That word – along with other qualifiers like maybe and perhaps – make it into my notes a lot. Like I can’t make it an absolute for some reason. Always and never are rarely in there. I wonder, occasionally (See?), if that is so I can maneuver in a world or a story that I haven’t gotten into very well just yet.

I’ve been noticing it, so it might also be changing. Change is like that. You see it, you decide whether or not to keep it. Self-awareness can be that trigger for a new habit, or to break an old one.

Not everyone works that way. I notice, and I watch them. I was gifted Harriet the Spy when I was about seven years old, and I loved that book. I think that might have been a reason why I couldn’t be found without a notebook for, like, well, all my life. Paper and a pen are usually at hand, even when I have moved many of my writing activities into more digital formats.

That, at least, is not a habit I’m trying to break. Paper and pen are useful, even though we have hand-held computing devices barely imaginable in my childhood. A smart phone is one thing, and paper allows imagination in an entirely different way.

I read this meme on Holly Jahangiri’s FB page, and it’s spot-on. And then I wonder, we take away the humanity of so many people through stereotypes, slurs, and villainization. Yet we give it to Alix AI as if it deserves it when other humans don’t. There’s a story in this for me somewhere, but it hasn’t come out yet.