Just a little...

Why don't we say, "It's so easy your grandpa could do it." It's always your grandma. Why? Do grandmas acquiesce to ageism more readily? Are they inherently less astute? Thursday night, it's been a long day. Second bookclub, I plop down on my couch. My video accidentally goes live. Yep, that most flattering of shots from my lap: the waddle, a lil' beard? I quickly turn off the video, but am caught.

A member asks the facilitator, "Is that your mother?"

Awkward. For me, yes, but also, had I just tainted their vibe with my old face? Later, I stand in front of the mirror, tucking up here and there.

Just a few less wrinkles.

Then, there's the grey hair. Flashback a couple of months: we're doing a little pre-event A/V check; someone onsite calls me out as the online host to the speaker.

The speaker confirms, "Oh, the white hair?"

Just a little less grey.

At the mirror, I wonder how I appear to others. Everyone does. And everyone has looked themself in the eyes and asked, "Really? Are you going to take on *that* stereotype?" Those little imperfections? They're proof of a lived life, the experiential tenacity that stereotypes can't embody.

Just temporary stretch marks.

Stretch marks appeared on my son’s back from growing so fast. My stretch marks are proof of a life borne. I swore to deliver that baby’s body to its 18th year as perfectly unblemished as possible. But I was also fascinated how these marked my offspring's body as well nourished, cherished. Those marks are gone now. His body transformed into the perfection of a soap opera star. ;-) The irony is that arriving at adulthood unmarked, he was marked.

He was so beautiful, people couldn't believe he was also so kind and so smart.

If your body is perfect, surely you can't be that smart. If you're an old woman, you can't learn. Reactive thoughts become cultural norms. I know, yada yada, and evolutionary mechanisms in manifest phenomena, and more yada. Yet, without interrogation and discernment, they construct, constrict reality — right now, at an astonishingly rapid rate. Words I thought I'd never think again:

It's time to revisit Derrida.

TikTok censoring? Not surprised. And when algos are reduced to brute behavioral monetization, not surprised protesters easily get around the blocks by tagging liveshots as music events. But GenAI is getting so good so fast at construction, we'll most likely miss what's being done for/to us.

Just a little YouTube touchup.

Is there a place to submit personal experiences of GenAI overreach? Is there the equivalent of a do-not-call registry for opting your content out of AI consumption, modification, or platforming? Even a self-regulatory program? At least during experimentation phases?

— Not because AI is going to take over our lives, not because we don't want AI in our lives, but because freedom is having control over how we embody our lived experience.

Wrinkles, stretch marks, messy hair, and all.