Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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So yesterday’s quote from Followers was funny, but today’s is sobering. On page 166, a person in 2051 is speaking with a robot name Mateo at an archive who offers her earphones so she can listen to the audio portion of a video. Most people in 2051 have devices embedded on their bodies by the time they’re seven, so they would have no trouble hearing the audio sans earphones. This person, on the other hand, does not have a device and asks about the earphones.

Mateo nodded. “The Archive currently uses them for our guests younger than seven, and our guests whose income indicates that they live below the information line,” it said. “In other words, our guests who do not have devices.”

Which, of course, is a scenario that plays out in our world daily. In many cases, despite the best efforts of schools and libraries, the poverty line IS the information line. How can you keep up with the flow of information if you can’t afford to access it? And accessing information, in the here and now, involves a computer or digital device. It’s sobering how many assumptions are made about access. That everyone will be reachable or be able to access information online, whether they’re at work/school or home.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

I just read a truly stunningly fantastic book, Followers by Megan Angelo, and I need to unpack some of the thoughts in there–the deep ones and the not-quite-so-deep ones (like today’s)–completely spoiler-free. So dive in with me, yes?

All you need to know is that Followers moves back and forth between 2015, which is just like the real 2015, and 2051, which is a future society where some people’s lives are televised 24/7, like The Truman Show.

The first quote was just funny, but once I stopped to think about it… I really couldn’t make sense of Twitter. It’s someone from 2051 reflecting on what life was like back in the olden days. On page 112, Marlow visits a nursing-home-like place and encounters a man there:

“I was Twitter-famous,” one of the old men croaked at her, glaring, and Marlow just nodded and smiled, pretending to be impressed. She had never quite understood Twitter, through ***** still talked about it like a dead, beloved friend. Short messages, but to everyone, mostly pointless, with blatant lies allowed–Marlow could not imagine what had been the appeal.

[See, really, no spoilers. I even blotted out the person’s name with asterisks so you won’t know the connection between characters before it happens in the book.]

I laughed reading the lines, but then I thought about it. Why do we go on Twitter? It’s not a great space for unpacking big feelings, unlike a blog. Anyone can read it, unlike Facebook. It’s mostly pointless, again, unlike a blog. And blatant lies are allowed by the platform itself… how is it even a helpful source for information?

I don’t spend a lot of time on Twitter. I pop on to get questions answered (eg. is a site down for everyone else, or is it just me?) and sometimes to post a thought so I don’t lose it. It’s not my favourite platform. Though, I guess, you could break down every other internet space–including blogs–by similarly stark observations and wonder why we spend so much time online.

Do you like Twitter?

Remember many years ago when some of us read Baby Trail as part of the online book club? Sinead Moriarty followed up that IF book with three more, all based on her own, first-hand experience with family building, and all are now available on Kindle. For some reason, they’re not looped in with the paper book’s listing, but you can get the first one for free today.

The offer goes from the 5th to the 9th.

Happy reading!

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Vacances” (Des méandres aux étoiles)
• “Happy for a Friend” (By the Brooke)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Infertile Phoenix sums up life after several difficult events perfectly with these lines: “I’m glad to be where I am. It required me to do a shitload of work though. It demanded a willingness to carry a very deep pain for a very long time. But the load has gotten lighter.” It’s not that things are perfect. It’s not that it all goes away. But the load is lighter. It’s what we hope we find in the future.

Kmina’s Blog has a moving post on 02.20.2020 about a roller coaster of pregnancy and loss. I love this line: “There are flickers of light and hope in the world, but gosh, do they need work to keep alive.” Keeping you in my heart, and glad to hear your voice again, Kmina.

Finally, I also bookmarked By the Brooke’s post, “Happy for a Friend.” I love that it validates all the feelings: the happiness for a friend, the jealousy, the anger. We’re complex people and we have complex feelings. She asks fantastic questions in the post that will get you thinking: “What if everything is a gift? What if I remember that I’m entitled to nothing? What if I accept it as a shocking and delightful surprise that three of my children are alive, instead of expecting it as the standard outcome?”

The roundup to the Roundup: IF fiction for free. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 31 and February 8) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

My ghost child haunts me less and less these days. They used to be around all the time, but now they only slip their hand in mine in random places. I can go months without seeing them. Sometimes years.

A person delivered old advice she got from Carolyn Hax back at her in her column when Hax was giving advice to a person who was upset that she never had another child. She wrote,

We long for this imaginary alternative past where we focus on the happy details — so it feeds the notion we missed out on something, but in reality, anything could have happened. Who knows what would have been if you’d had that second kid/moved abroad/taken that job? It could have been great; it could have been terrible. Maybe that’s simplistic, but it’s worked for me many times.

A third child could have been wonderful. It could have been terrible. But my brain chooses to only focus on the sunny side. I let the ghost child subtract sometimes in the way any additional small child subtracts as you have to navigate their schedule. (“We couldn’t have done X if we had a baby in tow.”) But I don’t let them subtract with fictional tantrums or marriage stress. The ghost child is perfect.

And maybe I need to do that; to remind myself that it is also detrimental to focus on those happy details. To daydream about a ghost child who never has to prove themselves because I don’t know the story at all. Or if I’m going to daydream, to do it honestly, imagining all the possible versions and not just the hoped-for ones.

I am an overpacker. I am a maybe-I’ll-need-this person. I’m a well-I-have-room-anyway person. Someone who brings a few extra books and an unreasonably large collection of unnecessary socks. (What if my feet get cold? Then doubly cold? Then triply cold?)

Vox tells me that “a person’s packing style — whether they pack light or pack heavy — is a distinctive personality trait.”

Yeah, that fits. Because I’m also a we-should-probably-save-this-empty-jar-because-what-if person. And I carry a few extra books on me even when I’m just going to the grocery store. (What if something happens and I’m stuck in the store for so long that I finish the first book? And then the second book?)

But I’m also (if I do say so myself) a smart packer. I pack all of the bags in our house before big trips. Everyone leaves their stuff in the living room, and I divide it up into the correct piles and then slide things into the suitcase accordingly. And then we play musical suitcases as the trip progresses, consolidating clean items together in carefully marked bags so everything remains organized.

And Vox’s point that we’re trying to carry familiarity with us while we’re in the happy stress of travel, absolutely.

What is your packing style?