A tale of two memes

A year or so ago, I had a "Friend Request" from a woman whose name I didn't recognise.  I checked her profile picture, and she looked vaguely familiar, so I didn't delete the request.  After weeks, I decided, based on what little info I could glean, that she was connected with Victoria Hospice, where I was a volunteer for several years in my otherwise misspent youth, so I accepted the request, and she cheerfully "liked" my posts.

It was several months before I realized she was, in fact, the president of the student council in my graduating year at high school. Her surname had changed with marriage.  A perfectly nice lady, but I was at a loss as to why she would be "friending" me; it was a relatively small school, but we had not known each other well.  In fact, my most salient memory of her was from a rare encounter at university, where I had also seen little of her.

We were chatting and she mentioned something about her house, but added that of course, I would remember whatever it was.

"Well, no, I've never been to your house."

"Of course you have!  Everyone's been to my house!"

So her posts would show up on my Facebook wall from time to time, mostly references to other things about her life with which I was not familiar.

Then, a couple of months ago, she posted something called "Meeting Between Bread".  This is a meme that used to be called "Meeting Between Breadfruit", but the wording is exactly the same:

Click to enlarge - if you must

Oh gawd. 

First of all, this woman is a teacher. Next, we have the usual red flags of a meme designed for data-mining: the unusual name, the request to copy and paste rather than to share, and the manipulative meta-message that if we don't comply we are inattentive and uncaring.

Finally, one word I'd associate with this woman? The kindest one: "president", I suppose. Less kind: "oblivious".

The meme is undeniably effective.  Responses flowed in, to the point where I hid the post.

There are a number of links I could have shared, but painful experience has taught me that people don't like being corrected.  Fair enough.  I don't like being corrected either.  (However, I often learn a bit more that way, irritating as it is.)  I thought about it for a few hours, while I went about my business, mostly along the lines of what I have set down here.

And I unfriended her.  I doubt she noticed.

Two months later, another Facebook "friend", also a fellow alumni, posted pretty much exactly the same meme.  He too was getting a lot of gratifying responses.

This was a little more complicated.  This is a fellow I've known since elementary school, so we have a history.  In fact, my heart sank when, about 10 years ago, his "friend" request came in, but I couldn't think of any reason to refuse him.  He addresses me, and all other women acquaintances, as "Dear Heart".  A lot of the time, I want to smack him.  Luckily for him, he hasn't been within striking range for years.

He's a IT expert, so I was surprised to see this meme, and, once again, appalled at its effectiveness.  I sat for a few minutes, considering unfriending him (as I have for years), but decided to send this link instead.  He responded in a few minutes, on the post itself, expressing appreciation, then followed up with a further post, name-checking me, and saying that the problem was with the copy-and-paste.

Close, but no cigar.

Then he wrote on my wall.  "Lots of us", he said, had missed me at a recent reunion gathering, and could we meet in person?

Oh gawd, no. "Lots of us?" I said out loud to the screen.  "Who, exactly?"

I went away and did other things for a few hours.  Time and tussles have taught me to never respond immediately to things that irritate me.  Especially people.

When I answered, I went for the truth.  Not the whole truth.

I had an elderly mother and upcoming elective surgery, I told him.  I would be sticking to my bubble.

And then, I unfriended him.  It was his birthday - actually a sort of gift for both of us.

I doubt he noticed.

Almost immediately afterwards, I found this:

On Reddit

The Resident Fan Boy found me by the computer, doubled over with laughter.

Raising the red flag

 

If you don't live in Canada, you may not be aware that, a month before our national holiday, Canada Day, 215 bodies were found buried in the grounds of the former "Kamloops Indian Residential School". 

All kids, some as young as preschoolers. 

 The crummy thing is, I wasn't surprised. 

150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools between the 1870s and the 1990s. 

Estimates very on how many children died while at the schools, the number is probably between 4,000 and 6,000 - possibly higher. 

How did they die? Tuberculosis, a lot of them. The schools were government-funded and run by churches, so they weren't well-funded, and the children weren't well-fed. They were powerless, and miles from home, and in such situations, predators close in. Many were abused, beyond the draconian school rules. Some committed suicide; some died trying to escape. 

And it was deemed too expensive to send their bodies home, so they were buried in the school grounds. 

"I'll bet your school didn't have a graveyard," said a survivor years later. 

So, in the aftermath of this "discovery" - there were more to come, and they'll keep coming - it was decided to forego the Canada Day stuff. Not that much would be going on anyway, given the pandemic. 

I had my second Pfizer vaccination that day, which seemed an appropriate thing, y'know, protecting my fellow Canadians. The clinic was awash with orange shirts. I had to explain why to an English cousin, when I mentioned this on Facebook. 

The same day, also on Facebook, a friend mentioned that she was flying the Canadian Native Flag (designed by Curtis Wilson of the Kwakwaka’wakw People of northern Vancouver Island). Only she didn't call it the Canadian Native Flag, she just posted the picture, like the one above, and a "Facebook Friend" commented, from her home in Arizona: "Yes, the Inuit flag." 

Oh, crud. Well, you'd think I'd know better than to put my oar in --- and you're right; I didn't put my oar in. Someone else did, but she and my friend explained very kindly, that the word was "indigenous". 

Arizona Lady informed the friends that she'd lived in Five Countries, and why would they think she didn't know what "indigenous" meant? 

And my friend, being Canadian, tried to placate her, and Arizona Lady said: "Well, you all are just so smart..." and logged off. 

It would have been such a better idea to blame predictive text...

Do not post gentle into that good night

Just this past weekend, something happened that hasn't happened in a long time. A member of Demeter's church died -- and they held an in-person memorial service. 

Imagine that. Someone dies, and family and friends gather together to mourn, remember, and comfort each other. 

I was imagining this last March, when I attended my first online funeral. 

It was for a cousin I'd never met, except online. We got in touch about 15 years ago, because she and I were researching similar branches of Demeter's ancestors in Carmarthenshire. We'd been in regular contact ever since, and I followed her posts on Facebook -- until they became more impersonal, veering into the "inspirational" memes that have become so wearisome on social media. In between these postings, I gathered that doctor appointments and hospital stays were taking up more of her time. 

Finally, one February morning, I awoke to a message from her son, posted on her account, to let her "Facebook friends" know she was gone. She had posted memes and prayers up until a day or so before her death. I contacted her son with the usual inadequate words, and a few weeks later, received the link for her funeral. 

So it was that I found myself rising before dawn, to attend a funeral that, Google Maps showed me, was taking place in a crematorium set off a lonely road near Llanelli. 

Our computer is sluggish, and it took some while to log on. They were in the middle of the first hymn, when I made it, viewing the proceedings as if tucked up into the right corner of the back wall. 

The priest was that most unfortunate of creatures, a Welshman unable to sing on key. Of course, he was the one person who was miked, so it was his voice I heard, accompanied by a pre-recorded choir. 

From my virtual perch in the back corner, I couldn't see if the congregation was singing. There were about a dozen mourners in well-spaced clumps, all masked, all dressed in grey or black, with the backs of their black or grey heads facing toward me. 

It was an antiseptic room with a grey carpet. The windows behind the priests looked out over dull green hills rising to a grey sky. 

I was startled to see a coffin (also grey), because my cousin had died over a month before. Towards the end of the service, held in English and Welsh, a semi-circular gauzy curtain was drawn about the stand where the coffin lay, followed shortly by a taupe-coloured opaque curtain. 

I hope there was some comfort in the hymns and readings, clearly chosen by a family familiar with the Anglican liturgy - my cousin's widower is a Church-in-Wales priest. Bowed and huddled, he was supported out of the room by his two sons as the other mourners followed, and my view into the scene was snapped off. 

I thought about the service my cousin would have wanted: in the accustomed surroundings of her parish church, candles, a real choir, pews filled with family and friends. 

So bleak. So grey. 

Michael Sheen is just finishing a run at the National Theatre in a production of Dylan Thomas' Under Milkwood, which, normally, does not feature the poem "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". It seems an appropriate tribute to my cousin, however, whose life had more colour than her muted send-off would imply.

        

Sidewalk supervision

I'm seriously considering banishing my Facebook feed. My "Facebook Friends" are, on the whole, being upbeat. (The ones I still follow, anyway.) However, I follow CBC, BBC, the Times-Colonist, our local television news, and PBS Newshour, all reasonably reputable news sources, but, these days, they're proving to be a rather lethal combination.

This morning, they announced that the Victoria Day Parade is being cancelled. For the first time ever.

Yesterday, younger daughter and I were on our way to our last art lesson for heaven knows when. (Two students elected not to come, and the three remaining discussed why we had taken the risk. Mostly because we feel we must do things while it's still allowed.) Word had come through my Facebook feed that there will be fewer buses, due to the lack of ridership, and I wondered if our scheduled bus would show up. It did, with a flashing "Free Bus" on the front, and a scrawled sign telling us to board at the back. When we reached Oak Bay Avenue, a young woman tore her attention from her phone, and stood for a few seconds, wondering why the driver wouldn't open the front door. When she boarded by the back, one of our four fellow passengers snarled: "Can't you read?"

And the day before that, I arrived at my favourite coffee shop to find the patio table-less and chair-less. I stood for a few seconds in the doorway, surveying the bare floor, as it sunk in that there would be take-out only. I turned and left. I might get the courage to go back, but I go to a coffee house for a table to journal on, not to sip coffee from cardboard.

Pic-a-Flic is still open, but the small restaurant where younger daughter and I have our Friday lunch before picking out our weekly DVDs has closed indefinitely. Younger daughter and I made the pilgrimage anyway, past the blossoming magnolias on Linden Avenue, up to Fort Street, where a sidewalk-chalk-philosopher had been at work.

Younger daughter and I paused to absorb the message, then walked on, giving our handful of fellow pedestrians wide berth.

Finding your look

My Facebook feed keeps sending me this.

I don't mind.

I think it's very funny.

It's true; we all remember a teacher that was something like this.

Facebook follies by fellas

I've had the odd inadvertent adventure in social media.  Some very odd.

Recently, I posted a quick comment on the "Old Victoria" page, a Facebook group I've seriously contemplated leaving more than once, as it's often a hotbed for political grumblings - largely directed at our current mayor - and the usual wearying men (it's always men, somehow) who troll the comments of others.

Some guy had begun the morning with a memory question, which he jokingly called a way to unmask "imposters".  (There had been a recent reminder from the group administrators that only those with some actual connection to Victoria could be members.)

Well, you can imagine.  Someone ignited at the word "imposters" and let fly.  Others flew to the bewildered poster's defense, and he was posting parting shots.

I decided to post my own, remembering a distant brief period when there were local bumper stickers, emblazoned with such devices as:  Pave the Gorge and Ski Mount Tolmie - unremarkable unless you live in Victoria, and know that the Gorge is a waterway, and Mount Tolmie is more like a very steep hill in the centre of the suburbs.

I added that this was a "playful" test for imposters, and that I knew that the original poster of the "imposter" had meant to tease, not torment.  Having grown up in British Columbia, I know when BC guys are leg-pulling.

Eventually, I had something like 75 likes and 85 comments - more than I've received on anything I've put online, even though this was mostly people chatting to one another and not to me.  I didn't mind.

It was a cross-section of everything that is right, and, as it turned out, almost everything that is wrong with the group -- and perhaps with social media in general.

One youngish fella - meaning to be funny, I suspect - said that only people over the age of 100 would get the jokes.  While I was replying mildly that I was in my twenties in the era of the bumper stickers and still managed to "get" them, a guy I'd known in junior high leapt to my defense (I think), saying, "Whoaa...hold on there!"

Some other guy remarked that you needed to be over 100 to be considered a "true" Victorian, and for some reason, Youngish Fella flew off the handle, telling him that he didn't know what he was talking about, being from Nanaimo, and to *&%$ off.

I stayed out of this particular fray, but an administrator deleted the comment.  Youngish Fella reappeared and accused Nanaimo Guy of being a dip@#&%.

The administrators reminded the group about "coarse language", and here's where things got truly silly.  Several men (they're always men, aren't they?) started going on about Freedom Of Expression, and one even posted a gif of Rodney King.

Rodney King, so far as I can recall, was beaten to a pulp by the L.A. police for being black, right?  Not for dropping f-bombs in a private Facebook group.

*Sigh*  For the most part, I have found the historical aspects of "Old Victoria" a gentle pleasure.  I'd hate to be driven away by the foolishness of fatuous fellas.

Canine caveats

One of my Facebook pals shared this very amusing cartoon today, but you know me - well, you don't, really - I like to cite sources. I noticed the signature in the lower right hand corner, and googled it.

Turns out this is by cartoonist David Coverly, which led me to another very funny canine cut-up.

Sometimes it pays to give credit.

A horse in a hospital

This is not new.

Nothing on my blog is, it seems.

Elder daughter posted this on my Facebook wall last night.

It was only when I went looking for it this morning that I realized that this has been around for about a year and a half - long enough for people with loads of spare time to actually make animated YouTube videos of it. I've decided to stick with the video elder daughter shared.

Please be aware that it is rife with F-bombs and other salty language. Oh, and it may not be clear from the posting, but the comedian here is John Mulaney.

Trump is a horse in a hospital from Rich Porter on Vimeo.

Sudoku and the inner bitch

Three years ago, I took up Sudoku. I was warned sternly against this by Jaywalker, author of the deliciously desperate Belgian Waffle, but I persisted. The most dire of her warnings did not come to pass, I do not do more than one or two a day, but there has been a side effect that makes me uneasy. Sudoku is just mindless enough to permit my own mind to wander while I fill in the squares, and my mind really shouldn't be going out unaccompanied. It strays into all sorts of nasty areas.

I blame this on my "inner bitch", and the unpleasant idea that my nice (ie, innocent, clueless, much happier) self is being drained away by the encroaching years, leaving a dried-up, toxic smear of witchiness with a 'b'.

Among my malevolent mullings of late have been a series of messages from a woman who first contacted me through Facebook last spring. It came in the form of "friend request" with a message saying she didn't know how to send messages through Facebook, but she named my late father, wondering if he was my father and was I his only child? If so, she said, she had information for me, and she gave me an email address. Her profile picture showed an attractive lady of indeterminate age on vacation somewhere tropical. I was puzzled that there was no way to send her a message back through Facebook, nor did she turn up in a Facebook search. I discussed this with the Resident Fan Boy. I didn't want to "friend" her because then she could see all the information on my profile, nor did I want to answer by email because that would give her my email address, and she really had told me nothing about herself.

I decided to create a "gmail" account for myself, and respond to her through that. I kept my message minimal. I told her only that I was the fourth of my father's five children. Yes, she said, giving his birthdate; she had information she didn't "think should be shared on email" and would I give her my phone number or phone her? That's when my inner alarm bells started going off. I could tell from the email address that she was in Canada, and by her phone prefix that she was in British Columbia. When I checked a reverse look-up, I found her house in the southern part of Nanaimo. (Coincidentally, she was about 5 km. from where we lived for three months before moving to Victoria when I was nine.)

Again, I checked with the Resident Fan Boy. He shook his head. "She sounds like a debt collector," he said, with his lawyer caution. (This is plausible, as my father ran up huge debts in Canada with his numerous failed businesses.) I also checked with my mother on Skype; she'd never heard of this woman, but wondered if it was someone who had known me at elementary school in Nanaimo. I pointed out I'd been there for less than three months at the tail-end of Grade Three, and besides, Dad hadn't been with with us in Nanaimo; that was after he ran away to Boston with his girlfriend.

I hemmed and hawed, suspicious that the little information she had seemed to come directly from my online family tree (which she never, at any point in our communication, mentioned). I'm the only descendant of my father on it; I had omitted any information on my siblings because this is basic family history etiquette; it's also illegal to publish people's names on the internet without their permission. I suspect that's why she thought I was an only child. I was also brought up to believe that if you contact a stranger by phone, letter, or other means, the impetus is on you to identify yourself. This woman had not revealed who she was, and I had to wonder why.

I finally decided not to respond, and to block her on Facebook. I left the gmail account to rot in cyberspace.

About a month age, I was checking Facebook one morning and noticed some numbers beside "messages" on my home page. When I clicked on them, there were messages that had been sent to me last spring. Normally, I'm notified by email when I get a message in the Facebook inbox, but after all, I had blocked her:
"I've thought and thought about this, the proper way to do it, or to do it at all..... do you have the right to know? do I have the right to tell you? I am (his) daughter too - on Father's Day it tugs at my heart...."

Oh, crud. Well, hardly a surprise, given my father's track record. I wasn't unsympathetic, but I found her Harlequin Romance prose a bit hard to take, and I still thought it would have been politer to say who she is (or who she thought she is) right up front, don't you? I tried being right up front myself:

I was not notified of the third message and only saw it today. I'm afraid I was so put off by the tone of your first messages, that I blocked you on Facebook after your cryptic contact last May. I checked around with other family members and the general consensus was that you might be a debt-collector. (Dad left a lot of debts behind when he left Canada.) May I ask if you have documentation that you are my half-sister?

Oh goodness no, not a debt collector, she replied airily. And yes, Dad's birth date matched with the information on her birth records. - Wait a minute, I thought. Since when does the father's birth date appear in the child's birth records?

She said she was adopted. Maybe that's when a father's birth dates appears, in adoption records? The only problem with that is that my father pretty consistently lied about his birth year until very late in life, the simple reason being his parents had been married only six months when he was born.

She was just a "regular gal", she said; didn't want to cause anyone any grief: "I apologize if the first messages sounded 'cryptic', it's hard to put down on FB or email whopping information like that, so I was trying to remain respectful."

- Respectful? I thought, incredulously. I was losing patience.

"The information is not as whopping as you might think," I retorted. "Dad was a busy boy. Eight years ago, I was in the position of explaining who I was to Dad's first family in England. They'd never heard of me; Dad had neglected to tell them he had a family in Canada. And guess what? I did not tell them I had information to share and could they get in touch with me? I did not write two more times without revealing the nature of my information. I said at the very beginning: 'This is who I am, and how I believe I'm related to you. I just want to wish you a Merry Christmas. If you don't wish further contact, I will understand.' They, of course, required proof of who I was . . . .Since you initiated this, the onus is on you to prove who you are. If you feel that is too personal, that is your privilege, and we can let this rest. I'm curious of course, but not that curious."

She replied that the way I'd handled the situation with my father's first family had been the right way for me, while the way she had handled the situation with me had been right for her, that she was only seeking information for her "little guy" who had a "profound syndrome" and that as "his mommy", she had had to seek what family information she could find. She told me to take care. I took this as "goodbye", and have not responded.

I sit with the Sudoku, and the sense of falseness and the feelings of being manipulated nag at me as I fill in the little squares. I'm not sure why I feel so irritated with this woman, but I have learned, time and again, that if I don't listen to those inner alarm bells, I will regret it. Something is telling me this woman is bad news.

Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast of BBC Four's Tracing Your Roots. It was full of half-sibling reunions. The resident genealogist recommended writing, rather than emailing or phoning suspected relatives, to send a picture, to furnish proof, and be prepared for rejection. When I screwed up the courage to contact my half-brother, and my first cousin, I sent a Christmas card with a family photo with my email and with the assurance that they did not need to respond. My Christmas card list has doubled. They have been open and generous, despite the genealogical bomb that I dropped on them nearly ten years ago.

I am not prepared to be as open with this woman claiming to be my half-sister. Something is telling me not to. Is it my inner bitch, or something deeper inside that knows more than I do?

Maybe I should switch to crossword puzzles.

The un-de-friended mother

Elder daughter unfriended me on Facebook when she was fifteen. No offense, she said defensively. She couldn't think of a single one of her friends who had parents as Facebook friends. Facebook was private, she said. Facebook is the polar opposite of private, I said. No dice. Her grandmother, her father and I were out.

Sometime last spring, her name quietly re-appeared on my Facebook list. Rather like a zoologist sighting a rare and shy species, I moved cautiously. I didn't put messages on her wall. I didn't even mention the re-friending. Hesitantly, I would occasionally ask about something I'd seen at her profile.

I soon stopped.

"Mu-u-u-um... Quit stalking me!"

Stalking? Looking at a Facebook profile is stalking? Oh, okay...

I continued to look, but silently. Until this fall when an uncharacteristic note appeared: "(Elder daughter) is attending: I'm getting dru-u-u-unk!"

It seems some friend of hers was celebrating the end of some sort of physical training in which she'd been engaged all summer with a party which wouldn't include "everyone at Dal", just some close friends of her and her flat-mates.

Right. So this was why she was listing it as a "Public Event". One of the said roomies piped up: "In case this isn't clear, it's at our place!" while helpfully supplying the address.

I thought about it all day before typing a comment below the lengthy description of this event: "My daughter's going to kill me for saying this, but if you don't want all of Dal to come, should you really be publishing your address on a public event?"

Elder daughter was in touch with me within half an hour, leaving a "MOTHER!" on my Facebook wall, followed by a winking and bobbing Skype icon. I removed my comment, even though someone had "liked" it. Elder daughter informed me that this was because I'd left the "l" out of "public". I was pretty sure I was going to be unfriended on the spot, but elder daughter fixed it. She informed all her friends that I was crazy.

I guess that's what you call "saving face".

Facebook fable

Boy, you can get into trouble on the internet. I therefore tell the following tale with fear and trembling.

First off, what's been happening in Japan has been horrific. In my pre-mummy life, dimly remembered as it is, I was an ESL teacher and a fair few of my students were Japanese. Their faces flashed before me as I sat horror-struck in front of my computer watching events unfold and trying to remember which ones were from northern Japan.

The real conundrum, for me, began with letters to the editor and various Facebook postings pointing out how much more powerful the earthquake that hit Japan was than that which rocked Haiti. Then came links to articles pointing out that if you donated to various help associations, the money might well be diverted to other causes because Japan hadn't actually requested financial assistance. The underlying suggestion seemed to be that this was sneaky of said organizations.

Now, I feel that Japan is in great distress, just as Haiti is (still) in great distress. Japan, however, is a First World nation. This doesn't mean that they are not in dire peril, or that they in any way deserve to suffer. My guess though, is that in a year and half's time, a large portion of their population will not be living in tents, nor dying of cholera. Nor, do I think, will their women and children be vulnerable to sexual assault on a nightly basis. Which appears to be the situation in Haiti right now, with no real let-up in sight.

So, I decided, after some thought, to state in my Facebook status, simply that I making woefully inadequate donations to two organizations I trust: Unicef and Doctors Without Borders and marking them "Wherever the need is greatest".

Clearly, I should have just shut up and made the donations. A couple of friends marked the status with "Like" and then I heard from a long-time and treasured friend, who is a practising Jew and has, over the past few months, become rather more vocal on pro-Israeli issues. The latest upset has been on the subject of the massacre of the Fogel family on the West Bank. My friend and many members of her community were posting items decrying what they felt was the suppression of the story by the world press.

The problem with my Facebook status was apparently my support of Doctors Without Borders. Doctor Without Borders certainly has borders, she briskly informed me, saying they had a record of shutting out Israeli surgeons. A quick google brought up a letter from MSF/DWB about the incident, which occurred last summer in connection with a tanker explosion in the eastern Congo. I responded, cautiously, that I knew little about this controversy but included the link. Within minutes, she had sent me a link to an article from an Israeli journalist. I think I would have just left it at that, but a few minutes later, she sent another link to another article in a different publication. By the same journalist. In fact, it was essentially the same article with added details about MSF/DWB surgeons objecting to Israeli music in the operating room.

Oh dear. This friend is a valued one. I have been a guest in her home, and most importantly, she has been a gracious and kind supporter of younger daughter. Feeling a little sick, I deleted the whole post. When I told the Resident Fan Boy about it, he went into his anti-Facebook rant, complete with pacing. I distanced myself from him for a couple of days too. Eventually, the friendly messages from Vancouver resumed. Eventually, I spoke to my husband again. I will continue to support both Unicef and Doctors Without Borders, but in a New Testament fashion. In secret. I can't afford to lose friends.

Dabbling, Doodling, Fiddling, Wordle-ing...

Okay, I admit it. I cyber-stalk my elder daughter. She didn't give me much choice. She "unfriended" her grandmother, her father and me a few years ago when she came to the conclusion that "none" of her high school pals had their parents as Facebook friends. (She kept my sister and her husband on, presumably because they're way cooler...) When confronted, she pleaded: "Mo-o-o-o-om! Facebook is private!"
"No-o-o-o-o!" I responded in the exact same timbre (irritating her royally), "Facebook is the polar opposite of private!"
No dice. We were out.

Do I respect her wishes? Damned right I don't. I can still get in and see her photographs and while on one of these online field trips, I came across some Wordle pictures she'd put together, mostly for school.
For those of you unfamiliar with this concept, Wordle is a web site which can make any text you choose into a kind of abstract text picture. The first two I've included here are the results of entering: a) a whack of text copied-and-pasted from one computer page of my blog which is about ten posts along with some other stuff; and b) one very long post about Christmas.However, I think it works best with shorter bits of writing on one subject, such as the one just above which is a recent post about a little girl talking to a clown on a bus.

My favourite so far is one I made from my post about pilling my cat:


Try it, with a post, a term paper, a newspaper article....