you can take the first step. Whatever it is, try something new this week. It doesn't have to be huge. You can...