Elves in Detroit sequel

 If anyone actually read the 4th book in the Elves in Detroit series, you will know that that book just didn't turn out the way it was supposed to.  I intended for Laurielle to marry Smash, but that didn't happen at all -- and I still don't know what the ending will be for the story -- if there is one.  When I published it, I said it was a draft.

But I had this idea that I would write a short story sequel about one character -- one goblin -- and maybe try to get it on some website where they have free short stories and maybe that website would get my name better known.  

This short story is going incredibly slowly. Tho I knew the ending all along, I just couldn't get there.  I'm not sure I still have, tho I'm getting closer.

I've been using AI -- bing image creator and Grok -- to generate some pictures of goblins.  Bing image creator was super frustrating as it kept cutting off the top of the goblin's head and her feet.  Grok was somewhat better in that respect.  The images from Grok looked more realistic, while the ones from Bing image creator looked cartoonish.  Anyway, here are some images -- tho I haven't one hundred percent decided which one I want.

These are the ones from Bing image creator

I did sort of want her to look like a stick figure,

but not like she was starving.  Not sure how that 

would pan out with the right drawing.

Leaning towards this one

Altho it's got more flesh than I imagine her having

These are the ones from Grok

Leaning towards this one:

This was the description that I eventually developed for this character

A standing female goblin. She is wearing a ragged one shoulder sleeveless dress. She is unnaturally scrawny, with little flesh between her skin and her bones — almost like a stick figure. She has reddish brown hair that sticks straight out of her head. Her enormous nose has wide nostrils so that the nasal base extends across half the width of her face. The nasal ridge is very straight, not aquiline, so that the perpetual snarl of her upper lip and her sinister, pointed teeth are clearly visible. Her eyes are red. Her ears are enormous and bat like. Her hands and feet are oversized. The top of her head and the ground under her feet are clearly visible. Her skin is very pale white, but dirty. Her fingers and toes have large steel claws sprouting naturally from her flesh. Her head is large in proportion to the rest of her body.  There are blood stains on her face, hands, and dress. 

None of the results were exactly what I wanted.  The one that I decided I liked best was from Bing image creator, but lacked feet and top of head.  I have been editing this image on Gimp with the following result:

I added feet & top of head from other goblin images and changed the color scheme.  I also enlarged her head.  I'm trying to decide about sinister/menacing, which a goblin is supposed to be, and nonplussed, which this character actually is.  Making the image darker and yellower seems to make her more menacing, I think.  The original image is tagged above, under the Bing image creator list.

I really wanted her to have a straight nose.  I'm mindful of the criticisms that goblin images are often designed to look Jewish.  Still I chose one who had an aquiline nose.  If you read even Book 4 of the Elves in Detroit series, you may note that the chief of a horde gets a much larger nose as part of becoming chief -- magically.

Substack?

 I've had this blog for a long time.  I've really enjoyed writing it.

However, it has not gotten a lot of attention.  

A professional writing expert told me that substack is better, so I'm starting one on substack.  I hope this is the correct link:

https://annalissemayer.substack.com

Of course, I'm grateful for those people who are reading this blog.  I am not abandoning it.  Hopefully, this will just be an expansion.

I am also changing my avi.  Previously, I was using princess Merida, my Disney princess.  I found her inspiring.  However, I'm mindful that she is copyrighted, so I got this new one from Bing image creator.

I hope you like her

You'll notice that I just posted a blog about autism, Tylenol, and the Internet. 

https://substack.com/@annalissemayer/note/p-174503721?r=6jtsat&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

or maybe this link is better?

https://substack.com/home/post/p-174503721

 Normally, I would have put that blog here.  I wonder if I should put it both places.  I'm new at this.  

Hmm.  I'm seeing that even tho I added an avi on substack it doesn't seem to be showing up on this post, which was posted before I got an avi.  That wouldn't happen on blogger.  I wonder if that's a bug or a feature, or whether I need to refresh my screen.

I also wrote a sort of stumbling introduction.  I wonder if these are editable.

https://annalissemayer.substack.com/p/introduction

Ok, yes, I was able to edit it and correct a couple of things.  Baby steps.

historical introduction of franklin in peanuts

 I saw this on FB.  I hope I'm not going to offend Arthur Bass, whoever he may be, by posting this.  I tried to ask Google to find the orginal post, but nothing was forthcoming.  If you are the copyright owner and want me to take this down, just comment.

Arthur Bass On this day, July 31st in 1968, a young, black man was reading the newspaper when he saw something that he had never seen before. With tears in his eyes, he started running and screaming throughout the house, calling for his mom. He would show his mom, and, she would gasp, seeing something she thought she would never see in her lifetime. Throughout the nation, there were similar reactions. 

What they saw was Franklin Armstrong's first appearance on the iconic comic strip "Peanuts." Franklin would be 56 years old this year. 

Franklin was "born" after a school teacher, Harriet Glickman, had written a letter to creator Charles M. Schulz after Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot to death outside his Memphis hotel room.  

Glickman, who had kids of her own and having worked with kids, was especially aware of the power of comics among the young. “And my feeling at the time was that I realized that black kids and white kids never saw themselves [depicted] together in the classroom,” she would say.  

She would write, “Since the death of Martin Luther King, 'I’ve been asking myself what I can do to help change those conditions in our society which led to the assassination and which contribute to the vast sea of misunderstanding, hate, fear and violence.'” 

Glickman asked Schulz if he could consider adding a black character to his popular comic strip, which she hoped would bring the country together and show people of color that they are not excluded from American society. She had written to others as well, but the others feared it was too soon, that it may be costly to their careers, that the syndicate would drop them if they dared do something like that. 

Charles Schulz did not have to respond to her letter, he could have just completely ignored it, and everyone would have forgotten about it. But, Schulz did take the time to respond, saying he was intrigued with the idea, but wasn't sure whether it would be right, coming from him, he didn't want to make matters worse, he felt that it may sound condescending to people of color. 

Glickman did not give up, and continued communicating with Schulz, with Schulz surprisingly responding each time. She would even have black friends write to Schulz and explain to him what it would mean to them and gave him some suggestions on how to introduce such a character without offending anyone. This conversation would continue until one day, Schulz would tell Glickman to check her newspaper on July 31, 1968. 

On that date, the cartoon, as created by Schulz, shows Charlie Brown meeting a new character, named Franklin. Other than his color, Franklin was just an ordinary kid who befriends and helps Charlie Brown. Franklin also mentions that his father was "over at Vietnam." At the end of the series, which lasted three strips, Charlie invites Franklin to spend the night one day so they can continue their friendship. 

There was no big announcement, there was no big deal, it was just a natural conversation between two kids, whose obvious differences did not matter to them. And, the fact that Franklin's father was fighting for this country was also a very strong statement by Schulz. 

Although Schulz never made a big deal over the inclusion of Franklin, there were many fans, especially in the South, who were very upset by it and that made national news. One Southern editor even said, “I don’t mind you having a black character, but please don’t show them in school together.” 

It would eventually lead to a conversation between Schulz and the president of the comic's distribution company, who was concerned about the introduction of Franklin and how it might affect Schulz' popularity. Many newspapers during that time had threatened to cut the strip. 

Schulz' response: "I remember telling Larry at the time about Franklin -- he wanted me to change it, and we talked about it for a long while on the phone, and I finally sighed and said, "Well, Larry, let's put it this way: Either you print it just the way I draw it or I quit. How's that?" 

Eventually, Franklin became a regular character in the comic strips, and, despite complaints, Franklin would be shown sitting in front of Peppermint Patty at school and playing center field on her baseball team.  

More recently, Franklin is brought up on social media around Thanksgiving time, when the animated 1973 special "A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving" appears. Some people have blamed Schulz for showing Franklin sitting alone at the Thanksgiving table, while the other characters sit across him. But, Schulz did not have the same control over the animated cartoon on a television network that he did on his own comic strip in the newspapers. But, he did have control over his own comic strip, and, he courageously decided to make a statement because of one brave school teacher who decided to ask a simple question. 

Glickman would explain later that her parents were "concerned about others, and the values that they instilled in us about caring for and appreciating everyone of all colors and backgrounds — this is what we knew when we were growing up, that you cared about other people . . . And so, during the years, we were very aware of the issues of racism and civil rights in this country [when] black people had to sit at the back of the bus, black people couldn’t sit in the same seats in the restaurants that you could sit . . . Every day I would see, or read, about black children trying to get into school and seeing crowds of white people standing around spitting at them or yelling at them . . . and the beatings and the dogs and the hosings and the courage of so many people in that time." 

Because of Glickman, because of Schulz, people around the world were introduced to a little boy named Franklin.

 

A mathematical definition of God

Reformulation 8/18/2022

For me, the word “God” is a variable, as in mathematics or computer science, that represents an unknown – the unknown prime mover. That unknown might be a single thing, or a set of things. The set might be small or very large.

As to the nature of that unknown, that is a theological question. Is God like what is described in the Bible? Does God have consciousness? Does God have intent? Does God care about me personally? Does God actively intervene in a creative, as opposed to mechanistic, way in the events of the world? When I have a mystical experience -- conscious contact, per step 11 -- is that a contact with an external God, or just an artifact of my neurology?

These theological questions, and their answers, do not form part of my definition of “God." I do not feel compelled to adopt the definitions of self appointed experts. I do not see how the terms “exist" or “don’t exist" relate to my definition as formulated.

***************

I put this on my AT&T website in 2001, but that website was taken down

A MATHEMATICAL DEFINITION OF GOD

11/11/01

This definition will require the reader to understand: What is a variable?  What is a mathematical definition?  What is a set?  Also, I will use the symbol “≡”  to mean “is defined as.”  If you did not do much math, particularly no college math, you probably won’t understand the following discussion.

For each person there is a list of questions, unanswerable questions, God-defining questions.  For each person, this list will be different.  Some examples of these questions follow. 

X­₁≡ Why are we here?

X₂≡ Why is there gravity?

X₃≡ Why is it wrong to kill another person in cold blood?

•

•

•

•

and so forth.  In this list, each question is assigned a variable which represents the answer to the question.

I then define God as follows:

GOD ≡ {X₁, X₂, X₃, …}

I believe that under this definition no one can say that GOD does not exist, nor that GOD is more than one thing.

There may be other questions, e.g.

©      Does GOD have consciousness?  

©      Is GOD a being?  (To which one might reply, “What is a being[1]?”) 

©      Does GOD care about us? 

©      Does GOD have gender? 

©      Does it make sense to define subsets of GOD relating to particular sub-characteristics, e.g. Shiva, Venus, etc.? 

These are interesting questions, which merit much discussion; however, I do not propose any answers to those questions.  I only put forth this basic definition, so that we may stop arguing about whether GOD exists and rather discuss what we think GOD is like, which I find much more interesting.

------

reformulation 250707 -- similar to 2022

Thus the word "God" is a variable, like the letter X in algebra.  It represents an unknown: an unknown prime mover, an unknown basic nature of the universe, an unknown source of moral law; an unknown cause of that sense of presence that I feel.

I personally believe that we do not have the ability to understand God.  Different people have different perceptions -- but no perception, no description is complete.  I see with reference to this the traditional Jewish belief that the name of God is unpronounceable, not only forbidden, but also impossible.  The Tao Te Ching says that the Tao which can be named is not the true Tao.

I've read that research on the differences between atheists and believers.  Atheists have been found to be neurologically different from  believers.  I suppose that they must not have that impression of the presence of the divine that I feel.

---

[1] It is interesting that in one Supreme Court case, the Court defined religion as belief in a Supreme Being, but that really begs the question.  What does one mean by a “being?”

comments about non-theism in program

Some comments I wrote about a draft pamphlet about non-theist recovery in SLAA

First I referred to my non-theist affirmations

 https://annalisse-mayer.blogspot.com/2023/09/proposed-secular-affirmations-for-non.html

Then I sent these remarks:

SLAA was not my first program.  OA was.

After joining OA, I had some dramatic emotional mystical experiences.  I had dim visions, not exactly like hallucinations, but transformative images in my mind, which I felt came from HP. 

I also had peculiar sensations in my brain. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the experience of a limb falling asleep.  Then when sensation comes back, for me, it often feels like fluid flowing into the limb.  I had a sensation like that in my brain.  A feeling of fluid flowing — circulation returning.

Something like this happened to Bill W, the founder of AA.  He saw a flash of light.  He felt wind blowing on his face.

I have been interested in the research on ketamine, which induces hallucinations — something a bit like the mystical experiences I had after joining OA.  

I have been abstinent in OA for 20 years.  I absolutely believe that these mystical experiences I had changed my brain, neurologically, and allowed me to become & stay abstinent.  

There has been some research on what happens in the brain during ketamine hallucinations — also what happens in the brain during prayer and meditation.  

Ketamine researchers seem to feel that the drug actually somehow erases patterns in the brain and rearranges things into new patterns. https://360info.org/ketamine-helps-change-thinking-patterns-in-people-with-treatment-resistant-depression/

Dr Jung in the AA Big Book p. 27 

“Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have had what are called vital spiritual experiences.

To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.”

This is very much the way researchers describe the effect of ketamine on the brain. 

I have not had such dramatic experiences in SLAA as I had in OA, so my recovery hasn’t been as good, I feel.  Also, my OA program was directed to stopping something — compulsive Overeating—while my SLAA program, directed at sexual & emotional anorexia, is more oriented towards starting something.  But also I have huge step 2 problems in SLAA.  I wonder if my desire for a relationship is selfish, whether it’s wrong to pray for it.  I wonder if HP maybe doesn’t want me to have a relationship.  Maybe I should surrender to that.

Here is a blog I wrote, under a different pseudonym, in 2012 about some of the research I was reading about then and how it related to my recovery. https://annalisse-mayer.blogspot.com/2012/07/musings-on-neurology-of-12-step.html

In any case, tho, with respect to the spiritual experiences I have had, I have no idea whether they come from an external God, or whether they are just an interesting neurological phenomena.  I have read that atheists do tend to have different neurology from religionists, so they possibly cannot have mystical experiences.

Yet, I feel that an explanation of program that does not mention this type of experience is not giving the whole picture.  I have spoken with several people in program who, like me, traced their recoveries to mystical experiences.  

moving technical notes from post about cindy

 

The only problem with this image is that the angels look too serious, but when I put in the word "smiling" I got angels that looked like children, which I didn't like so much, either.  Bing image creator can be very frustrating.

I did this with Gimp, which was also frustrating.  I could not put the whole text into a text box, so I did the following;

1) found a free celtic font online

2) imported the font into my mac fontbook app

3) created a word document with the prayer in that font with a cream color background

4) exported the text into pdf

5) converted the pdf text into the best quality jpg with 600 dots per inche

6) imported the jpg image into a separate Gimp file (because it didn't work inside the other file.  I kept getting blurry letters)

7) added an alpha channel to the layer

8) deleted all pixels that weren't orange

9) exported a png file with transparency

10) pasted the png file into the file with the picture

11) shrank the text

12) created a cream color background layer behind the letters

13) cut out the gibberish in the picture

14) put the picture in the top layer

Memorial prayer for my cousin, Cindy, who passed last night

3/26/25

She was very different from me politically and religiously, but I liked her anyway

Cindy

May you get the salvation that you worked so hard for in life

Believing things I do not believe

But believing them sincerely

I hope you get what you worked for

May you find your lost family members in the afterlife

May we all find each other there

Even though I do not believe it is so

I can still pray it is so.

May choruses of smiling angels serenade you to your eternal home

May you lie upon velvet cushions with shining, gold braids

May you eat the sweetest of fruits

May you sprout beautiful, huge, iridescent wings and fly through gentle, puffy clouds.

May you learn to play ethereal music on the harp

May handsome centaurs bow to you and tell you words of great wisdom

May adorable little birds sing you sweet songs

And bring you garlands of flowers in their beaks

May those flowers never fade, but instead stay fresh forever all about you

——————

Addendum: May 15, 2025

I don’t know why I keep thinking about Cindy . I didn’t know her very well. I only saw her occasionally at family events – and sometimes on Facebook. She was the wife of my blood cousin. They were the cousins I was most in conflict with. The husband teased me as a child. they were fairly far away. Their religion and politics were different from mine. He unfriended me on Facebook, but she didn't.

I once asked her to pray for my niece, when my niece was in the hospital, because I knew she was in a very large church and maybe could get lots of people to pray for my niece. this was not supposed to be public knowledge, that my niece was in the hospital. My brother‘s family doesn’t believe in God. I’m not sure if prayer really makes a difference outside of our heads. I think it’s very good for behavior modification as in 12 step programs. So I thought it was worth a chance to have a lot of people praying for my niece.

Yesterday, I was imagining myself speaking at her funeral. There was a funeral near her home shortly after her death. There will be a second one in our vacation community. The speech went as follows:

I first met Cindy, as I recall, at her wedding to my cousin – a pretty, young, happy bride. I didn’t see her very often… A few family events… Posts on Facebook. 

I remember the wedding, in a church. My cousin, who is an evangelical Christian, had his arms raised over his head, praising God, which is something other people in our family generally didn’t do. I was sitting in the audience, in pews, with other members of our family.  Maybe that was the wedding where we had to be in the back, because my autistic son couldn't tolerate organ music -- tho we put hearing protectors on him that time, I think, so he was able to stay.

It never occurred to me that someday a lifetime would’ve passed, that she would’ve had children, grandchildren – possibly great-grandchildren? And, I think, a career – possibly in education?  And, then, seemingly in a flash, I would be sitting in another church, in pews with my family, and it would be her funeral. 

 

The wedding doesn’t seem so very long ago. It doesn’t seem so very long ago that she was that young, happy, pretty bride — sort of perky, with a lot of spirit. 

—————————

This wasn’t part of the fantasy speech, but I’m thinking it:

Her mother didn’t look very well at the time. Cindy hadn’t been looking well recently. I never mentioned it. I remember her face changed. My father’s face changed when he had cancer. We didn’t realize until later that the changing in his face reflected the cancer inside his body, before it was diagnosed. It never occurred to me that the change in Cindy‘s face meant that she might have undiagnosed cancer. 

She wasn’t that old. I think she may have been over seventy, but just barely. Perhaps I should’ve warned her.

Is that it?  Do I feel guilty?  Is that why I keep thinking about her?

I asked Bing image creator to create images of angels with harps and a rainbow.

I tried putting the whole poem into Bing image creator.  Then I got  images with good looking gibberish similar to my prayer.  So I took one of those images, deleted the gibberish, and put in my prayer.