There were checks to cash, clients to serve and of course, household matters to deal with; none of which Julia or I felt like getting out of bed to bother with. It’s not that we don’t like our house, work, or receiving income. We just would have preferred to stay frozen in that moment of awakening, “Comfortably intertwined together.”
But… With a concerted effort we managed to get our feet on the floor and get the ball rolling. So… Yeah… The checks did get cashed, the house got vacuumed at least, and our clients were taken care of all by 5:00 PM today.
I did most of the stuff, where the bank run and vacuuming was concerned; the stuff I needed to do for my customers going way quicker than I had anticipated, as well. Julia pretty much had sessions all day today, which, she did remotely, as planned with her clients in advance.
When she got done at around 4:30 PM, she took over the vacuuming; me having stayed away from the end of the house where our studies are so she would have peace and quiet during her sessions. The Oreck vacuum we have works really well. But… Um… “It’s a bit loud!”
But… All in all…
The day was a success. We did talk about Microsoft’s attempt to promote a gender-neutral social policy through the back door during the course of the evening; Julia noticing, as I did, that the spell checker in Microsoft Word had been recently programmed to warn folks when they were writing stuff in a gender bias manner.
I think Julia expressed both our sentiments quite nicely when she said, “Such bullshit. Which LGBTQ and straight men or women did Satya Nadella have his folks at Microsoft seek input from before he gave his Microsoft programmers the green light to go ahead to attempt to highjack the English language to shove the social agenda of a select few down the throats of the many? Since when does this moron of a CEO get to play politics with us all based on the input from a self-centered few who are just as intolerant as they accuse everyone else of being? And what about the all-inclusive language regarding folks with disabilities? What did Satya Nadella instruct his people to do about that?”
I nodded as Julia finished speaking and she got out of the living room recliner and came over to sit with me on the couch. She then slipped an arm around me saying, “Sometimes I’m amazed at how calm you are. I would have thought you would have been seething with fury inside when you realized what Microsoft Word had been programmed to do. Or maybe you were, and I just didn’t catch it?”
“Years ago, I probably would have written Microsoft a scathing letter about what they were doing because what they are actually promoting is helping people appear to be on paper something they are not and will never be in reality,” I said softly. I then pulled Julia closed to me and kissed her lightly.
Then she asked me gently, “And now? How do you feel about it all now?”
I smiled and looked directly into her eyes as I spoke. “Slightly irritated.”
“That’s it?” Julia said in amazement. “You’re only slightly irritated?”
I laughed at that point saying, “Well… I’ve grown in a way that most people on the face of this planet never will. Not even Satya Nadella would understand my stance on matters of gender neutrality and all-inclusive language because he’s tasked with making Microsoft money and helping bigots run corporations at a higher profit margin. You can’t make money in a society that seeks to profit socially and financially from their gender, sexual orientation, color, etc. So, Microsoft has bought into the game, seeking to help folks write in a manner that conceals who they are as a person on paper to avoid expensive litigation. But it is a dangerous for-profit game to be playing because it isn’t about equality at all. It is about power. But you can’t tell them that because they’ve already drank too much of the Cool-Aid.”
Julia ran her fingers through my hair as she asked, “So why only irritated then? What changed in you that enables you to feel nothing more than an irritation about what Microsoft and others are attempting to do to our society as a whole?”
I then laughed softly. I felt Julia shiver slightly at the sound of it. I then finally spoke, weighing every word as I did so, saying, “Something that I can use to sneak through the back door with too when it is necessary.”
“Remote Influencing and Remote Viewing,” she said quietly. And then… After pausing for a long moment, she took a deep breath and said, “Or, in a word, magic.”