Note

Testing testing 1 2 3

Alright, it's 8.53 a.m. on January 23rd. I'm in San Rafael and heading south down on the 101. It's about 40 minutes of traffic this morning. And what's unusual today? Oh, today I had to make my breakfast in the yogurt container. If I need to remember this day, that was the unusual thing today. So yeah. What's going on? Well, I just, you know, I'm trying to keep up the practice of, you know, dictating into my phone. Did some more reading on the novel, Anatham, I read the Wikipedia article on it. That's, it's definitely very interesting. I have to get over the, the technique of science fiction that, or speculative fiction, that simply, gives everything a different name, but talks about the same thing. And so, yeah, I totally wish it were done more in the style of like Umberto Eco, who, you know, the name of the rose, simply, or Foucault's pendulum, simply describes our, you know, uses our world as it is and suggests the same kind of conflict in order to create a plot. I don't understand why there's a need to completely do this hypothetical, I mean, a hypothetical like Earth-like planet kind of thing. But anyway. So, what am I going to talk about? I'm still stuck on this Rosita stone. I like the concept of Rosita stone and how Rosita stone is different than the Rosetta stone. But how does it come to be known as Rosita stone? Rosita obviously is the diminutive for Rose, and Rose is Rosalithia. So, yeah, what will happen so that Rose, Rosalithia discovers Rosita stone, is it her stone? And so, that's what, and remember, the stone, okay, so maybe it doesn't have to physically be a stone, but it has to be a key to understanding something. And the key to understanding Florence, and the key, it wasn't just the key, like, it drew us in to eat an egypt that much more. The impact of Champolion translating, well, let's talk, forget about once it was translated. What was the Rosetta stone before it was translated? It was another artifact, but it was a, it was known to be a key. It was as if you found a key, a literal key, and you knew it unlocked something, but you didn't know where the lock was. And so, this is what Rosita stone has to be, and the Rosetta stone. Now, it's, you know, she's not going to find a literal key. She's going to find something that bridges the gap between her and Florence. And so, what is that gap? I've got a little imaginative digression here in my head where Rosalithia is actually working in the library. And notices a newspaper clipping that's been framed. And it's been on the wall ever since. Now, I don't know if that really should. You know, that would be cool because, you know, she could simply be unaware of who Florence is, you know, because she was someone who was from Lameza and then left for Egypt one day. But what if she was, and if she was forgotten, there's, I mean, quite reasonably so, she would be forgotten. Because those who knew her will have moved on, and she would have never come back. So, she would be forgotten. Except for this one person who, the boy who was in love with her, went on to become a school librarian. That's one possibility. And the reason this boy was in love with her was because, you know, she took her to the library. You know, to him, she was the smartest student in class. And he never had a chance with her because she was in love with Nassim. But this was the last known contact, even though he wasn't involved in the story. This was his last known contact with her. And so, as it had always been on the wall in the librarian's office, and has never been taken down out of respect. Or maybe there was, you know, frames of notable student librarians. You know, that's another possibility. And Florence, instead of her picture, her high school picture, there was a newspaper flipping in the place. Now on the San Francisco Bridge, I just thought I saw San Francisco peek out at the top of the bridge. So, back to Rosalía, she's a freshman. And college, I'm sorry, in high school, at La Viza High School, it's the mid-80s. And yeah, she notices that one day, which she never thinks anything of it until the last day of her life. And the last day of her senior year, she's going in to say goodbye to her librarian friend. Over the years, in high school, she had grown to become friends, you know, grown. The relationship got more personal. And it was just, you know, a nice person to have going through high school. Rosalía did not like, she wasn't like an outstanding student, but she made her grades. And she got accepted into Texas Tech and she moved on. She was just that, someone who, but in order to not kind of see here, how do I... She was receiving financial aid when she was working for the newspaper. And she was getting minimum wage at her job. And all she had to do was process classifies. And really, all she had to do was take the application and put it on the computer. And so this makes more sense now that when Horace came in and filled out the application and she told him to just leave it in the basket, leave it in the bin, and I'll get to it. You have a check? And he walked out. And he walked out. So... And it isn't until she pulls out his application and starts to read it that she realizes... And she starts to process it into the computer. She realizes that he has the last name of the man that... Florence went to Egypt to meet. Now... Where was I? Where was I? So it's the... If we go back to Rosalithia's kind of last day at school, then obviously the next time she would come to school, well she wouldn't come to school, she would go to the local football stadium for the graduation. But Rosalithia is too busy for that. She didn't care. Well, I don't know. Maybe she went to graduation. She... She... She realized she had a book. And she was going to see if she could get the late B-wave. She knew she could because she was friends with so-and-so. And... Now... What book was she turning in? That's another interesting book. Tid bit. Oh, yeah. But another piece of information, hold on, let me pause while I... Okay, so one I have to figure out what book Rosalithia was turning in. And the other piece of information I have to figure out is... What are the circumstances? Circumstances in which she discovers Florence's letter. So she will have known already that Florence left and that was a pen pal. And two, she will have... So this will be a discovery of a local legend, so to speak. What's interesting is, if you see something, you learn of something that is... A bit extraordinary. Plus driver wins lottery. You know, the fourth string wins the football game. Or, you know, 13-year-old gets a scholarship to MIT. These are things you read about and you're like... You know, if someone were to tell you, is that possible without knowing about whether or not it happened, you would say no, it's not possible. Or it's highly unlikely. It's something you wouldn't imagine. But when it happens, the part of you that perhaps even wants to meet that person, or at least see them, and that's why they take a picture of them and put them in the paper, it becomes newsworthy. And so, at that point, Florence was newsworthy. And I don't know if you would call her a hero because that word has, you know, a different meaning now than it used to. But she's definitely a local legend. Her status was elevated. The minute that story hit the press, she was no longer a face without a name. But she was more a name than anything else. Florence, the... What would they call her? Florence, the writer? Florence, the traveler? Maybe they would call her that. Florence, the traveler? Or Florence, the... You know, some people would say, oh, I hear she went on to become an ambassador. Or others would say, oh, yeah, she wrote that book. And so people would say this and that about her. And this is what the librarian would relate to Rosalita. And again, this is her, the librarian's assistant, not the main librarian. The main librarian would be an older man who would come and go. And... was just waiting out his days before he retires. But he would indeed be... He would have known Florence. And so, yeah, or maybe he's not retired, but he's getting worse and worse. He's getting sick. But yeah, and maybe we'll say he went to Vietnam. So, Rosa Alithia is... The way of Florence, the legend, because of the newspaper clipping. And maybe what's even funnier is that the rumor mill in school will be that, oh, this one novel that they have to read was written by Florence. But as under a pseudonym, and the author has died, so it doesn't really matter at that point. And that will be kind of cool. And maybe in the story, it will be a made up novel. Or it will be one of those... Why are they making us read this? I've never seen it in the bookstore kind of thing. Have you ever heard of this book? And it will be handed out in kind of a packet form. So, that would be kind of... But then, that would have to be a paper trail back to the... A person responsible for that book in the curriculum. And that would either be the head of the English department. Or... Or maybe someone on the school board. I found my parking spot on Josephine Street behind the library, and I'm trying to park. We're here at a little park. All right, pausing for now.