The Band, The Music, The Dance.

The Lonely Side of Salad: Writing Half of ‘Arugula’

Warning - This post will have heavy spoilers for Episode 44 of Greater Boston (Arugula).

Before the start of pandemic I was thinking about changing jobs. I had worked at the same college for nearly fifteen years. I loved it but things were beginning to wear on me in ways that were continuously frustrating. Then the pandemic grew to the point where quarantining was necessary and I found myself working from home, sitting next to my daughter, logging her on to Zoom kindergarten every morning. We did YouTube Yoga. I helped her learn how to ride her bike wearing masks in a nearby church parking lot. We even made a storytelling podcast. 

Then my college started rumbling about financial shortfalls. They laid off my boss. They promoted me and then told me I had to help layoff 12 people. Then a job I had applied for before the pandemic hit reached out and asked me if I was interested. I interviewed and got the job and was so distraught about what was happening at my current college that I accepted. 

I started a new job in June of 2020. I can not begin to explain to you how strange this was. We had meetings every morning to discuss what initiatives we were working on. I panicked about this every day. I was new. I didn’t have any initiatives. Nobody was talking to me. I’d get the occasional email, the odd request. But days would go by with no feedback from my boss or colleagues. I sat at home refreshing email and literally trying to Google what I should be doing for work. 

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ignorance brings hate

In light of recent events, I would like to remind everyone that the correct pro choice talking point that will actually pull people to our side is NOT whether a fetus is human or not because you'll never win. The correct argument is how the state should never have the power to force you to give up physical autonomy for the sake of any other being.

Everything is like “QUEER history” and “List of QUEER young adult books” or “Top 10 QUEER movies” and queer this and queer that and for the love of god please just say LGBT.

With Three and the potential for more SecUnit characters, I think we are all excited for ones with very different quirks and interests than our Murderbot.

My thought: SecUnits don't have a digestive track, but they have a sense of smell, and it is unclear if they have taste buds. I would propose they likely do, because their mouths seems to be organic (although I have some questions about how that works in regards to saliva. I have many questions about how secunits work but I respect Martha Wells' decision not to tell us) and I can't think of a reason to reduce the ability to taste.

My idea: a SecUnit who is a foodie. It gets really into the TASTE of food. It either licks the food or chews it and spits it out. It gets really excited to try new restaurants with friends and never acknowledges the weirdness of how it interacts with food.

I just imagine the horror and amusement on the faces of its dining companions as it just excitedly licks a very nice steak or something.

This probably sounds obvious, but I learned today that prisoners aren't protected by OSHA regulations, and that this is another reason why employers are so eager to utilize this modern slavery. It's only a couple cents an hour, less transportation costs than the overseas sweatshops, and if you want people to work with hazardous materials without proper training? That's fine too! Prison labor is the ultimate free market solution!

People make jokes about poorly made podcasts and how common it is now for people to try and make one but honestly I love a medium that any one can try. I love badly recorded audio. I love using a comforter or a closet as a sound booth. I love getting your friends together to make a low budget project. I love people being able to include more representation without having to go through the intensive process it might take to get characters and scenes approved in other mediums.