Back in the dawn of time when the world was new, a time when my memories are bathed in a golden light, I had an arrangement of my time and mind down pat and it worked.
Okay, the time was the 90s and since that started with the year of our Lord 1990 I guess it wasn’t the dawn of time. It just feels like that. I’m not joking about the time being suffused with a golden glow.
It actually started out pretty badly as 1991 and 1992 were mostly years from hell. As in, Dan jumped to a work-from-home job while I was pregnant with #1 son, and in the way of work-from-home jobs in the nineties, it was a scam that never paid him. It took us six months to figure that out. Anyway, turned thirty in 1992, just as we finished packing to move to Colorado, and that initiated the happiest almost-decade of my life, cut short by 9/11, not because of 9/11 but because of what it did to my friends’ group.
For a while there, while #1 son and later #2 son were toddlers, I settled into a routine. My favorite years were the six years in Manitou Springs, on top of a hill, in a house that was full of light. I worked in the attic, overlooking the mountain town. Incidentally this was also probably the year that set my thyroid on the road to h*ll, since I managed to pass the invisible upward line that means the altitude is REALLY bad for me. I was okay in downtown Springs (would have been better in downtown Denver) but get me anywhere above that, and the autoimmune starts kicking random stuff. So Manitou and Castle Rock were definitely bad ideas. Particularly since we lived on tall hills and in tall houses both places. Anyway….
My days settled into a very nice pattern where I took a long walk before breakfast (and usually before the kids woke up) then had breakfast, got the kids up, settled them doing something and did a one to two hour “running-clean” of the house. Most moms here will know exactly what I’m talking about. you flush toilets, wipe sinks, make beds, collect discarded stuff and put it in its proper place, then dusted and ran the vacuum, interrupted by the kids doing their thing and coming to show me stuff or asking me how to write something…
BUT what made those hours was that either I called my writing buddy or she called me and we chatted, while she was doing her running clean.
You see, we’d met through our husbands, who’d met at work and were both amused by finding out their wives both were trying to break into SF/F. So we started — haltingly — talking about it. And it became a thing. We talked about markets and submissions, of course, but mostly we talked about what we were writing, the chapters for that day, what we thought was coming out in the current story, etc.
This conversation centered me for the day, made it clear what I was doing, so that I could sit down and work afterwards. This was easier after the kids were both in school (as were hers) because we called each other after dropping the kids off at school, and after cleaning up sat down and wrote till it was time to pick them up.
From it came the writers group that met on Saturdays from 3 pm till whenever. We were usually still kicking people out of the house at 10 pm, and I often made the kind of group dinner you make when you’re young and broke: usually pasta and homemade sauce.
These were my most productive years, until this last year and — it’s shaping up — this one. I always attributed it to the connections, the fact that I had someone outside my head to talk to about my imaginary friends; the fact there was a rhythm and structure to my day.
It fell apart after 9/11. Partly politics. Well, you know. “Did you go crazy, or did you report, on that day they wounded New York?” as Mr. Cohen put it. When world views shatter, they tend to take friendships and writing groups with them.
But there were also economic upheavals and people married, divorced, moved away… and died. By 2003 our group of friends and connections was gone, and I was slogging through writing and increasingly more difficult trad pub landscape all on my own. None of which got easier after I came out of the political closet circa 2010.
So why am I telling you all this?
I realized recently that I haven’t had a group, a connection to humanity in general until my close-in-reader-group that I call the Chinchilla of Hope gang (Yes, there is a story to it. Hold on. Because, first:) This led to some of the most arid times of my life and career. The stories still arrived, on command, but I had no words to write them; no ability to concentrate. It felt like being locked in a stone chamber passing out my stories through tiny cracks on fragments the size of a fortune cookie fortune. I still wrote, but sometimes an entire year went by I couldn’t finish anything.
Yes, there were health issues too, and a lot of it is real, like when the big fires in CO made my asthma go insane which in turn affected everything. But I also wonder how much was the lack of connections.
The Chinchilla of Hope gang are a subset of my fan discord (the closed one. Explaining why it’s closed is… a long story. Yes, there is also an open one, and I promise I’ll visit it more often. Just not yet.) which started out by my threatening them with my Chinelo, which as all of you know is the Portuguese word for Chancla. (There’s chanca too, but no one hits anyone with a chanca, because that’s — in Portuguese — a closed wooden clog. Hitting anyone with that would be felony murder.) One of them who is more dyslexic than should be allowed decided I was hitting her with a Chinchilla, which she thought given the hardness of her head was cruel and unusual to the Chinchilla. Next thing I knew they were throwing virtual Chinchillas at each other and hitting each other with the Chinchilla of Hope. Which was then turned on me when I started writing again, and was very doubtful about the sanity of EVEN WRITING No Man’s Land, the story that I’d been sitting on for (then) 42 years because I was sure no one wanted it. Then started bombarding me with Chinchillas of hope and… well, it turned out all right.
Anyway, the point is, I’m an extreme introvert. How extreme? Well, since 2020 and the lockdowns I have to talk myself down from panic when we’re hosting my kids and their wives for a holiday. Also mostly the “con crud” I get after any con (or let’s face it, dinner with fans) is mostly introvert exhaustion.
While I’m the kind of introvert that needs to see people, usually I’m perfectly content sitting in a corner of a coffee shop, writing, and watching people move around and do things. Seeing them is ENOUGH.
But it turns out even I need a connection. Even if it’s pixels on a screen, via a Discord group.
As I type this, younger son and wife are trying to find a local friend group, and its…. difficult. People were broken, and not just by 9/11 which fractured opinions and made them extremely vehement, but by 2020. In retrospect, the 90s were an anomaly because even though people were very different politically, we were all so relieved we were no longer living under the shadow of “WWIII will break out any minute” that we could talk across political lines. This was mostly tolerance on the right, I think, because we thought without the USSR our local commies weren’t really that much of a threat, and we could afford to let them widget on, and even be friends in the hobbies and stuff we shared.
Yea, we were wrong, but we didn’t know it yet. Now we know it, and things are way more complicated.
But on top of that, 2020 genuinely broke people’s ability to relate, to talk, to get to know strangers and relate to them. We’re more fragmented, more distant.
Yet we’re still social apes. And if even the extreme introvert needs that connection, you probably need it too.
I don’t have an easy way for you to do it. Even with our local friends, we see each other… occasionally. Because meeting in person requires effort, and it feels weird and unnatural after the year of silence and isolation and then the last crazy five years or so.
The problem is that I think something about the human brain equates having no group, no human connection, to “They’re about to put me on the ice floe” or “Hit me on the head and leave me for the jaguars.” and we start going loopy. Well, for some of us loopy-er. Which makes the creative work or even “just” the mind work stop.
What can you do? I don’t know. Start establishing a connection. Somehow. It’s work, but it is worth it.
In the end, humans become and stay humans by being around other humans. And yes, you too need it, even if virtual, even if discord, even if distant. We all need, sometimes, to hear from someone who is not the voice behind our eyes.
Go and try.
According To Hoyt 
Amen Sister Sarah!
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Let there be courage, not coping
Aimlessly sloughing the days
Mourning the past in feckless haze
Else we’ll launch the barrage
Of chinchilla hoping. ;-)
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I didn’t set out to be a rebel in 2020. I just wasn’t going to take an experimental not-a-vax until I knew how it would interact with my immune system issues, and the data kept not being available. So I kept not doing it, until people stopped insisting… still haven’t done it.
Because I’m pretty broken physically, I have to keep the muscle mass up to imitate a mostly-functioning human, and since the asthma precluded aerobic exercise, I had to keep showing up to the black iron gym and weightlifting. Not working out was more dangerous to my health than the not-a-flu that I’d already, it turned out, caught in February anyway.
I also didn’t set out to make friends, but somehow simply showing up and being civil and my usual level of black humour at people when keeping to my exact same normal routine as ever… turned out to be bonding with all the other people who, for their own varied reasons, also kept showing up. And suddenly I’m accidentally old friends with a bunch of people I’ve been seeing for years, and trade at least a “good morning” and “have fun, don’t get caught!” with.
The people who study this say it takes 40-60 hours to turn an acquaintance into a casual friend, and 200 hours more to turn a casual friend into a close one.
So what can you do? You don’t have to be great at it. I’m not great at it. But be persistent! Show up, keep showing up, and you’ll be surprised at the result.
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‘Showing up’ was how I accidentally inherited a karate dojo a few weeks ago. Because when your Sensei is 77 and has sudden health issues, it turns out that the senior student who just kept doggedly showing up in spite of everything is expected to keep it going.
That said, I’ve had an entire ecosystem of people who’ve shown up for me in various respects, in order for said dojo to continue. It turns out that people like and need ‘third spaces’, and a martial arts class is a particularly good one for bringing people from wildly disparate backgrounds together. I’ll unhappily take on the administrative/teaching burden to keep the class going!
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Necessary and discouraging. Every time I think I’ve made a connection, I’m ghosted. Over and over again. Then… I got a woman in Bible study (that’s boring as F but I do it to find connection) who actually called me when my brother died, has texted me since. This has never before happened.
I know it’s necessary even as my bowels rebel against the stress. :)
If I can find connection, anyone can.
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I’m the odd duck on that score in some ways. I’ve learned to live alone from necessity. I was the 10 year old on a ranch in the middle of nowhere with a 4 year old younger brother and a 13 year old older brother, and the nearest neighbor was an elderly couple a mile away. Also I came from the city (Detroit) and so had very few friends at school. They had all grown up with each other in the then small town, and I was a stranger who had come from outside. (OK, I wasn’t the exchange student from Portugal, but still….) College was better, but I still had little idea how to make friends. For me, my wife rescued me from that. She would make friends with anyone except the demonically possessed. (Yes, we came across those on rare occasion.) It was really tough on her when she got really sick and was forced to become an urban hermit.
Now that she’s been gone for almost 4 years, I realize my coping skills on that score aren’t necessarily good for me. The church I joined three years ago is like an extended family to some extent, but they all have their own busy lives, and mine is only the solitary profession of writing. I’ve replaced some of it with online friends and going to Cons where I can meet some of them in person. Hence LibertyCon. Even though it’s 2100 miles away, I’ve found a way to make it work, by enjoying myself with strangers on a train.
Solitude is making me contemplate strange and perhaps dangerous choices. I’m considering joining Mensa. Even more alarming, I’m trying to decide if I should go to WorldCon because it’s in LA (Anaheim) this year. Their agenda and publications are as woke as ever, but then so are WonderCon’s, which is at the same venue. Last year WonderCon seemed to be trying to stay woke mostly out of inertia, but their hearts weren’t in it anymore. So far, I’ve decided to put off the decision until after WonderCon at the end of the month, and the always dangerous decision to ask the Big Guy what I should do. Always a dangerous thing to do, and I should know better, but, hey, desperate times call for desperate measures. Do not go gently into that whale, Jonah.
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Mensa is chapter by chapter. I found a chapter that probably rescued us from insanity through loneliness. That was Charlotte in the eighties. Since then, they’ve not been worth it. And since the organization tilts increasingly shrill left, I haven’t renewed membership in … 20 years. A writing group might be easier.
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Thanks. We were Mensa members in the 80’s and the local chapter wasn’t bad, but then it was the 80’s. I suppose I should look for a local writing group, but not sure where to start.
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Back in the dark ages we had a note at the local library, in case anyone asked.
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I’ll have to try that and put my research hat on. Jonathan Mayberry runs a monthly group at our local genre bookstore, but their focus is exclusively on tradpub which interests me less than zero.
I hold grudges. It’s a character flaw. Led to me never bothering with Baen’s Bar, and certainly to putting a pox on Random Penguin and anything from New York City.
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“New York City?!”
“Get a rope.”
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I got to pull that joke on live radio lo these many years ago. I was the board op (“producer” is the fancy title, but I was mostly pushing buttons) for a show called The Cowboy Libertarian. Actually a nice show, in a low-key way. Well, he was gone one weekend and when he came back, he said he’d been in NYC. I had enough time to grab the audio from that commercial, at the suggestion of the newsreader, and when he said where he’d been the previous week, we ran that clip. And he couldn’t speak for a bit due to laughing too hard.
Good times.
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LOL! 💯 (I remember that commercial…so you’re a gen X-er too, eh?)
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Signed up for a meetup next Friday evening at Starbucks for an hour of writing and, theoretically, socializing after. I’ll see how it goes.
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Seeing the story behind the “chinchilla” thing, I have to admit the first place my brain went on seeing the phrase here was “scintilla”. Which…actually works, from a different angle.
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If your chinchilla is scintillating, check your rad meters.
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It started as a pun on scintilla. 😛
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No. It started as a misspelling of chinelo.
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I’m a sucker for a good title. “A Chinchilla of Hope” woulda clanked into scintilla of hope‘s Uncanny Valley.
THE Chinchilla of Hope was a dead-on bullseye.
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I have to admit part of my difficulties are, I had to move from where the local librarian was friendly and would exchange a few words about anime, history, etc., to where they’re… not.
(Also this local library has computers in an open plan instead of in a separate room, so you get all the effect of screaming kids at various things. On top of that you need to navigate 2 very busy highways to get there. Ugh.)
I have no idea where to go out and meet people in person. I don’t drink. I can’t eat out. And I’m too broke for much of anything hobby-wise.
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Blog comments might help? And/or chats – tumblr has those, right?
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Don’t know; I’m usually only on Tumblr while at the library, to update my site there. About an hour every 2 weeks.
Blog comments do help. The past year has just been an accumulation of bills, more bills, more rude customers, more difficulty trying to get enough hours to keep bills paid, allergies getting worse, a schedule I sometimes don’t know even the day before much less a week in advance, and an unhappy roommate who also needs more social contact.
I just sent off taxes and got various government stuff renewed, so hopefully that will reduce my stress a little. I’m hoping I can get over whatever bug I’ve got without having to go to a doctor again, I am tapped out. But I strongly suspect it’s another ear infection and I’ll have to go. Curse you, tree pollen. Curse you so much.
(Long story short: The money I made from books last year, once taxes were paid on it, ended up roughly equivalent to about 2/3 the amount of car repair bills I had. Argh.)
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Argh, indeed. Maybe an email chain? Not long, just a few sentences of “Agh, why did anime character do this” or “shiny rocks get too much attention” or something, and then see what others email back?
(Ugh on the car repairs. :hugs: You’ll be getting another review on Upstream this coming Monday. Maybe that will help!)
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hugs. we stand ready to promote you!
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It is much appreciated! This was my most profitable writing year yet.
It’s just, RL apparently has me on Insanity Mode ATM.
(Narrow miss on the highway today as well. Failed Perception check, barely made Luck roll. Oy….)
I’m hoping with taxes and other federal stuff taken care of I’ll be less stressed and get better.
Would also help if the plotbunnies would pick something to work on, darn it! Instead of running scared from everything….
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This is 600+ words of pure self-indulgence. I hope you like it, and I hope some 6-degrees-of-separation long-shot takes it where it really belongs.
Pre-Covidiocy Tumblr used to allow users to open an inbox for anonymous messages from the outside, unTumblr’d world. It still offers that inbox, but now you have to log in to your own Tumblr page to use it (though the lying woke bustards still call it “Anonymous”). Nope. Never gonna.
But in 2012, it was still the wild, untrammeled west. I’d (semi-)random walk through Tumblrspace: a meme or text-post would catch my eye and I’d go to the page that had posted it. Sometimes that page had lots of good stuff; sometimes the post that drew me was the only one that appealed.
When that happened, I’d skim through the list of Likes under the good one, and click a catchy URL to see what else we’d both like.
One day that took me to a page with a fresh text-post: “My friend is sad bc her marriage has failed. She needs cheering up. If you want, click here…”
Sure, why not? A writing prompt.
It was not a page I’d have lingered on–excessively pink girliness by a 24yo AWFUL–but her About Me masthead, prominent on the page, mentioned Dr Seuss. I’m a fan.
And the Muse gifted me, instant and full-blown, a silly Seuss-y quatrain:
“So go make your trax thru the Prairie of Prax, and no looking backwards at anyone’s bax. Let you be re-boyed and let him be re-girled and let life be enjoyed! Welcome back to the world!“
Could YOU have resisted sending that?
She posted it, and her response was–the word doesn’t do it justice but it’s the best I got–charming.
Instant Dopamine.
There’s a two-way street between emotions and the actions they inspire. Everybody knows that smiling–a real, best-you-can-do smile, not a fake sarcastic grimace–really does make you feel happier.
If a child you loved were sad, you’d try to cheer her up, right?
Two-way street. A hit of dopamine makes your brain “save” whatever neuro-hookups it just used–Success!!!–and try to do it again. That’s how addiction works. Making this nameless, faceless stranger smile was the most rewarding thing I’d done for a while.
She’s a female human with a sense of humor. In no other way whatsoever is she my type, and she ain’t half-plus-7 even now. I’ve never even wanted to meet her. Doesn’t matter. She’s 99% my imagination, and I’ll always love her anyway.
From late 2012 until January of the hell-year 2020, I followed her page. She got remarried, and had a kid, and every few weeks I’d drop another anonymous little easter egg into her inbox. She got lots of anons, but she knew my “voice” every time.
The Great Awokening took her over the edge that claimed so many AWFLs, and one day she posted something that I couldn’t not respond to. She Took Offense, and shut her Anon, and then put her whole blog behind the must-have-Tumblr-to-view wall, from which, I think, it will never re-emerge.
I’d like to know how she’s doing, and I could ring her phone and ask, if I were such a fool. But that would make her blood run cold. It would be the very most Opposite Undoing of the whole reason I’d ever interacted with her.
If Real Life had had anything to do with it, I’d be sad. As it is, knowing how online parasocial “relationships” fool our monkey brains, I find my sadness to be hilarious. I still smile to think of her. I’m grinning ear-to-ear as I write this.
I’d be amazed (and a little worried for her) if she has since then given 15 seconds of thought to her Frequent Friendly Anon. And I will forevermore feel joy at the thought of her, my beloved Imaginary Favorite Niece.
Thank you.
♥
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I’m terrible at connecting with people. The saving grace for me is that I have 6 siblings, 72 cousins, 12 nieces and nephews, and a few life long family friends via inheritance.
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Thumbs up
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Another extreme introvert [and writer] here. You nailed it: about the 90s relief, the menatl constipation, and the fracturing post 2020. As a Pagan, I’ve always had trouble fitting in, and now my religious community is harshly divided as well. Husband is Jewish – and a musician – and has the same problem.
My saving grace has been my international writing group that started in 2020 [via Zoom], and the new friends I’ve been making in the local conservative movement in CT. I’ve made myself useful enough that even the hard-line Christians treat me with good manners. [I don’t ask for more than that] But I’ve made some great friends too! People have been thanking me lately, and it’s nice.
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Another extreme introvert [and writer] here. You nailed it: about the 90s relief, the menatl constipation, and the fracturing post 2020. As a Pagan, I’ve always had trouble fitting in, and now my religious community is harshly divided as well. Husband is Jewish – and a musician – and has the same problem.
My saving grace has been my international writing group that started in 2020 [via Zoom], and the new friends I’ve been making in the local conservative movement in CT. I’ve made myself useful enough that even the hard-line Christians treat me with good manners. [I don’t ask for more than that] But I’ve made some great friends too! People have been thanking me lately, and it’s nice.
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Courtesy costs so little, yet is one of the most important and humble things anyone can do to ease the burdens upon the ones to your right and your left.
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As one who works retail – preach it!
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Sorry about that double comment….
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We understand . WP delenda est!
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Not your fault. WP Delenda Est.
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WPDE is our rallying cry. Welcome to the rabble.
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And we’ll live longer. It’s science.
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Most of us, I do hope. We’re all across the age spectrum and some of us are older dinosaurs that remember pumping water by hand, outhouses, and washing clothes in the dead of winter in a bucket with a washboard.
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The first two at my uncle’s cabin, yeah. (Mid 1960s). I’m happy to have missed the last one. I think the pterodactyls stole the bucket. Some small mammal got the washboard.
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Still have the washboard. Sort of. The wood rotted, but the glass is still in good shape (holds up better than the cheap plastic crap). Project for another day, forming a new frame.
I don’t miss old school plumbing, nonexistant hvac (thought wood stoves have their place and a fireplace is quite nice). And fighting mice and flies in a farm kitchen is its own special hell. Not to mention picking rocks.
The modern day, with the internetty things and the golden age of story- it really is, right now, y’know- man, am I glad to be here now. Today is a good place to be.
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I do get nostalgic sometimes, but no effing way would I ever ask to go back in time to the bad old days…unless it was for better health, what with the sugar-beetus that now besets me and the arthritis creeping in…but maybe not even then. There are downsides, but there have always been downsides…and I really, really like what we’ve got going for us now with technology.
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The last one was in a cement tub built for the purpose, and that’s how I did clothes till age 22 when I got married.
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You all sound like me or vice versa. All but two of my friends died in the last 10 years. The two who didnt were girls I dated in college so my wife is not happy. She is the reason we have friends. Our kids and grandkids are in town but our interests only overlap somewhat. MENSA does vary. In the 80s it was kink central where I was.
Just remember, we are not physically close and some Of us are take in small doses but we are here and do understand.
I will note there was one guy On Insty’s site who used the Off Topic community to hold himself together until his sin was able to come be near him and members helped him find in home care people and encouraged him.
These groups can and do help
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I’ve figured out in the last several years that introverts need to get together with people, and extroverts need to sit and quietly contemplate. Neither are going to go out of their way to do so, but society tends to only put pressure one direction.
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If you play or are aware of rpgs, think of it like resource pools. Introverts have a lower coefficient for loss over time for their social batteries. And a smaller overall cap. Extros have the reverse. Sometimes they need to get away from their bubble of people and de-people for a bit to charge up their solitudinum battery, but again, smaller battery and lower loss over time.
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Our friends have faded away. I have more acquaintances here, now.
I am the same. Most acquaintances I have had since HS, are mostly through my husband. Always associated with group activities. As we lose the activities, we stay in contact, but eventually that fades away. Seems like stalking to call them after a while. Doesn’t matter what: college, kid sports, or scouts. For a beat I was involved with a dog pack walk and trainer, and agility. Not doing those now. I do follow their groups, and take the dog to one grooming salon where I talk to two briefly. But other than that? Here.
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Aye, I’ve lost some friends due to neglect, on both sides. We made a fair amount of friends when we moved to Flyover County, but the majority either moved or died off. (I’ve lost count of the number of funerals I’ve been to over the past couple decades.)
We’re on good terms with a couple of our neighbors (trade favors, sometimes huge ones), and I (since I’m the designated market person) know the people at the mail drop quite well. When they’re not swamped, we chat.
Family, not so much. $SPOUSE has one sister, and they keep in touch. We’ll share email and send gifts to $NIECE (and her kids). I’m on distant terms with my brothers–long story, way too much drama, and not much contact with cousins–2500 miles makes a difference, and it’s been over 10 years at least.
Curiously, I’m now more outgoing than $SPOUSE. Was the opposite years ago.
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I drown in family 🤣 Not that this makes anything easier. In fact probably the reason I am so good at disappearing in a crowd of people.
Hubby not so much. There was only his immediate family with his siblings kids, now it is just his brother and his wife.
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Family? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1D7MWpjgT0Kh0gun54UHT4SU4TBeMX_E3/view?usp=sharing.
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TDS and also Trans mania ruined both the online knitting group I was a part of and the in person one at our local library. I didn’t get tossed or banned. I quit going because I realized it was no longer fun to go. I got tired of listening to stupid ignorant mean-spirited stuff. But the time the library closed for COVID I was no longer going anyway.
I have TDS family members, but since they’re family I still see them. I enjoy the family that isn’t TDS more. Hubby’s female TDS relatives are pretty insufferable, but, whatever. Their virtue signaling ignorance can be amusing.
This blog and the validation that my calculations about COVID were correct really helped my sanity. Hubby and I were very much on the same page about it all, which also helped.
And, at least since then I know which neighbors and family members would turn us into the secret police (More in sorrow than in anger, of course.) Which may be valuable information to have should wwiii or anotherfakedemic break out. Also, we now know a couple of people who absolutely would have our backs.
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We did a change of plans to go to AmericaFest last year. My wife had never been to Phoenix, and I hadn’t been since 79. But, hey, a bunch of like minded people, even if we knew few of them. My bit of pre-con research gave me some concern about what level of ‘protesters’ might be waiting to greet us, but it turned out to be almost entirely ‘point and laugh’ worthy opponents. We missed seeing the VP, because, between work needing me and flight schedules, I went with the assumption of ‘nothing much will happen on Sunday’, and we left ‘early’ with an ‘about noon’ flight. It wasn’t quite what I was hoping for, but worthwhile to have done it.
So, I don’t think I’m ‘quite’ an introvert, but also not really an extrovert, either. Just an Odd with sort of a tidal disposition ? But, yeah, most of friends are all online, now. My wife often makes me look like an extrovert, and she keeps in touch with her friends group online now, too. I used to love libraries, too, but now my source of book information is groups like this. Life has changed, libraries have changed, communication has changed. My first serious penpal came to me through Analog magazine, when I was 14. And, boy-o-boy, is that quite a story to tell. But it got me started writing to other people around the world, which came in handy when I joined the Navy. Another quite different world.
But life has been pretty darn good overall. I was very happy to find Sarah; this blog is a very nice stable landmark in a world that wants to help you lose your bearings more than anything else.
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Yes, I missed hanging out here when I was between laptops.
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we missed you, also.
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“But on top of that, 2020 genuinely broke people’s ability to relate, to talk, to get to know strangers and relate to them.”
I still have the ability. I can talk to anybody for about 20 minutes before I start to get twitchy.
It’s more that I found out what kind of people I’m surrounded by during Covid. I don’t want to talk to them.
Casual chat with the cashier at whatever store is more than enough of late. If I want intelligent conversation I post comments at According To Hoyt.
Although, I may make an effort to attend an American con this year, if the Huns are making an appearance. I’m good for a few 20 minute sprints if I have someplace to recharge my warp core. ~:D
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You can’t do Liberty con! It’s sold out. You can try for next year, though.
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LibertyCon is always sold out. ~:(
What other cons are you going to? I have to come all the way from basically Toronto, so it doesn’t matter all that much where it is.
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Right now ConFinement. We’re looking at others, but….
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You have an observable (by me) point. I moved from overly dense and crime/socialist/activist-afflicted Davis, Ca. three years ago, to a rural forty acres in SW Mo. That meant leaving my weekly writing critique group, and even my chief source of editing gigs. I wrote as part of just living whilst there. Here, I’m alone most of the time, not even a pet as yet, (though many species of abundant wildlife). Every few weeks I go to the one sitdown eatery w/in forty miles that does not allow smoking, eat alone and silently, facing out from a corner (always an eminently forgettable meal) and just watch families, kids, people interacting. And my writing procrastination, instead of my productivity, has blossomed. I’m not religious, but seeing the almost infinite flavors of Baptist churches and several Anabaptist communities here, I’ve come to understand the human necessity of groups.
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It’s right down there with the urges to procreate, eat, and defecate. Some folks got it harder than others- they literally cannot remain a modicum of sane without social interaction to the point they invent personalities for random passing animals (possibly how we got pets), distant things what might be people, and inanimate objects.
For the minority of us, a random social interaction, once a year whether we need it or not, is right on the limit of too much. It’s a spectrum. I spent around three years not talking to anyone in person so long as I could avoid it. It was pretty good. Got quite a bit of writing done. For other people, that’s torture.
People watching though, that’s a fine distraction. Good even when one has a partner. Better if said partner shares your sense of humor.
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If I were living alone I’d probably be feeling less isolated. Living with someone who resorts to the silent treatment when miffed is painful.
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I remember that. Ain’t fun, no lie. We’ve all got our issues and flaws and suchlike. To be human is to suffer and to cause suffering in others. If we’re lucky it’s accidental and fixable.
Getting used to cohabitating is something. Something strange for the introverted bookish types to be sure. When Neighborcat started showing up with his rent payment of “dead thing, one each” every day for scritches and a sleeping spot, that was about the strangest thing capping a long stretch of oddness. Cats aren’t human level social creatures. But I think we are better for having something to care for. Or someone. Having that care returned is part of what keeps civilization going.
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Personally, I can get along with most anyone for short periods of time. Being raise with the iron palm of Southron women, I can get by on the rote responses that were drilled into me over and over again until even I got them down. Thing is, that sort of thing wears me out something fierce.
I’d much rather sit on the porch in the sun, reading a book with the cats gallumping around and causing fuzzy chaos. Alone don’t make much difference to me. I prefer it, honestly. Being around humanity too much isn’t good for me. Even though it’s been part of the job for a lifetime. A (mostly) quiet house is peace.
The occasional social interaction online is good enough. I can take my time to think before typing. In person? Those silences get judged. Thus, social patter and rote responses carry much of the weight that’s needed for the day-to-day. If pressed, there might be a flow chart and decision tree involved.
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Me? Those silences? By the time I can frame my input/response, the topic has moved on. I rarely speak. Family? Conversation just moves around me, I listen. Not family? Little harder.
Luckily work did not require interaction.
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Yeah. Happens a lot. I think slow and in convoluted paths at times. By the time I get my squirrely thoughts in a semblance of order it’s like surfacing in another country. Que? Who is this jackhole and what the flock is he going on about?
Internetty things are better.
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I play in a dart league once a week, it helps that the bar is a mile away and I can walk it. Nothing better than a quiet walk home after the noise of a bar and darts. It also burns up the alcohol and I get exercise at the same time.
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I’m an introvert who needs a few hours per week with non-family people. This past summer, I suspect that “chatting” online and going to the Farmers’ Market twice a week helped keep me sane and functioning.
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Farmer’s Markets generally have some down to earth people. I get my honey from the one across town. Always local stuff, darker than the processed shipped from Timbuktu crap. Helps with the allergies in spring. And fall. And summer, to be honest.
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Yes. When Covidiocy hit, $SPOUSE discovered masks were intolerable, while for me, they were strongly annoying until I could find something acceptable. (The face visor worked well while walking; setting it as a ram air scoop was a Godsend.)
Barring the 10 weeks I couldn’t drive (blew out my knee–I’m now a frequent flyer at the ortho practice, sigh.) I’ve been the designated shopper. $SPOUSE is happy staying at home and taking care of the dog–PlayTime!!!, and I get a few hours a week seeing other people. There’s a few people I know, sort of. The mail drop workers all are friendly, and the big independent grocery store has good people. My favorite checker is the most popular, but sometimes there’s a short enough line that we can chat a bit. (Way too much turnover at the Fred Meyer/Kroger. I gather the new Winco poached a lot of employees from them and Safeway. None from the independent, I’m told. I believe it.)
Restaurants are pretty much offlimits, though Dairy Queen doesn’t count, so long as I pay attention to allergens. People watching there is limited, but doable.
The neighbors will throw a party from time to time. Both of us have to stay away from gluten, but we try to make an appearance. That helps our sanity.
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Here’s some good links:
Friday meme Thing – Granite Grok
MidWeek Memes – Granite Grok
Monday Memes – Granite Grok
And here’s an article on the best and worst links:
The Best & Worst Brats To Buy At The Grocery Store Ranked
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Wurst link . .
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It was getting hard to stay in touch with friends about 2015-16, when I had to move back home. The parents moved just after 1999 to the very definition of the middle of nowhere you can get in the Bay Area-hour+ by freeway to anything if you’re interested in more than chain stores and sports bars. It wasn’t too bad in some ways-I liked the commute by bus and it was quiet for at least four hours a day.
Friends leaving the area, some getting away before California fully broke or they realized that they would never get another tech job in Silicon Valley because they were…old… (mid-40’s and often plank-holders in the new hotness).
Friends who learned that I didn’t worship at the altar of the Obamamessiah and later HILLARY! and clearly I was a terrible human being. Despite knowing me for years.
Friends who just drifted apart because we had maybe one or two things and after those went away…so did they…
COVID made it worse. I don’t think I have any friends in the area anymore that aren’t a two-hour drive to see. Which I can barely justify on $6/gallon gas. (I’m having to plan out my best friend’s wedding reception next month.) I now have to drive to work, because there is no easy way to use public transit to get to work.
And the medical issues. Dear God the medical issues.
I can’t find friends here because….TDS everywhere. Not into Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, or spending a small fortune on M:TG cards to spend my way to victory. Only bookstores are used that have clear signs saying they won’t take “bigoted” books or a Barnes and Noble. Writing groups are struggle sessions by proto-Marxists who wonder why Trump won and lynching MAGA-supporters versus actually trying to improve writing skills. I’m a white boy in an area turning heavy Hispanic. At least four houses nearby have gotten huge extended families that park everywhere, and it seems like every one of them has a car.
Oh, and since I’m not making a six-figure salary, have six-pack abs, and a six-inch sausage, dating is a non-starter for anyone that isn’t insane. (Not crazy, insane. Complete “I love me” jacket madness.)
…I am trying to find something, but I know it’s only a few places on the Internet that keep me sane.
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Yes, I know that moving isn’t possible right now for various reasons, but you really need to be elsewhere. That place is not helping you.
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There are days where I don’t think there is any place that would help me, only hurt me less.
Afford a place on my own? HA! Anywhere that is close to work…I have to be making three times as much to qualify for “below market rate” housing. And won’t get it because by the time I make it through the wait list, I’ll be retired.
I was going to move out to a job a friend was building in Tennessee, but because of all the chaos in the markets, most of his funding dried up because they went to stable things.
And my family is here. However crazy they might be, they’re here for me and I can’t ask for much more than that.
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I also am a resident of Mordor west. The peoples republic of Santa Clara. A descendant of one of the founders of Santa Clara and San Jose, my roots are deep.
I grew up in Berkeley when it was not quite as crazy as it is now, although living thru the times of the SLA after returning from the army (66-69) perhaps even crazier. I suspect there are more sane here than we think, we have just learned to blend, online i’ve been Presbypoet for a quarter century. For work helped guide people through the urban planning jungle for 30 years.
I have the perfect retirement job for an extrovert. I work as a field representative for the U.S. Census. Each month they send me the address of 30-40 people here in Mordor west, to go and explain that I am with the government, and I am here to help. So the job gets me out of the house to meet people I would never meet otherwise. Not great pay, they only pay for the work you actually do, (imagine how cheap government would be if all were paid that way).
As a lifelong Presbyterian, I have an intimate relationship with the Author of the Universe. So have a church i attend, men I know, and a wife of 54 years. I am blessed with understanding the Creator invites me on an adventure. For the past year I have been writing a story based on that relationship.
To describe how I see life, I tell people to picture an old useless warrior living out back beyond, there is a knock on the door, it is the King to invite me on an adventure. Someone told me that sounded like the start of an interesting story. So I have created a world in “2429”, a world of takers, a world of slavery, a world without hope. The king invites the warrior to join him on an adventure to create a haven where free men can make. The story had one major problem, the computer hard drive I was writing on crashed, no hope of recovery, so I am having to reconstruct on a new computer.
Just know you are not alone, and enjoy the adventure.
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As a child my characters had to be enough. I discovered live human beings in my 20s, also in a writing group. They seem to get addicted to me, then move on when they don’t need me any more.
I have almost reached hermit level, but I still need to at least go where I can see people once in a while, or I get really weird and start spiraling.
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Shopping.
I hate shopping. But I have to do it once or twice, just to get out of the house.
For a while I could use dog training and pack walks. Sure agility training wasn’t cheap. Not like we were actually going to compete. But … It. Got. Me. Out. Of. The. House. With a small group. 2020 put a stop to both until 2022. Pack walks didn’t start up again regularly until recently, and we haven’t gone. Dogs joint problems put a stop to the agility. When it wasn’t fun for her, we stopped.
Something that has happened when I was shopping was helping people with the shopping apps. Technically the staff is supposed to, and they started, but backup line occurring, so I offered. Nice when it all meshes for the individual. Little bit extra on the people interaction.
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The seeing-people thing is the reason why I went into work even though working from home was an option. Well, not the only reason; I found out during the covidiocy that I really benefit from a sharp separation between work and home, which by definition can’t exist if home is also where you work for corporate pay.
This blog and then the Discord group of Sarah-adjacent folks helped keep me sane during the later half of the covidiocy. Working from home, seeing nobody except the same three people every day, and having zero contact with anybody who shared my view of what was going on in the world at large was a crazy-making set of circumstances.
The roleplaying group got TDS and kicked me out almost a year ago now (I didn’t do or say anything political, but they knew where I stood, and the guy I knew best and longest stabbed me in the back for it…a 27 year friendship down the tubes), so now the local rock band I play in is the only creative-outlet group. They know where I stand too, and despite all of them standing elsewhere, they haven’t turned on me. I really do appreciate that.
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Yeah, guy I had gamed with for 40+ years told me when I didn’t buy the COVID line that anyone like that should have their house burned down. Fortunately by then, he was in AL and I was in TX, otherwise, I expect I’d have had to turn him in to the cops…. or shoot him if he tried it.
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please don’t throw small critters at me… getting harder to bend over and pick them up…
BUT! I am arrogant and narcissistic enough to consider myself “a friend of the family” (for certain values of friend) and would welcome most of the Horde (showing up one or two at a time) for meals or coffee.
Most of the folks seem housebroken, anyway.
God bless you all this weekend.
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On a very faintly-related note, my latest email ad for Kindle books offered Christmas in Time.
I think Amazon May Have My Number.
Wife managed our social calendar. Good thing, because I know hardly anyone outside my family. I used to say, every time I got connected to the ‘grapevine’, my branch would die.
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