The Ink-Pot and the Palette

Are you noticing unexpected side effects of the lockdown? Setting aside for the moment the big, obvious ones, which have been coming at us all day after day, I'm beginning to wonder about subtler ones.

I made a new friend a few months ago. He was a listener of my podcast, and followed me on Twitter, where we had some back-and-forth. Back in November, between hip surgery 1 and hip surgery 2, he happened to be in town and asked if we could meet.

It was just one of those instant friendships. We sat over coffee and talked for hours. Next time he was in town, shortly after my second surgery, we did the same. In between, lots of messages flew--about writing, politics, LGBTQ issues, and culture. We quickly forged a thick, rich connection. A real friendship.

But he lives alone in an isolated situation, and struggles with anxiety at the best of times, which these times decidedly are not. The thick connection is thinning, not easily maintained via text. There's a very real sense that "we don't know each other well enough for that"—"that" being the little extra prying or persistence that an older and more tested friendship might permit.

It would be relatively easy to let the connection thin out to nothingness and drift away. After all, we've only known each other a few months. I hope that doesn't happen. But is there enough will on both sides to hang onto it?

I wonder how many new things, like seeds planted at the wrong moment, will fail to weather this strange time.

...that I love the internet?

Recent studies show that young Americans are losing interest in driving, and are actually preferring mass transit and active transportation over car ownership.* Of the many reasons suggested for this decline in driving, my favorite is that when you take transit you can amuse yourself with your mobile device the whole way.**

Eleanor O being in the shop overnight, I was riding the #8 downtown this morning, enjoying this very benefit. I was reading the many emails flying among vampirefan, sffan, llaras and me speculating about what the hell is going on in Teen Wolf, when ravurian pinged me from the end of his workday in London. I ended up chatting with him all the way to work. (Swype works quite well as an input method on a bouncy bus).

Is it just me, or does that still feel like magic? Sometimes--seriously, at least once per day hour--I am simply awestruck with delight at the global brain and what it has wrought.

* This shockingly un-American trend has sent a panicked auto industry into an advertising blitz, some of which targets the uncoolness of riding the bus, riding a bike, or walking. You know it's real when they're that desperate.

** Yes, you can do this while driving, but please, please don't.

Missed a day. Darn! Only a quarter of the way into posting, reading, and commenting every day for a month, and I completely forgot yesterday. Never even opened my computer.

I saw "The Internship" on Friday after work. Considering that I've missed every major movie of the past two years except "The Avengers", spending the admission price to see a predictable underdog buddy-comedy is kind of a questionable choice. But, you know, Dylan O'Brien.

The movie was better than I expected. Once the cringeworthy oblivous-people-embarrassing-themselves part was done (the first 15 minutes or so--and yes, that's a thing of mine, not a criticism of the movie), it became kind of charming.

What made it the most fun of all was that vampirefan, who lives two time zones away, wanted to see it too. Neither of us had anyone to go with, so we went together! She went to a 6:30 showing, I went to a 4:30 showing, and we texted each other at key points from our respective cinema back row seats.

Here's a frame from my favorite scene:

I still like it here best.

Dunbar's Number says that our brains evolved to manage a maximum of about 150 social connections.

Apparently Dunbar's number isn't just a maximum, though: it may also be a kind of optimum; we feel a need for 100 to 200 social connections. Since most of us don't live in extended families, tribes or small villages anymore, we fill our Dunbar vacancies with virtual social connections.

At least a couple dozen golden social connections of mine for the last nine years have been right here on Dreamwidth and LiveJournal, and you know what? I'd like to try to keep it that way.

Getting email notifications about comments on LJ and DW is still really sweet. I like the kinds of personal conversations that can happen in comments here, that I've never found anywhere else. It's not all fandom all the time, but it's fandom-adjacent, the conversations of enthusiasts and believers and people who make stuff and care about meaning and love a good shared squee.

So, I'm challenging myself to post, read, and comment daily during June. Maybe even read and comment outside my list/circle. I might crosspost from other services. I might do the kind of abbreviated drive-by that's become the province of Twitter. I might post about knitting, or cats, or my bike, or work. Or Dylan O'Brien, what the hell.

Yeah, thirty posts in thirty days, APAD, PEDFAM--it's nothing new. But I'm just so hungry, you know? I'm tired of the fragmentation. Google+ and Facebook and Twitter do very little for my Dunbar quotient.

I still like it here best.

The fact that there are still memes makes me kind of happy. oursin was doing the "Things I'm Grateful For/Happy About Beginning With the Letter _" meme. She gave me the letter H.

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I hope all my friends in the UK are enjoying a splendid Jubilee celebration. It all sounds so uplifting and festive and proud.

I was struck, on looking at the Twitter stream for the #proudtobebritish hashtag, by how many less-than-positive tweets there were, pointing out various iniquities perpetrated by Britain (some of them pretty recent). I get it--the great nations have done great evil. I'm not a fan of blind patriotism and it seems prudent to remember the past, bad and good.

But still. Symbolic day. Great nation. Long history. Deep roots. Proud traditions. I'd be proud to be British today too, if I were.

Happy birthday to my Number One Fannish Buddy, vampirefan! All our chatwatches, and all the fannish news and pictures and fic you point me to, have been a highlight of my year. You keep fandom alive for me, and I'm so grateful.

I'm going to get you to watch Sherlock this year. LOL!

Eee! My trip to the UK is drawing nearer and I'm starting to be seriously excited, I think because today is the first quiet, restful day I've had in weeks to think about it.

I'll be in London from August 19th to about the 24th. I've got a hotel room reserved in Bayswater (trying hard to disregard the sticker shock--I'm sure it will be very comfortable!), and from that home base, I'm going to meet wonderful people--ravurian, and ruric (we might get to see War Horse!); altariel, and lamentables--and I hope happytune and communicator--and possibly even tehomet, who might be in England from Ireland at that time.

Then I'm going here! For a five-day retreat! I think "windswept Scottish island" pretty well covers it. I plan to bring knitting and writing. There will be reiki. And meditation. And walks.

And after that? Naturally, I'm going to visit kis, who is one of my best friends in the world, and we're going to explore Glasgow, a city I've never visited. I might take a train back to London, because I love trains and we don't have good ones here.

There are quite a few details still un-fleshed-out, and one or two reservations not yet made, but it's on. It's on! Whee!

It's pretty rare that I drink alcohol, and really rare that I have more than one drink. It is also pretty rare that I have a conversation that's relaxed enough and enjoyable enough that signaling the bartender for another round seems perfectly natural.

A colleague and friend of mine, who a year and a half ago lost his partner of 25 years to a sudden illness, is taking early retirement and leaving our common public sector place of employment in a matter of days. When I heard the news I suggested meeting for a drink at the Veritable Quandary.

They were avid world travelers, my friend and his partner, and my friend, recovered enough from his period of mourning to look around, has decided to take off and try the world again for several months. I drank Laphroaig and he drank zinfandel, and we laughed and cried a little, and he told me stories of how they'd met, and what it's like to be alone, and where he's going (pretty much everywhere, it sounded like).

We talked travel, and bikes, and retirement (I'm unbearably envious--he gave me the name of his financial adviser and I'm so gonna call her), and the whole conversation was really about freedom, and sorrow, and the spark of joy that can't replace what's been lost but which is, after all, still joy, and it was wonderful, and we parted at the bike rack on the sidewalk outside the VQ with heartfelt hugs, and rode off, he to the west and I to the east, in the late sun of a beautiful May evening.

I would like to be--but am probably not--the first to wish a very, very happy birthday to my good friend kis. She has been my sounding board, my editor, my fellow Whedon fan, and my convention-pal (for that one con I went to) since the days of Firefly.

What's more, she's been an in-person friend for all that time, despite the 6000 miles and eight time zones that usually separate us. The things she's borne with from me! The writing angst! The personal trials and tribulations! The American tea! Jet lag (both directions)! My minuscule house!

Through many joys and sorrows of real life, and much fun and madness in the world of fandom, she's been a wonderful constant.

To know that there is someone here or there with whom you can feel there is understanding in spite of distances or thoughts unexpressed - that can make of this earth a garden.
--Goethe

Happy Birthday, Kis!