Back To The Futurism

I’ve made thousands of dollars predicting the future. Some of my predictions came true while others failed – make enough of them and you’ll be able to say likewise.

I stopped doing most of it around the turn of the century, confining my predictions to fictional portrayals of future Earth. I went through an alignment change, from Chaotic Neutral to Lawful Neutral. I worked for trial lawyers in the daytime, configuring the computers and training the staff and summarizing the depositions. I’ve spent my career around trial lawyers, starting as a secretary and bouncing around doing paralegal, IT, and clerical tasks. I was director of technology at my last job, and now I do convoluted stuff involving databases and marketing. Not bad for a kid with a disrupted education who never graduated from anything.

I have noticed that the future prediction market has picked up sufficiently since I made my exit, so I’ve been pondering a comeback. Most of the predictions I wrote had to do with an astrology column that ran in alternative newsweeklies back in the ‘90s. Lots of them, including the Voice, and as far away as New Zealand. I dispensed standard boomer platitudes laced with Gen X sarcasm, and occasionally went completely off the rails with coded messages and Simpsons type jokes (I was a huge fan of early Simpsons).

Arcane forms of fortune telling were just part of my future obsession. I also dig science fiction. Just not all of it. Star Trek never rang my chimes, and superheroes do nothing for me but I could cheerfully live in the Star Wars universe. I started listing SF novels and writers that I adore but the list got long, so I’ll do that somewhere else.

And then there was the MBA form of fortune telling where I made my daily bread: civil trials. Will the jury side with the small business guy or the little old lady customer? Do they favor the truck driver or the pedestrian, the doctor or the patient, the smooth corporate guy or the stammering laborer? Whether they call it risk management or claims adjusting or dispute resolution, it’s basically about number crunchers trying to solve a disagreement for cheap by predicting the future, based on precedent data.

That’s basically what got us here, you understand. All those consultants, shaving off a few pennies here and there. Number crunchers at the top, figuring out how to run businesses lean and plunder their assets. Predators at the bottom, figuring out novel ways to shave a few cents from each of your paychecks, deny a few more claims, narrow those margins.

I stopped making predictions. I did make one last one, a fairly significant yet private one, the most important prediction I’ll ever make, a couple decades ago. In a way I feel strangely relieved and vindicated by the Trump presidency. Yep, saw that coming. I’ve recently unfriended some relatives over it, and I thought I’d do a longer blog post explaining why, among other things.

I’m basically a wordy verbose hyperlexic woman who is compelled to produce mountains of text, and I was born that way. After I quit predicting the future I moved to multiplayer online for a while before starting to crank out science fiction novels that were sort of doomed by virtue of being written during a time when reading was at an all-time low, and the market was dominated by big corporations selling books-as-furnishings next to their espresso cafes.

I started out with a few YA stories and during the pandemic, I wrote a couple of horror novels. None of it is terrible, but none of it succeeded, although a few polite friends bought copies and left reviews. My goal was to see if I could develop a small following as an indie writer before going for corporate publishing, but I never got to that stage.

A lot of the blame has to do with me being commitment-phobic with my own persona. It took me forever to figure out what I wanted to write in public fiction with my real name on it. Astrology was kind of spooky but science fiction is slightly more respectable, maybe a little bit goofy and eccentric but acceptable, and my profile photos from those days have a Peter Pan quality. My horror novel profile looks very prim and mournful, and I remember feeling sad about being locked into that kind of appearance as long as I keep writing horror. I like grim gothy stuff, but that’s only a small part of me. I have a horror of being locked into some prior phase, like a band whose audiences mostly want to hear that song they recorded when they were all teenagers. Or a writer who is forever chained to the same genre as their breakthrough story.

After my last horror novel I had neck surgery, which is slowly alleviating a chronic pain condition I had developed. It was the sort of thing that built up slowly over the years, I was developing arthritis spurs that were slicing into my discs, and by the time I went under the knife I was fused. I’ve spent the last six months learning how to move my neck again, undergoing physical therapy and burning off some of the fat that accumulated during the period where I had difficulty moving around.

I spent basically the teens unable to do much on a physical level besides type. That didn’t prevent me from getting things done, but it limited the types of things. I pulled off all kinds of astonishing achievements in World of Warcraft, wrote several novels, cultivated various social media profiles.

Wrote, and deleted, so many blog entries. There was a period where I was reviewing other media – movies, award nominees, watching all the superhero movies back-to-back. I went through a K-Pop phase, and played with the idea of bringing potential readers by writing about music.

I went through my identity politics phase where I was diagnosing myself as various flavors of neurodiverse – while there may be something to that theory, diagnosing me is problematic. I used to transcribe neuropsych exams for lawyers relating to injury claims, and I am way too familiar with most of the tests. So these days I’ll cop to being gifted, which is the only one of my neurotypes that is documented; I have an IQ in the mid-160s (163 a couple times, 165 a couple times). Although I definitely have a few traits that fall within the autism/ADHD universe, I wouldn’t consider myself disabled (pre-neck fusion anyway). Quite unusual, odd even, but not handicapped. I have glaring deficits in some things (socializing) and I’m overpowered in other ways.

My biggest eccentricity has to do with retro sensibilities. I like living in a walkable city where I don’t need a car. I like trains, streetcars, buses, and the new robot cars currently cruising through my city. I prefer live music to television. Even with my currently limited diet, I’m a foodie and I enjoy having lots of culinary options. I subscribe to all those theories about cities and sustainability. I probably would’ve been a lot happier living my life someplace like London or Tokyo or even New York City, but San Francisco suits me best and I’ve been here for thirty years, most of them in the same apartment. Half my life.

I have a few other retro sensibilities related to food, since I’ve had chronic tummy issues most of my life and react to lots of things. Right now my diet is mostly Kind bars, yogurt and chicken following a year of assorted infections and reactions, not to mention having my neck anatomy rearranged. I also don’t like overly bright malls full of outgassing plastic products, preferring to buy my stuff at the neighborhood hardware store that’s been in business a hundred years. I don’t like cars. I can’t stand most Hollywood product and I'll leave a place that has a blaring TV. 

When I was writing my science fiction trilogy that takes place in 3749, it was tempting to blather about how humans would “evolve” to become something other than what they are. I was not operating on that premise. Rather, I had a list of what anthropologists call “cultural constants” – features that are found in every human culture. Like music. Separate music for children. Holidays. Courting. Religion. I projected all of that onto a future where every forecasted disaster had already come true with regard to climate change, but there were still people, celebrating holidays, flirting, and listening to music (I did include churches but didn’t delve deeply into what went on in them, other than implying yes, religion survived).

I remember watching a documentary about the ancient world, where archeologists were examining the apartment of someone who lived in a big city (can’t recall whether it was Egyptian or Babylonian or what), and had a job as a scribe. And lived in an apartment full of writing utensils and books, and ate takeout food. They didn’t know if the scribe was male or female, might have been either. The scribe probably became literate due to a privileged background, but there were also poor kids who learned from the church and rose to the socioeconomic class of “single people who live in the city doing bureaucratic jobs and eat takeout.” I immediately decided this was the lifestyle for me.

In fact, that’s the whole reason I’m here today. My second computer, which is dedicated to running World of Warcraft, is refusing to accept an external monitor today. My third computer will arrive Monday. My first computer (this one) was deliberately purchased with a small hard drive, so that I can’t play games on it – just writing, and music, and internettery. Since I have a choice between peering at my laptop monitor to do my fishing dailies or typing stuff on my blog, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.

I’ve had a few false starts at novels since the last horror tale, and I’m a little ways into writing a “rock star in space” kind of novel, but the creativity is really not flowing of late. I’ve thought of resurrecting my astrology business, because a lot of people are feeling very fatalistic about the future right now and I might as well separate them from their money while they’re too depressed to have better judgment. But that’s dishonest, and I’m lawful now, so I only tell lies when they’re explicitly marked as fiction.

Instead, I thought I’d just start a stream of consciousness blog about living in San Francisco after Donald Trump won his second term, during a time of intense upheaval. Because I am a person who lives in a city while ordering takeout and typing, and making words is what I do. And the novel-writing business has tanked, and the fortune-telling business just attracts superstitious clingy people – not something that interests me right now. My novel isn't flowing, and my therapist suggested journaling.

In a certain way, I feel like the Berlin Wall has fallen. A month or so ago, I lived in a world where if you said something like “there are an awful lot of misogynists, maybe we shouldn’t run a woman candidate during a high stakes election again like we did that other time” you’d get shut down by people screaming at you to shuddup and eat your broccoli. But I feel like I can say a thing like that now. Or even more controversial things, like “maybe focusing on individual expression in the form of identity politics led to an erosion of interest in collective solutions.”

I’m not sure if I’m undergoing another alignment change, but I am definitely undergoing some transformation, so I think I’ll keep track of it here and keep everyone posted on how the Age of Aquarius transition (November 20^th) is going in San Francisco, California. Since I don’t seem to be in the mood to focus on fiction, or tell more lies for that matter.

I also have no interest in finger-wagging, blaming or anything like that. If I, a liberal woman well-versed in feminist thought, find that kind of tone grating, the misogynists among us must find it unbearably caustic. I’ve pointedly avoided gathering with feminists for the last couple decades, because I always get accused of thought crimes for things like fact-checking statistics or watching the wrong TV shows (the most recent was “disagreeing with Billie Eilish”). I tend to fail purity tests. So I’ve been sitting back on the sidelines, watching the rest of them fight nonstop battles over naughty words and unbecoming behavior.

(Right now I’ve got a couple of them denouncing me as a republican in a Facebook group because I commented that the stern-scolding meme they posted was unlikely to convert any misogynists.)

I haven’t been outside much since Election Day. Which I spent at a K-Pop concert (Seventeen), getting bombarded with delightful rhythms and lights. I’ve been wallowing in live music ever since it returned post-pandemic, and I’ve even got an Instagram for the patch-encrusted coat I wear to shows (@concertcommandocoat).

I adore K-Pop and have been listening to tons of it since the pandemic. My music computer did an unrecoverable fail one month into lockdown, and it was easier to just get into a whole new music genre rather than replace all my moldy classic rock in yet another format. K-Pop is helping alleviate a certain zero-representation problem in the American music industry, and the best part is I can’t understand very much Korean, so I have no idea what they’re saying. I have a few blank spots with popular music over the last couple decades because I haven’t really liked American music (sorry Swifties, Phish fans, etc.), and it’s nice to be interested in new releases again.

Normally when I come back from an Oakland show I get out at Embarcadero BART and call a Lyft, but this time I was hungry and decided to be a bad girl and stop by Bob’s Donuts. I try to avoid sugar. For a while I was letting myself have a sugary treat every month, but then I got to the point where I was skipping months, so now it’s a “whenever” kind of situation. So I hopped on the 1 California and rode it to Polk Street, along with a few gloomy-looking San Franciscans.

We all ride the bus here. It’s a small town, full of steep hills. A lot of us have cars but don’t mind hopping on the city bus if we’re just going a few blocks. I don’t, but I’m one of those low-carbon fanatics. It makes up for refusing to sort out my recycling from my compost, or stop eating meat.

A woman on the bus stood up to reassure us, at one point, that Kamala still needed our happy thoughts. I had peeked at my phone a little ways into the concert and saw Trump leading, which made me sad, but then later I saw Kamala leading, which lifted my spirits. I was intending to avoid the news until the morning, assuming it would be close.

I don’t know Kamala personally. When I worked for trial lawyers, she was the DA, and occasionally she interacted with my co-workers. I voted for her because she comes from my world, one that I understand: the San Francisco legal community. If you can do well there, you’re the sort of person who can think on your feet.

I’ve never liked Trump. I’m hoping he’ll earn my grudging respect by not doing excessive damage to this country during his second round, but I’m feeling pessimistic. Not as pessimistic as some of my social media friends, who are assuming he’ll throw us all in camps by February. In fact, I’m planning to travel to Chicago and New York in February, just to give myself something to look forward to.

For the last several years I’ve been a one-issue voter. Universal healthcare or GTFO. I was an Original Green but I couldn’t handle all the eco-fascism basically, the complaints about overpopulation, and about brown people hunting cute animals. So I moved to an all-or-nothing view on UHC, assuming that if it ever passed, I would pick a new issue. Until then, I’ve been considering everything else a distraction. My assumption was that once everyone got their chronic pain and depression treated, they’d realize it’s a good idea to move on to caring about the environment.

Kamala was the one candidate who finally promised it. She got my vote. Hillary got my vote too, although I hated every broccoli-eating minute of it. I remember having an epic argument with my asshole ex-husband about whether her cigar-dipping Epstein-befriending husband was an asshole. I remember other arguments about whether it was wise to inflict an unpopular candidate like Hillary on the voters, and being told to shut up, she was too popular, the real unpopular people are the ones who don’t agree she’s awesome. And that was true, at that time. I was very unpopular because I disagreed with her awesomeness. But I voted for her anyway, because she was more likely to lead to UHC.

I got to Bob’s Donuts where I ordered a glazed buttermilk bar, to go. It was still warm. As I walked out, I passed three young dudes in their twenties. One had a GWAR shirt which I very nearly admired. They were talking about Big Daddy Trump.

I got home, made myself a Keurig of pumpkin-spice coffee to go with my buttermilk bar and sat down. I couldn’t finish the thing but it was delicious, and as I was getting up to toss my leftovers out before I could reconsider and eat them, I heard a loud wailing from outside.

I went to the window and saw a woman, across the street. Long gray hair, sitting on the sidewalk. Wailing like an Irish banshee. My first thought was whether she was injured, possibly mugged or hit by a car, and I would’ve called for help if that had been the case. But then she began wailing about nooo, this was terrible, for women, for everyone. So I fired up the computer and took a look at the news. Yup, Trump victory. And I felt hollow, because it was something I had bet on, years ago.

That was Tuesday night. Today is Saturday, and I’m feeling ill. I wanted to go to the memorial service for Steve Silberman, author of a terrific book called NeuroTribes, who was kind of a peripheral acquaintance, neighbor, and fellow music fan. It happened earlier today, but the sniffle I noticed when I was in the office on Thursday progressed to a fever yesterday, and today I’m way under the weather. I haven’t done a covid test yet but eventually I will. It feels more like your standard garden variety flu, and I must have caught it at the concert. It’s not nice to give grieving people an illness on top of their grief, so I stayed home.

Where my rotten lousy slacker computer is refusing to engage with my monitors. I just ran some updates to see if that makes it happy enough to do my fishing quest in Hallowfall. After ordering a new computer, and wondering if I should get a second before tariffs kick in.