Love in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

And the award for coolest book title of 2017 goes to this debut novel by Judd Trichter! ISBN 9781250036025 I finished it yesterday -- I'm a bit of a sucker for debut novels, for they're usually good indicators of where the author's going to go with any future work regardless of genre and whether or not they visit that same fictional world again. In this case, in a late 21st century USA where androids have become as ubiquitous as regular humans, called heartbeats for obvious reasons, the son of the man who proposed (from what I remember, I'll have to check my notes again, the advantages and disadvantages of introducing mass-produced, self-aware automatons) introducing androids into a depleted workforce is about to take his girlfriend with him to an island sanctuary where a love such as theirs can be pursued free of governmental intrusion and societal opprobrium.

Eliot Lazar is the human. Iris Matsuo is the android.

And when Eliot is on his way to take Iris with him to this island sanctuary, he finds out that she's been chopped up for parts. In order to get the 'real' Iris back, Eliot uses all the resources he can to find her parts and put them back together. One of the tag lines in the book jacket asks what you'll give up and how far you'll go to save whomever or whatever it is you love. (And using the logic of Q from Star Trek: The Next Generation's final episode "All Good Things", I just realized that's two questions. But it's NOT a Romulan plot nor is it a ploy to start a war.) I must admit, at least at my current stage of development, that it's hard to imagine how far I would go in that regard. But then, if Martha or the kids broke apart I imagine it's not as easy as finding their parts in other people.

Unless they've chosen to be organ donors. And their users then might fight me for them.

Week nine of my time at Trinity Health has come to an end today, and it's been a roller coaster for me. But now I'm realizing that some of my co-workers' (and it's still a leap for me to realize I have co-workers I'm with the whole day, as opposed to Fast Cash where I picked up the money at Dakota Pawn and then was by myself the whole day, with the occasional customer) frustration is not so much with me as it is being not up to full strength. Apparently the warehouse where I work has been short handed for quite a few months, and even the mildest tempers will flare. My threshold for holding my tongue especially as I'm the "new kid on the block" has really improved the last few weeks.

And I am getting faster counting and putting med supplies away! Ask ... just about anybody.

No, I did not hit the dumpster when I backed into Trinity Hospital's loading dock deliberately Wednesday! True, I'm not allowed to drive the truck for awhile due to some (to me) minor cosmetic damage, but I see their point of view ... and I think I felt worse about it than my supervisors  did. As it is, today I wasn't feeling like crap about my performance -- this week's been up and down for me that way and I've had to fight the urge to clock out and not come back once or twice. But I doubt I'm unusual in that regard!

Thursday especially. It felt like nothing could go right Thursday.

Sarah and Jeffrey are getting back into the swing of school again! I'm especially proud of Sarah for not putting off homework, and Jeffrey for not hesitating to practice his trombone ... that is, when our son is not wheezing and coughing like he has been the last few days. And Sarah already had Wednesday off this week -- Martha had to pick her up about an hour after she'd gotten to school because (we think) she was so worked up over gym she made herself sick.

Hey, I wasn't thrilled to death about gym when I was her age either!

But we all have our growing pains, 

David