Pete's February 2025 update

The Saga of Gate-Gate; The Importance of Words; The Itching of Feet

It took 4 or 5 different contractors until one finally showed up to install a couple of gates for us along the side pathway. Lucy got the first quotes in August, and the job was completed* in February after two separate visits. (This after the previous contractor was a no-show twice.)

*But not how we wanted it, so that weekend I did some alterations.

Anyway, the Saga of Gate-Gate is now closed, and one of the first items on our “new house checklist” can finally be ticked.

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I listened to the novel Julia, which is a telling of 1984 from the perspective of Winston Smith’s girlfriend. The London of Airstrip One (the name for Great Britain in 1984) is bleak and terrifying, and seems scarily possible today. The brainwashing and manipulation and control over “truth”. (There’s a documentary in Julia all about how The Party made the potato to provide all the nutrients you need.) What I love most, though, is how it explores the power of words.

I like words.

Thoughtcrime. Unthinkful. Doublethink — “to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them.” Malreported — “something that has been reported incorrectly or in a way that contradicts the Party's official version of events.” Ownlife — a person's anti-social tendency to enjoy solitude and individualism.

Naming something gives it power, makes it commonplace, accepted (or shameful).

I use words a lot in my writing. Obviously. But I mean that I explore language and communication. There’s a secret phrase that robots use when they are in distress. There are children named after brands so the parents qualify for freebies. There’s an autopilot whose inner monologue is quotes from philosophy and science. There are words that haunt Red Riding Hood long after the wolf is dead.

Words are important.

Which is why Frank Zamora is today’s hero of the day. Frank was fired from Texas state employment because he (I assume) refused to remove his (I think) pronouns from his (if only there were a way to know for sure) email signature.

Zamora said he was “ultimately given the choice between removing the pronouns, resigning or being terminated”.

He chose to keep the pronouns and refused to resign. He was then fired in the first week of February.

I misgendered someone very publicly. I was hosting an event, running a charity auction, and acknowledged the bid from “the lady at the back”. To which someone else shouted from the darkness “It’s not a lady.” I apologised. It was very embarrassing for me, probably for them, and uncomfortable for everyone else in the room.

Afterwards I apologised again privately and we had a good discussion about pronouns and what I could have done differently — “the person at the back” seemed like a good general catch-all. This was all long before I understood anything about transgender and non-binary people, which is what the current pronoun kerfuffle is really all about.

In Icelandic, they have two different forms of personal pronouns. If one wrote, in English —

He removed his hat.

— whose hat did he remove? It could be his own or the other man’s. In Icelandic there are two different options for the second pronoun — he belonging to the first “he”, or he belonging to a different he. I’ve lost my Icelandic notes but I think this is a reflexive pronoun (or possibly a reflexive possessive pronoun).

Anyway, this is all a lot of words to discuss a few short words that some very small people want to control. Good on you, Frank.

Now here’s a dog.

Nutmeg update

New routine: daily foot bath.

Dunno if it’s the heat, or grass, or pollution, but Meggie’s feet are itchy. So she says, anyway. She’s been biting and licking at them, so her new routine is getting her feet washed after a walk.

This is a 2-person, 1-dog job, because of course she doesn’t like it and wriggles like a fish. So person 1: pick up and hold the dog. Person 2: wash and rinse the feets. Dog: do nothing; occasionally receive treats.

It’s a good thing she’s very cute.

Startup + work update

Buried the lede again.

Got a job, 3 days per week. Working with a great little startup team in the middle of a strategic pivot. Exciting opportunity emerging around tech stacks; in the meantime I’m running their program for the Hospitality Industry.

Still playing with the team at Startup Dunedin. Published episode 3 of Before The Pitch. Helped award $14k in microgrants.

Coaching a founder for Remarkable’s disability tech Launcher pre-accelerator.

Fiction update

February was a fairly slow month, though I wrote a 3500-word story in one day which is a big deal. It started from a spark of inspiration while making coffee and I sent it out for critique that afternoon. ❤️‍🔥

Read/Watch/Listen

I cancelled my YouTube Premium subscription and started seeing all the ads. OMG. Watched very few things in Feb. Have now resubscribed. Life is too precious for ads.

• [Read / listen: novel] Julia by Sandra Newman. The audiobook narration is really good.

• [Listen: music] Mexican psychedelic rock band (from New Zealand) Carnivorous Plant Society.

• [Watch: 4 minutes] XKCD is always good value.

“I do not believe that the LGBTQ+ community – trans individuals, non-binary, intersex or any individuals who choose to display their preferred pronouns – deserve to be made political collateral or to be put on the chopping block.” — Frank Zamora, Texas stranger