The below entry has been cross-posted to my www.justlikeyousaiditwouldbe.com site. With Microsoft Designer in free preview I recently fooled around with the software—purely for fun—and ended up falling down a rabbit hole generating AI photos of Amira and Darragh from Just Like You Said It Would Be. I'm not going to tell you how many images I ended up with (a completely wild amount! Also, a bizarro image of a 60s glam rock band fighting off a bunch of shark men but let's leave that aside). The first problem was that Dall-E didn't know what Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge looked like and in response to my description continually offered up a slew of other bridges that sometimes weren't even footbridges instead. There were also a few issues with unusually large, weird-looking eyes and the well-known problem that AI often has generating hands. Other times the couple (or sometimes half of them) simply didn't match the images of Amira and Darragh I have in my head. 

If you've read Just Like You Said It Would Be you've probably formed your own images of the characters which might be a little different than mine, but here are some of what I consider to be the best Amira and Darragh on Ha'penny Bridge photos generated by Dall-E. You might notice I relocated the couple to Grafton Street for several of the below images. I'm also going to thrown in a few solo examples of each of the characters where Dall-E got Amira right but not Darragh and vice versa.

 

 

A and D on Grafton Street:

 

 

 

 

The faces are good but check out the hand freakiness in the one below!

 

Not sure what the deal is with the roof on this bridge but it's interesting:

And here we go with some successful AI generated photos of Amira:

 

 

 

 

 

Now for the Darragh offerings. There's alotta hair in this first one but it works.

 

 

 

Supposedly on Grafton Street but there's actually no curb on that street since it's pedestrian.
 

 

 

 

Finally, I described Amira and Darragh on Grafton Street separately and ended up with results I was pleased with, although Dall-E once again failed to understand that Grafton Street is pedestrian. It also placed a London bus than a Dublin one in the background (Dublin's city buses aren't red). Other than that the general architecture of the setting has the right look.

 

 

 

I wouldn't use these professionally in any capacity for ethical reasons concerning AI's impact on the arts, but it was a fun experiment for sure and I'll be posting a few other photos relating to Shantallow on my Instagram as well as this website soonish.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the release of my first book, I Know It's Over. To celebrate I've designed and released a fresh cover and put e-copies on sale for $1.99 U.S. (or equivalent in other currencies) at Apple, B&N, Kobo, Amazon and Google until October 15th.

If I Know It's Over was set in Ontario, Canada today Sasha would likely seek a prescription for Mifegymiso, undergoing a medical abortion rather than a surgical one. At the time I wrote I Know It's Over sadly this option was not available to Canadian girls and women.

However, there are no laws restricting or criminalizing abortion in Canada and it's a publicly funded procedure in most provinces. You can read more about that here:

https://nafcanada.org/abortion-coverage-region/

And if you want to learn more about accessing abortion pills, which was approved in Canada in 2015, please see the below resource:

https://teenhealthsource.com/blog/faq-can-i-get-the-abortion-pill-in-canada/

Included here are previous covers for I Know It's Over, including the Bulgarian edition which was named "Ще си останем приятели, нали?" This translates as "We'll stay friends, right?" 

 

The following is aimed at residents of Canada. If you live here you already know we're in a health care emergency across the country. As Prime Minister Trudeau and Health Minister Duclos go into healthcare meetings with the provincial government, we need to make sure they don't just write a blank cheque to provinces but attach conditions that will protect public healthcare in Canada. Please sign the Lead Now petition and help convince Trudeau and Duclos to negotiate so the deal doesn't allow public money to be funnelled into private, for-profit healthcare, but instead builds thriving and resilient healthcare systems. Petition link:

 https://act.leadnow.ca/ntl-healthcare-ett/

I'm temporarily deactivating my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts for a much-needed social media break. I expect to be back on at least some of these platforms late next month. In the meantime, if you're interested in what I'm reading you can see that on Goodreads. 

After arriving home in Ontario last Friday (June 3rd) I received an email from the federal government Monday morning saying that I’d been randomly selected for Covid testing post-travel (news to me!) and that if they didn’t have my results within the next twenty-four hours they might contact me by phone. I promptly called the government public health number listed in the email. The first thing they asked me was how I’d gotten their number (Huh? You emailed me). After asking where I was calling from they instructed me to contact SwitchHealth to arrange testing. From the email I could see SwitchHealth was the wrong lab but when I read the email message back citing LifeLabs as responsible for Ontario testing the person on the phone insisted SwitchHealth was in charge of Ontario testing.

Let me tell you, SwitchHealth is not currently in charge of Ontario airport testing and only handle testing for Alberta and Atlantic Canada. Apparently, SwitchHealth were previously involved with Ontario testing but that changed at the beginning of June. After contacting LifeLabs (who perform the Ontario testing) LifeLabs informed me it would take 3 or 4 days for the test to arrive via FedEx and that I’d get robo calls from the government in the meantime.

The next day the harassing robo calls threatening $5k fines for non-compliance started with no opportunity to speak to a live person to explain what had happened. Day 6 my test kit arrived via FedEx mid-afternoon. The next available online test was for the following day. I finally had the virtual appointment yesterday (day 7) and the epic ridiculousness didn’t end there. The person who observed my online test instructed me to store it in a cold dark place away from sunlit, preferably a fridge, until FedEx could come pick it up. Supposedly they have to pick the sample up the same day or it’s no longer viable.

 

I called FedEx directly after my appointment, and they told me (knowing what it was) to leave the package outside my apartment building with a note attached explaining that it was a covid test so no one would steal it and said they’d pick it up anytime before 5. This was at ten AM. I repeated what I’d been told about keeping the package in the fridge and away from sunlight until they arrive and the FedEx employee somewhat wryly said they don’t have any fridges. Not wanting to give them an excuse not to pick the kit up, I did as close to asked as I was comfortable with, leaving the package between the inner and outer doors of my building where a FedEx driver wouldn’t have to endure contact with me to retrieve it. I checked on the package several times and it was still there at 3.30 but gone by 4.35, meaning my sample sat outside the security doors of my building for at least 5.5 hours!

I don’t disagree with Covid-19 testing. In fact, I took two rapid antigen tests (on day 4 and 5) after my dodgy return WestJet flight as there were many unmasked and sniffling people sitting near me on the plane and flight attendants weren’t enforcing federal masking rules. But when the random airport PRC testing that’s supposed to happen on day 1 doesn’t occur until day 7 I fail to see how it’s useful in any way. This entire experience was nothing but aggravation and ineptitude.

Since I’m not an Irish resident I had no vote in Ireland’s 2018 Abortion Referendum but I was in Dublin when the vote to overturn their abortion ban came in, and I rejoiced at the nation’s long overdue decision following far too many years of Irish women and girls being forced to continue with pregnancies they didn’t want or travel to England for abortions. Along with thousands of others, on Saturday May 26th, 2018, I travelled into the Dublin Castle grounds to mark the historic day. 

 

Speaking from Dublin Castle on May 26th, 2018, Tánaiste, and then taoiseach, Leo Varadkar said it was “a day when we say no more”: “No more to doctors telling their patients that there’s no more can be done for them in their own country, no more lonely journeys across the Irish Sea, no more stigma as the veil of secrecy is lifted and no more isolation as the burden of shame is gone.” 

 

Even on that day, standing among a gathered Irish crowd, I experienced a surreal feeling of both relieve and creeping dread that as a victory for Irish women’s bodily autonomy rights was won those same rights were being chipped away in the United States of America. And here we are, four years later, a leaked draft opinion of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning the top court’s precedent-setting Roe v Wade ruling. 

 

We must be prepared, everywhere, to continue to fight for a woman's right to choose, again and again and again.

 

* Read a history of the Eighth Amendment from 1983 to 2018.

 

* Read my Blog for Choice entry from 2008.

 

Photos from Dublin, May, 2018