ellenscult (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ellenscult) wrote2012-06-06 11:20 am
ellenscult) wrote2012-06-06 11:20 am
There's not a cloud to spoil the view
Had a nice quiet evening yesterday. I curled up on the sofa with Newton and did some knitting and we watched The Prestige. Got to bed at a reasonable hour, but alas not a good nights sleep. Dear Husband's back is causing him quite a lot of pain at the moment – yet another legacy from the years working for EvilCorpTM – so every time he turned over he woke up in a lot of pain, which woke me up, and it took him a while to get back to sleep again. So today is definitely a three cups of coffee day!
I dreamed about the things I can't do last night - running & jumping without (too much) fear or effort - almost parkour, I guess, though I've never been able to do that. I got caught by security this time, though I've done the same thing in the same setting in previous dreams and gotten away with it. Thanks, brain! Just what I want - my subconscious reminding me of the physical stuff I can't do any more, and then telling me I'd better not even try. Bah, humbug!
Since the UK is open for business again, today's a day of doing things. There's an appointment this afternoon, and then at teatime the dogs go for their dental checkup at the vets. Last year was fine, but this year we'll have Newton with us, which means he'll almost certainly throw up in the back of the car, and Planck has lost one of his little front teeth. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, fortunately, but we'll see what the vet says.
I'm trying out Dragon Dictate at the moment, to see if it helps with my writing and with my ME. It's actually a lot better than it used to be – I tried it out many many years ago when I bought my first Mac. Then, every time I said 'undo', it typed 'and doom'! This version, however, doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with my accent or my lisp. I still have to learn all the commands, though, for navigating around text I've dictated, and so on. And there's still a bit of training and correction to be done.
Still, it's interesting trying out a different way of working. When I write, as I'm thinking of what I want to type, what I want to see on the page, my fingers are busy typing away. And to a certain extent, this process bypasses the internal editor in my head. It's as if the words flow from the back of my head and out through my fingertips onto the screen with very little intervention from my conscious self. Dictating to the computer, however, feels completely different to me. I have to think of the words that I want to use and of the punctuation, and then I have to make the effort to say them. I'm aware this is actually using different parts of my brain, but it feels a little weird.
There's also the issue of speaking aloud. To those who know me, this may sound a little odd, because I'm never short of something to say! However, chattering away to myself, the dogs and anyone else who may be around is very different from dictating a piece of writing. To me, writing is something intensely personal, something private. The process of writing exposes parts of myself that I just don't show in public. So to me, the idea of a world like Star Trek in which everyone simply talks to their computer is pretty much the equivalent of everyone masturbating in public! It's not something that I think I could bring myself to do. In fact, I'd probably rather masturbate in public then dictate a piece of writing – first draft, straight from the back of my head – in public!
Fortunately, I guess, the medication my husband is on means that he is seldom up before lunchtime. So the mornings are left to me and the dogs. And the dogs don't care. Well, as long as I pay attention every now and again and make sure they have their breakfast!
I'm hoping it'll get easier with practice. I'm not entirely sure how well this will work, but I'm giving it a go, and I daresay I'll post again about this.
Anyway, thanks to yesterday evening's knitting, I have now completed 17 stripes (welts) on my jacket (5 rows to a stripe). Since the last row of every stripe decreases by 16 stitches, it's a lot quicker to do a row now than it was at the start – 385 stitches as opposed to 657! It's knitted in the round, in case you're wondering, and the circle forms the collar, sides and back. The sleeves are then knitted out of the middle. Sounds a little odd, but it works remarkably well.
State of my inbox today: somewhere around 85 e-mails. Ouch!
Today's reading:
I dreamed about the things I can't do last night - running & jumping without (too much) fear or effort - almost parkour, I guess, though I've never been able to do that. I got caught by security this time, though I've done the same thing in the same setting in previous dreams and gotten away with it. Thanks, brain! Just what I want - my subconscious reminding me of the physical stuff I can't do any more, and then telling me I'd better not even try. Bah, humbug!
Since the UK is open for business again, today's a day of doing things. There's an appointment this afternoon, and then at teatime the dogs go for their dental checkup at the vets. Last year was fine, but this year we'll have Newton with us, which means he'll almost certainly throw up in the back of the car, and Planck has lost one of his little front teeth. It doesn't seem to be bothering him, fortunately, but we'll see what the vet says.
I'm trying out Dragon Dictate at the moment, to see if it helps with my writing and with my ME. It's actually a lot better than it used to be – I tried it out many many years ago when I bought my first Mac. Then, every time I said 'undo', it typed 'and doom'! This version, however, doesn't seem to have too much of a problem with my accent or my lisp. I still have to learn all the commands, though, for navigating around text I've dictated, and so on. And there's still a bit of training and correction to be done.
Still, it's interesting trying out a different way of working. When I write, as I'm thinking of what I want to type, what I want to see on the page, my fingers are busy typing away. And to a certain extent, this process bypasses the internal editor in my head. It's as if the words flow from the back of my head and out through my fingertips onto the screen with very little intervention from my conscious self. Dictating to the computer, however, feels completely different to me. I have to think of the words that I want to use and of the punctuation, and then I have to make the effort to say them. I'm aware this is actually using different parts of my brain, but it feels a little weird.
There's also the issue of speaking aloud. To those who know me, this may sound a little odd, because I'm never short of something to say! However, chattering away to myself, the dogs and anyone else who may be around is very different from dictating a piece of writing. To me, writing is something intensely personal, something private. The process of writing exposes parts of myself that I just don't show in public. So to me, the idea of a world like Star Trek in which everyone simply talks to their computer is pretty much the equivalent of everyone masturbating in public! It's not something that I think I could bring myself to do. In fact, I'd probably rather masturbate in public then dictate a piece of writing – first draft, straight from the back of my head – in public!
Fortunately, I guess, the medication my husband is on means that he is seldom up before lunchtime. So the mornings are left to me and the dogs. And the dogs don't care. Well, as long as I pay attention every now and again and make sure they have their breakfast!
I'm hoping it'll get easier with practice. I'm not entirely sure how well this will work, but I'm giving it a go, and I daresay I'll post again about this.
Anyway, thanks to yesterday evening's knitting, I have now completed 17 stripes (welts) on my jacket (5 rows to a stripe). Since the last row of every stripe decreases by 16 stitches, it's a lot quicker to do a row now than it was at the start – 385 stitches as opposed to 657! It's knitted in the round, in case you're wondering, and the circle forms the collar, sides and back. The sleeves are then knitted out of the middle. Sounds a little odd, but it works remarkably well.
State of my inbox today: somewhere around 85 e-mails. Ouch!
Today's reading:
- Underlying Issues Ch11-12, by Krynnalexia. NCIS
- The Altruist and the Anachronism Ch54, by AssistedRealityInterface. Marvel Avengers.
- To Be a Man Ch3, by Cernicalo. The Sentinel
- Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum, by Mark Stevens
- The Traveler's Heart by ?. Harry Potter