I’ve written quite a lot this week. I can stop after this, and focus on reading.

I am on study leave right now. In 7 days I’ll have handed in my exam paper and be leaving the house to head off on holiday. I’ve written a lot of handover documents and a lot of code. Having signed off, I’m confident that we’ve accurately captured all of the user permissions for our platform as code. With luck, this will make passing an audit easier.

I just had my mid-year review, and I’m doing…okay. Okay is not as good as I’d like to be doing, but it’s only the middle of the year, and there’s time to pick up the pace if I want to.

I don’t know if I do want to. I’m quite enjoying the slower pace I’m taking at the moment, and we’re planning big things on the evolution of the platform. We’re starting to do think about some of the things I’ve been studying, and that’s really exciting. I might get a chance to actually implement some security services.

Actually, am I enjoying it? Or is it all I can muster at the moment? My enthusiasm for the work has been falling away recently, so it could just be that. Maybe I’ll come back full of vim and vigour, ready to attack thorny problems. I need to turn an expensive process into a cheaper process, and I’ve got some early ideas – mostly as a result of the work I’ve been doing that I mentioned at the top.

When I come back, I think we’ll start a new season. With any luck we’ll start with a deus ex machine, where all the troubles of the previous season have evaporated and the character can start again. But there’ll be silence here from me for the next three or four weeks, while I try to get back into the habit of writing things on paper.

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I wrote something I’m quite pleased with in writing group this week, and I’m sharing it with you because I think it’s an interesting piece and meta-piece. It may even be the first bit of Art I’ve done. It starts here:

Permission to replicate is granted by the author

- Are you happy?
- Hm?
- Are you happy?
- Happy...no. I'm not happy. I'm content.
- What's the difference?
- Happiness feels too big to me. Too boisterous, you know? I'm not jumping up and down, or singing or laughing or - y'know, like I'm not Mr Happy.
- You're Mr Content?
- Yeah. [beat] How about you?
- Am I a miscontent?
- [laughing] No. Are you content?
- I don't know. Are you going to write this into your book?
- See, but that's such a good line. How can I not?
- You could just not
- But it's real! And it's true! It's a thing someone would say!
- I know. I said it. Please don't put it in the book
- Why?
- Because I don't want to be content. I just want to be yours.
- Alright. I won't. I'll just...I'll just remember it.
- Promise?
- Promise. Let's be content together.

Questions

1. There are two speakers in this piece.
   1. Is there a power imbalance?
   2. How do your assumptions about the speakers genders influence that?
   3. If you imagine the speakers with different genders, does the imbalance shift?
2. Assume the publisher of this piece is one of the speakers . Now assume it’s the other one. Now assume it’s neither. Does your reading of the piece change?
3. The last line can be read in two different ways. Which is correct?