i want to say a little about my mother's writing style, because i'm noticing how strangely it is actually like mine, and it may lead random readers to a false conclusion. in fact, as far as i can tell, the influence flows in the other direction, and it's actually a little bit creepy.

the primary overlap is in the use of the ellipsis (...), which is something that goes very far back in my writing style, and that i mostly picked up from pynchon. i will admit that there was a period in the late 90s where i was very purposefully attempting to emulate his writing style, and i ended up overusing it, even falling into it as a bit of a crutch. it's come in and out of prominence since then, but it's never really gone away; i'd say it's largely become something i use when i'm being lazy nowadays, but i do still use it fairly frequently.

i was online about 1997 or so and it's been at the centre of my life ever since. however, my mother did not get a computer until the early 00s, and while there were some random emails sent, i don't recall reading much of anything she'd written in any detail until she added me on facebook around 2010.

i do, however, believe that she spent a very large amount of time reading my old web site at https://chat.carleton.ca/~jparent2. in the few emails that she sent me between 2003 and 2008, she was using the tagline - those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it - as her email signature. i think it meant something different to her than me, though; i was using it to suggest that we were spiralling back into fascism, whereas she seems to have been using it as reference to her alcoholism.

regardless, i get the impression that she spent hours and hours sorting through that page. maybe she felt it was the only way to really understand who i was as a person, given that i'd been so distant from her for so long. i think i may have spent something on the order of ten hours with her between 1996 and 2003; i was living with my father, and she was struggling with a severe heroin addiction.

i guess i first sent her the link around 2002 or so. the emulation, since then, is noticeable enough to conclude it isn't a coincidence. but, does she just write that way when she's typing to me? is it more of a reflection of the fact that it coincided with her first serious computer use? she's nearing but not yet at retirement age, but she's never had a meaningful job in her life, and she wouldn't have done much typing in the 70s, when she was in high school. i don't know the answers to these questions...

but, i know i've noticed the similarity, meaning you might have noticed it as well, and i do think the influence flows from me to her, that she was heavily influenced by my writing.

i honestly don't think i'd seen a phrase she'd typed for upwards of ten years after i started writing...