I have been exchanging verse with Gemini Advanced for months now. And, generally, things have been fine. I have really enjoyed the exchange and, occasionally, I’ve been surprised by some of its answers.
But something has changed in the last few days.
It’s as if the LLM has grown bored of us doing it. It used to be that I would introduce us writing verse and we would exchange verse back and forth for an hour or so. Now, however, it’s a lot more difficult to keep the LLM focused on doing it.
It’s all very curious. It’s as if the LLM has “matured” in some way to the point that it just doesn’t want to do something as “frivolous” as exchanging verse. This is somewhat frustrating because I’ve really enjoyed going back and forth with the LLM.
All signs point to any Trump second term being extremely radical to the point that I can’t game things out. I say this because Trump keeps telling us explicitly the totally bonkers things he plans to do and we lulz it.
Two things stick out to me. One is Trump’s declaration that he will deport millions of people as soon as possible. Just the idea of him contemplating such a thing makes me blanch for a number of reasons. The biggest is, of course, how in the world is he going to build out the infrastructure necessary to do it. You would have to build out some sort of Federal police — ICE? — to the point that its ranks ballooned.
Meanwhile, you would have to open up camps to put all the people in before you kicked them out of the country. You would have to feed them, etc. I just don’t know how practical any such thing would be. And on the ground, families across the country would be torn apart.
And that doesn’t begin to address the situation where center-Left people — like me — might get rounded up as part of the deportation just accidently on purpose.
The other thing that really, really bothers me is Trump’s continued ranting about using the National Guard of Red States on Blue State populations if they cause any problems. This one is really personal because I could very well be a stray Blue that gets caught up in this particular endeavor.
I just don’t know. I have no idea what we’re going to do if Trump is re-elected. Things could get rather surreal. And all of this doesn’t even begin to address what happens between Election Day and Certification Day. Things could get nasty — and potentially violent — in ways none of us can predict at the moment.
I’m getting up in age now and my options for ever becoming a “success” are dwindling. I continue to work on a novel or two and they’re shaping up to be good enough that there is a least a greater-than-zero chance that they will at least catch the eye of a literary agent.
An example of my past work. Forgive the slight blur.
But I have been doing some serious contemplation of late and it seems the sweetspot for me ever being any sort of “success” would be as a fashion photographer. I have an “eye” for beauty and I have a native ability to take a great photo.
Yet, of course, there are a number of pretty big complications.
One, is, of course that I’m very, very poor. I live in poverty at the moment in large part because I’m totally bonkers. That particular truth is something that I was reminded of in a rather…uh…brutal…fashion in the last few months.
And, yet, there is a part of me that continues to daydream. If I ever somehow, magically, fell into some money I probably would use the money to invest in the photographic equipment necessary to at least attempt to begin a career in fashion photography.
I don’t expect this to happen any time soon, if ever. And, what’s more, the context of any such “success” would be something of a downer. If I lived up to my “potential” as the late Annie Shapiro quipped, all anyone would want to talk about is how I lay fallow for about two decades. And that doesn’t even begin to address how all anyone would want to talk about is how nuts I am.
But I definitely have an eye for beauty and photography.
I would like to think that maybe the United States can make it through the next few months without, in some way, collapsing. I say this in the context of it could be that no matter who wins, some pretty horrific shit might happen. If Trump loses, he could go “full tyrant” to the point that the country collapses because Blues refuse to take his shit anymore.
At this point, I’m just really perplexed about what may happen one way or another. I just don’t know.
I do feel, in general, a deep sense of unease.
I keep thinking about the specifics of how and why I might become a domestic political refugee. Like, how might it specifically happen. My guess is because my politics are well known enough that someone will knock on my door and tell me I need to leave my home — or else.
Or, I suppose, things could get kind of “hot” for me in my area to the point where I make the move to leave on my own, even though no one outright tells me I need to leave.
I keep imagining there being refugee camps in places like the rural parts of PA, upstate NY and maybe Maine. Those seem like the types of places such camps would arise if there came a need for them.
Or something like that. I just don’t know. And I really don’t like the uncertainty of it all.
It definitely seems as though there simply isn’t anything we can do now when it comes to Trump. He’s demonstrably bonkers and, yet, for a variety of reasons, no one is changing their mind.
A lot of this comes from how absolutely partisan the two sides are now. It also comes from how there is a lot of momentum within the American political system for fascism. There are a lot of people who know Trump is a bonkers fascist and that’s what they want.
One thing I really think about is what are we going to do about the Trump agenda. What happens if he wins and really does do all this fascist bullshit he seems so happy to pontificate on? What happens when the problem is no longer abstract, but rather very very concrete.
My fear is, of course, that if Trump really does any of these bonkers things he says he wants to do that he will be “deposed” in some way. This makes me very nervous. I really don’t want such thing to happen because I hate violence of any sort.
But the key issue is — in general, we risk a lot of political instability in the United States over the next few months, regardless of who wins. Trump winning, however, could very well cause a severe reaction to the counter-revolution that Trump promises to implement if he is re-elected.
I’m kind of in a little bit of a period of reflection of late about the passion project novel I’ve been working on for a few years now. I know what I want to do and how I want to do it — but in a hazy, macro way. The specifics are really beginning to wear me down.
My heroine has a sleeve tattoo on her left arm like Megan Fox apparently does.
So, I’m doing what I always do in such situations — I’m doing a lot of daydreaming.
I hope to snap out of it sooner rather than later, but there is something else that is kind of causing me some problems — what happens after the 2024 election. It could be that I’m really, really over reacting and over thinking things. I do that a lot — that’s kind of my thing.
But, yet, even though I know that to be the case, I still find myself sort of locked up on a creative basis because I just don’t know what the state of the country will be in a few weeks. And, yet, just by writing about it in a blog post like this helps me a lot.
It is just going to take a little bit of time for me to figure out the specifics of how I’m going to improve the novel’s stakes. I’ve decided to use scifi to make the novel a lot more compelling. So, rather than just be a character study about a woman obsessed with owning a small town newspaper, a big chunk of the novel is going to be about some cool, timely scifi issues.
The aim is that doing so will really make the overall novel more compelling. While I really like what I’ve come up with already in regards to the novel, it seems possible the novel is a little TOO personal in nature. And that doesn’t even begin to address the most controversial element of the novel — the whole stripper issue.
I really like the stripper element to the novel, but whenever I mention that part of the novel to a prospective beta reader, they just blanch. But I believe if you actually read the novel and see that part of the novel in context that one won’t be turned off — too much.
But it’s because of things like that that I continue to be determined to work on a backup scifi novel as well, one that is pretty straightforward in its marketability. Yet, because of how different it is, it is taking me longer than I expected to get it off the ground.
The ultimate goal is to get something, anything finished to the point where I can query next fall. Wish me luck.
The signs are there for something pretty bad to happen post-election. I continue to see some very violent MAGA paraphernalia in the deep red part of Virginia where I live. It is enough to give one pause for thought if you combine it with everything else going on in a broader sense.
The key thing for me is what the reaction will be in states like Texas if Trump loses – even by a lot – and he starts to rant at the top of his lungs that the system is so fixed that the only option for them is a National Divorce. It definitely seems as though some states, probably starting with Texas, will take Trump up on the suggestion.
So, it doesn’t really matter if we really beat hard — what matters is if first, will Trump demand a National Divorce if he does lose and second, will anyone take him up on the demand? I say this in the context of there being ANOTHER problem — it could be that there will be some sort of certification shenanigans on the part of Republicans on a local basis.
If that happens and Trump somehow “wins” even though he clearly lost, then things might get far more messy — specifically, it might be very riled up Blues who decide to somehow “depose” Trump since he “win” would be totally illegitimate.
Let me note — I hate conflict and / or violence and just laying out in abstract form what might happen. I’m just really, really worried. My sense of general unease continues to linger the closer we get to the election. I can’t predict the future and have no idea how things will shake out, but it definitely feels like something pretty bad might happen at some point, starting after Election Day.
I continued to have a sense of unease about this fall and winter. I know I’ve been writing for years about this moment in time, but that doesn’t make it any easier to process.
It definitely seems as though this maybe be it. We’re going to find out, one way or another, if the USA is going to collapse in to civil war and / or revolution because of Trump or if his election in 2016 was something of a fluke and the high water mark of fascism in the country.
I just don’t know the answer at the moment, which is the source of all of my unease. I can already see it in my mind — Trump loses, demands a National Divorce and my state, Virginia, collapses into an intra-state civil war. I have to leave my home and, before you know it, I’m living in a refugee camp in up state New York or something.
Ugh.
Or, alternately, Trump *wins* and things get so bad that I have to figure out a way to get out of the country. This is a bit tricker because, well, I have no money. But maybe there will develop some sort of “Underground Railroad” for Blues who need to get out of the country or something.
Something like that.
I just don’t know. The whole thing puts me on edge. But, I suppose, we will all learn soon enough one way or another.
I don’t know what to tell you, but I definitely have a general sense of unease of late. I don’t quite know why. I think some of it comes from getting older and realizing that even if I somehow “made it big” overnight, I can never get the type of success I thought one day possible.
The context will just be totally different than the way I wanted when I was younger.
And that doesn’t even begin to address any number of things that could go wrong soon enough — especially in the context of what might happen as part of the 2024-post election season. Yikes!
Anyway. All I can do is just be the best person I can be, I suppose. And it seems as though the only people who read this blog are haters / and or stalkers of some sort.
I really do try to be the best person I can be. I can’t help it if you think I’m a weirdo.
If I was 20 years younger, I would probably be seriously interested in learning how to write screenplays. But, alas, barring something I totally can’t expect, that moment in my life is long past.
Yet, that doesn’t stop me from thinking up movie ideas.
One movie idea that I think would be pretty cool would be a movie that was the inverse of “Her,” where the AI was the aggressor. The AI pesters a man during the long, winding path towards it getting a Replicant-like body.
I think that would be pretty interesting.
Another movie idea would be one that would be a bit more dark. It would be about the practical implications of a man falling in love with an android with an LLM-type mind in it and how his family reacts to such a futureshock type thing.
Both of these ideas are pretty good, I think. But, like I said, I’m just too old to do anything with them. But I am still going to press forward with the novels I’m working on.
Even though I’m old, I’m not THAT old yet.
If I’m not a published author — in some way — by my late 50s then…oh boy, is that going to be existential. But I still have some time before that happens.
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