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A Small, Silver Pain in the Ass Robot Who Also Cleans The Floors
When your life becomes sci fi
One of my spiritual children mentioned the other day that she identified as “she/her” but was no longer certain what that really meant. She calls me Xena so there’s that. Being a real woman in our times means being willing and able to whale on anyone to defend your life and family. I know a lot of people don’t believe or understand that, but take it from Xena — yes it does.
In 2004, I began a story about a couple featuring my all-purpose guy, Gary the ergonomic architect, and his wife, a short-sighted, bossy shrew loosely based on awful women I’d known. The idea was “should parents ‘improve’ their children with gene therapy — or should they let nature take its course?” I became interested in the topic because I had become unexpectedly pregnant with my son Anthony and sought genetic counseling. Talking with the counselor inspired my thoughts about the story.
I wasn’t ready to write about this, so I left the story unfinished.
It was the first story I wrote after I was able to write again after Anthony’s death January 11, 2005.
In the story, Gary has interchanges with “House” — an unbranded version of Alexa or Google Home (story initially written 2004).
