View source for 2024.12.29 Wrap-Up Free Write

[[category:2024 Rant]]
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A causual review of my update frequency would suggest that perhaps my heart isn't really in talking about what is going on in my world.  And that's probably fair, and politically adjacent.  Nevertheless, there have also been things to mention that either got edited out of existence or failed to make the jump to web publication due to other distractions.

With that generalized arm-waving excuse, here are wisps of thoughts that I have been having but not bothering to dredge enough words for.

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Way back in 2004 (ish), the very first version of [[Feeling_Machine_-_beta | The Feeling Machine]] had the Acolyte sections carefully refer to the character as "they/them".  This was long before the current uncoiling of pronouns, and it was an attempt at injecting a futuristic sense of otherness to one facet of the society so the degree of change could be felt.  Obviously, I didn't really predict that it would become a focus of society a scant two decades later.  As I re-read it for editing, it felt quite stilted.  But what really made me change it was reading [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Leckie Anne Leckie's] "Ancillary Justice" in 2013 where everyone was referred to as "she/her" and it felt so much better done than I had managed.  

So it goes.  But, just wanted to describe somehow that I've been wrangling with the complexity of gender identity in culture for a while on my own, and am not just a bandwagon-jumping progressive supporter.

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Amy and I actually had signed for getting an ID.Buzz - First edition, AWD, in the "energetic orange" that we like.  This was after bouncing from dealership to dealership where they've all been sold out.  We had even managed to swallow the bullshit "market adjustment" of 10k$ over MSRP.  But then things fell apart.

First was discovering that all the wrangling and deal-making we had done with the sales department didn't actually mean anything.  We had settled on a price/payment, based on flexing multiple variables the way we could, then they came back with the "real numbers from VW".  Totally irrespective of any of the numbers we had negotiated.  -sigh-  Fine.

Then was hours spent by the "papers guy" trying to get us to put less money down.  Why?  Because arm-waving about how money works for you - failing to grasp how we very much understood that our money-earning-money potential was almost certainly going to be less than the rate we we paying for financing the rest.  Then he repeatedly tried to sell us maintenance plans for things we neither wanted (coverage for things we didn't care about) or needed (a service contract for maintenance - on an EV).  

Finally, they unleashed one final gotcha - another 10k$ for the lease transferral.  Normally not a thing if you move directly to another, bigger lease deal.  But, because the market value of our current ID.4 is sucking balls, they don't want to eat that difference in depreciation.

So we noped out of that deal.  Got a message from the owner of the dealership to apologize and offered 5k$ off the deal, but fuck those guys.  We'll wait a bit and try to get one later in 2025 from Herzog-Meier, who had the only non-bullshit sales team and only 5k$ of market ankle-grabbing.

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Should I get another tattoo?  I've got my aging maple leaf on my left shoulder, and I'm thinking I should get something to match it on my left shoulder after I get my US citizenship - assuming I can get my US citizenship before it becomes trumpistan.

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Teaching Simon to drive taps into an incredibly deep well of mana.  It makes me laugh at how perfunctory my own driving training actually was.  I mean, dad did teach me some cool things, but the core fundamentals of driving were mostly intuited by virtue of my machine empathy rather than explained usefully.  Contemplating it, assuming that my memory isn't totally foreshortened with respect to my dad's direct input, I wonder if it was based on my dad having a lot of faith in my ability to "get it", or if he didn't actually know any of the fundamentals himself.

Totally aside from that, sitting with Simon as we train his extending proprioception to feel what the car and drivetrain are doing, I can feel the literal years I've spent being one with a vehicle being recognized and acknowledged inside myself.

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