Ramblings
a few of the many things that have been on my mind of late
This past weekend was Pride weekend in Seattle, and in the lead-up last week, I’ve been particularly busy. Let me share a few brief thoughts, and then I will have a more substantial newsletter next week.
Last week marked a few personally historical events. Despite the atrocious Supreme Court rulings read out last week, looking back twelve and ten years ago, two rulings created milestones for the queer community.
In 2013, in the case Windsor v. United States, the Supreme Court overruled Article 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act. That article effectively blocked same-sex marriage partners from all federal benefits, including the ability to file for a green card for a same-sex non-citizen spouse. Windsor v. United States directly affected Hiro and me. When NPR commentators shared that ruling on the morning of June 26, 2013, I stood up from my desk, walked down the hall in our home in Burnaby, British Columbia, and made an announcement of my own. After being engaged since 2006, the time had come for our marriage. Less than two weeks later, on July 7, 2013, we were wed. Hiro’s green card application was filed a few months after that.
In 2015, also on June 26, its Supreme Court ruled in Obergfell v. Hodges that states could not prohibit same-sex marriage. What had been a patchwork of different systems to foster marriage equality, varying from state to state, suddenly became one law for the entire country. Hiro and I had married in Canada, where we had been living since 2006, and were just on the brink of receiving his green card when that ruling was read out. But even from our home in Burnaby, we could hear the cries of joy from our queer siblings south of the border.
A few writing colleagues have been talking about the use of generative AI for marketing copy. To be clear, no one I know advocates for the use of generative AI to write nonfiction or fiction, but I was incensed—I am one of those people who consider generative AI a theft engine designed to make money for billionaires by eliminating jobs most writers (and translators and artists) rely on.
Last Sunday, June 22, I penned a 2,000-word review of the history of generative AI, a technology that had its start in the telegraph age. (I know, right?) I also included my personal history of interactions with generative AI, including the comical results from the early days of machine translation, during the 1990s.
I’m thinking about a home for this essay; if any of my readers have a suggestion, I’m all ears!
I received another personalized rejection from an agent last week. She loved the synopsis for Crying in a Foreign Language, my memoir’s manuscript, but she felt that the manuscript needed a developmental edit.
Also last week, I finished reading Melissa Febos’ The Dry Season. I am reviewing the book for Hippocampus, and I won’t give away anything, but I will say that the way Melissa Febos writes her researched, lyric memoirs is very inspiring. When mentally combined with my two recent agent rejections, part of me is considering another manuscript rewrite. Maybe after a developmental edit, when I can afford one.
When Hiro and I retire and return to Japan sometime within the next five years—fingers crossed—one goal is to establish a small tour guide service that would allow us to introduce travellers to Japan to places we love in Kyōto and its environs. On a related note, I belong to a Japanese-language group on Facebook where members share photos from the different shrines and temples they’ve visited.
Whenever someone in that chat shares a visit to a shrine or temple I’ve not been—and I suspect I’ve only been to less than one percent of the thousands of shrines and temples dotted across Japan—I search for it in Apple Maps. Once I locate it, I zoom in to study the area in greater detail. Are there more nearby shrines and temples? What about hotels and train stations? Other potential attractions? Each map visit is a small rabbit hole in which I get lost in dreaming about the lives Hiro and I would live, and share with others, once we’re back home in the country where we met.
