Never Mind A.I.

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Sometimes I just sit in front of my computer and wonder what I should write about. I signed up for a memoir writing class at OLLI (aka College for Seniors) in the hopes that I might write my life story some day. Currently, I tend to root around in the bag of personal past history and choose something at random. Some funny story I can polish up a bit for public consumption without pissing off my family members. I took a Master Class from David Sedaris, which my friend Tee generously shared with me. Mr. Sedaris writes about his family all the time. Sure enough, he came to a point in the course where he discussed this tricky endeavor. What I took from that lesson is: Say it with love. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Thankfully, I did not grow up in a family that garnered a lot of dirt to dish. We are not the Kardashians. But, someone could get embarrassed by some incident or another, poorly recollected in my favor. The resentment might cause a rift in the surface strength of an otherwise somewhat happy family.

Have you thought about writing your personal history? One of the tedious aspects of our accountings is the tendency to timeline events and list them in the driest, most boring manner. I don’t know what I’ll hear at that OLLI class as far as method goes, but I hope I won’t be expected to remember when things happened. My middle brother has a great memory for past doings, so I would have to be calling him to verify everything. We have a good relationship, so I wouldn’t want to jeopardize it by constantly picking his brain for dates and sequences. He may be inclined to tell me what not to write! I can assure, no one will be spared… but in a loving way.

I tend to write daily about current incidents which have either amused me or annoyed me. My memory of the emotions experienced and the little details which add color to the story is much better when some share-worthy event recently happened. Share-worthy events have been in short supply lately. Yes, my dog did lunge at a lady outside the ice cream shop. That’s the whole story. We reined her in and apologized. Fun only in the moment. Nothing more to say. We went to Sierra Nevada Brewery to hear my neighbor sing in the upstairs lounge. We did not know upon our arrival that there was an upstairs lounge, so we sat on a bench outside and drank beer. Yawn-inducing stuff I know, but sadly, these are the highlights of our recent weeks. I’m beginning to think my memoir might have too many of these two-sentence memories and not enough of the truly intriguing stuff my descendants might want to cherish or have a laugh (cry, cringe or hissy fit) over. So I may have to look into using some sort of Artificial Intelligence in order to streamline the process of fleshing out more provocative prose for the future generations. Otherwise, I might seem boring.

Here you’ll be thinking that AI doesn’t know shit about me. One of the drawbacks of AI is that it doesn’t know much of anything that’s not lodged in a database somewhere, and could easily confuse my family with the Kardashians as there is much more in the universal data banks about them than us. I can’t just say, “Hey, write my memoir, please!” AI is going to balk at the lack of data, but could most likely garner enough from public records to tell me when I was born, graduated from school and got married. This would not exactly lead to a particularly riveting read. “AI,” I’ll inquire, “Tell me what my dad said on the day I was born.” AI doesn’t know our family lore, poor thing. AI is able to write a personal memoir as boring as the periodic table of elements. I already possess that particular skill set.

I believe there are ways I could get around this small impediment. The first strategy would be to have AI steal from someone else’s past history, or even a host of other people’s memoirs and bring bits and pieces together (so as to not arouse suspicion) and create a unique fictional account of my life. I’d be willing to read that one! Or, I could have it collect all my official public records and see what stories these dry tidbits of information spark in me. Even better would be to ask AI to write a story about a woman who was born into a family of nomads (it’s true!) and once went to Disney World. Not much to go on, I’ll admit, but I would love to see what AI can crib using it’s vast wealth of stored data and sentence writing capabilities.

By now you are surely thinking, “Where does she intend to get this AI, creative, memoir-writing technology from?” I don’t know, but I welcome any and all information about how to get my hands on it. In the meantime, I’ll take my upcoming writing class and continue my search, looking to find any method easier than remembering a bunch of crap that happened in 4th grade. I loved 4th grade, actually. So that’s it then, AI can’t remember my feelings unless I’ve already posted them on the blog. AI can’t access what’s in my brain or the minute details of my experiences. I guess it’s back to the drawing (writing) board for me if I want my memoir to resemble my actual life…or even a partially fictional actual life. That OLLI class better be helpful. Be on the lookout soon for How I Met Ethel, The Life Story of a Lazy Blogger. Any resemblance to some memoir written by a Kardashian is purely coincidental.

It might be a bunch of nonsense, but I am always scribbling away,

Cheryl

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