Day in the Life of an Idiot

Do you remember, right after Trump was elected, the article that was first posted on Facebook that everyone seemed to reprint, which was "20 Lessons on How to Survive Fascism"?  It's always worth a reread. I've been thinking about that article a lot, on and off, throughout these four years. Some of the pointers are very "big," like the concept of 'don't obey in advance" and "stand out." But, the one I keep returning to again and again is the idea that small talk is valuable. From the article:


Along with the concept that we should cultivate friends in other countries, this is a huge reason why I have been continuing to write to my pen friends around the world. 

A lot of what we write to each other would very likely constitute what most people would categorize as 'small talk,' but lately I've been resisting the idea that those kinds of conversations about the weather and gardening and the mundanity of life are, in any way, SMALL.

I think they tend to get minimized because people are impatient. (Also sexism, but I won't get into that right now, but I do think this is very similar to the divide between so called high art and folk art. If it's useful and a woman made it, like a quilt, it's folk art. If a man painted it and it serves no actual purpose beyond beauty, it's high art.)

More and more, particularly with the advent of smartphone where we can have a zillion more interesting conversations in our pocket (and an increasing sense of missing out on something cooler, over there,) people are anxious to get to the "good stuff."  They don't want to take the time to lay the foundational chatter. Like today, at my coffee shop, my barista and I had a completely "small" exchange about my Caribou Perks card because I accidentally presented that to be punched at this locally owned shop. She told me she used to work at Caribou and we exchanged a bunch of completely mundane observations about Caribou--it's quality of coffee, the fact that I had a friend who used to manage one back in the 1990s, the concept of "Boo Bucks" (pre-point system stuff) and then, fascinatingly, because we'd gone down this twisty road, we ended up talking about the culture of harassment that my barista left behind in frustration after sixteen years at Caribou. CREEPY things people said to her, etc. It was a fascinating conversation because the other barista, a guy, had similar stories to share, though less about customers being sexually creepy to him specifically. We spent several more minutes trying to decide if what happened to these two at that specific company was endemic to that company or was if there was something about the commercial coffeeshops that fostered certain kinds of people/harassment.

Fascinating. 

And not at all 'small.'

Yet, we would never have gotten there if I hadn't patiently engaged in a whole lot of small talk previously. To be fair, by "previously," i also mean months and months of chatting amiably with these folks behind the counter, too. 

Some of this, admittedly, is me. I am 100% the sort of person who is genuinely interested in everything about your life. You want to tell me about the day you spent doing laundry; I totally want to hear it, all of it, all the details. Maybe this is part of why I'm a writer. It's certainly a HUGE part of why I'm a reader.

Mason will also tell you that I'm uncannily good at drawing strangers into conversation. He finds it kind of baffling, in the way of teenagers, but he will also tell other people this fact about me with with a odd sort of pride, ala, "You have no idea. I come out from class to go to a doctor's appointment and there's ima, chatting with the security guard, laughing like they're old friends."

That was a fascinating conversation, too, actually, We started by talking about the weather, for real. I made that joke about how the reason we live where the air hurts our faces it because we don't have to deal with giant scorpions and boa constrictors, and that prompted her to tell me about an amazing trip she'd taken with her family (sisters, I think,) to Texas and the weird encounter they'd had with some crows or magpies. She started the story with, "Have you ever seen Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds'??" and I knew it was going to be a good story from there.... and all because I spent five minutes LITERALLY discussing the weather.

I doubt any of this this will actually save us from fascism--I mean, it hasn't so far, if today's news is any indication. But, I do think making human connections strengthens one's soul. If nothing else, it keeps me exercising my 'compassion' and 'empathy' muscles, all of which this current administration would really like to gaslight and bludgeon out of us with their constant misinformation and lies. 

Today, I woke up thinking about "adulting."  

Last Wednesday, I had lunch with a friend of mine.  We met at Eli's East, which I had never been to before.  As usual, I had a great time chatting with this particular friend, who is someone I've recently gotten to know after last year's Gaylaxicon.  At one point during our conversation he said that even after marriage and divorce, the thing that made him feel like a real adult was caring for houseplants.  

At the time, I mostly let this comment go by, unremarked, because I was far more fascinated to know that he'd been married and divorced already. (He's younger than I am by a decade... or possibly two.)

This morning, a half a week later, I woke up thinking about this idea: what are the sorts of actions, events, etc., that make people feel like an adult?  What constitutes "adulting" for most people?

I was thinking about this because I remember the first time I felt really independent, adult.  It was the first time I took my own laundry down to the basement laundry room of my college freshman dorm building. I was seventeen. It was, in point of fact, the first time I'd ever done my own laundry.  Despite a lot of other independent acts in high school, for some reason, doing this job that my mother traditionally ALWAYS did for me, felt like the true moment of independence.  There were things about it that also felt very... Big City. I had to have quarters, figure out the machines on my own (and all the sorting rules!), and some weirdo tried to convert me to Lutheranism--he was very affronted that I had not accepted Jesus Christ as my personal savior.

But, then again, my generation has, I think, less issue with "adulting" as a thing.  We grew up in that mythical era when parents flung open doors to the very young and said, "Come back by dinner time," and we really did roam far from home without any supervision whatsoever.  I regularly had to solve problems like, "Holy heck, how do I get my shoe out of this muck I have wandered into in the local marshlands" without being able to use my nonexistent cellphone to call for help and being miles (often literally) from home.  

And I wonder if it's some of this early practicing with independence that made the transition into "adulting" a little less... noticeable?  Or, maybe more accurately, MORE noticeable on a smaller scale.  I mean, for my friend it was the small thing that made him feel grown, too.  But, it came much later for him than for me.  MUCH.  

I guess my question is, how about you? No matter how old you are, do you have a singular event where you said to yourself, "Wow, this is IT.  THIS is the moment I am independent. THIS is the transition into adulthood!"?? No shame if it's something "traditional," like, "The day I signed the lease to my first apartment" or "got married" or "got my driver's license." Similar, no judgments, if it's something really odd, like, "The day I bought my first pair of underwear" or something I can't even fathom.  

I'm also curious if you find yourself in your late thirties (or forties or fifties or whatever) and you're still not feeling like "adulting" is a thing you do regularly. 

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed, like you do, and I came across this:  "Why 'Fandom is Family' is Problematic".  It's a collection or round-up of tweets (probably involving a much larger discussion) about the phrase 'fandom is family' and why we should stop using it.  First of all, I've actually never heard this phrase in my long association with SF fandom, and I tend to agree that family is not ALL THAT to everyone and it certainly should not be a phrase used to shelter abusers, etc.

What I'm reacting to is the idea that fandom (and it's not clear which 'fandom' is meant here, but maybe SF con fandom?) is unwelcoming because it has so many in-jokes... or...?  I'm not sure, because I think, in point of fact, that the very term "not welcoming" is a dog-whistle for the Tumblr-generation/fans.  

I'm not saying they're not right.  

When I first entered con fandom, I felt very lost.  I didn't know the routine. I didn't know the lingo. I didn't have many friends who went to cons.  In point of fact, I dropped out of con fandom until I was a newly energized/hungry writer and saw the advantages of meeting people by being on panels.  It should be noted, too, that I am, and have always been, a vey out-going and social person.  It's not normally hard for me to make friends with strangers.

So it's absolutely true that a person's first con can feel very... exclusive, excluding even.  Certainly, LONELY.

I experienced that whole feeling of exclusion all over again, despite years of being in sf con fandom, when I entered the anime fandom (and the anime con fandom, both of which have their own sets of rules and entire language books full of code and lingo and acronyms.)  I even posted here that what i needed for the next Anime Detour was a translator to act as my guide.

But...

I never felt it was the duty of the con runners to make me feel "welcomed."  I felt weird about my lack of knowledge--uncomfortable even, but I didn't let that stop me. If I felt any sense of privilege it was a self-empowered one, which was to say I NEVER DOUBTED THAT I HAD THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE, I just had to figure out HOW.  I also never doubted that figuring out HOW was on me, and me alone.  So, I thought, "Alright then, I need to ask what does mean?"  I need to call up my friends and say, "Okay, who here is going with me?"  I asked my more anime con savvy friends, "So... when someone is in costume, do I talk to them 'in character' or... What?  How do I interact here?  What are the rules?"  In my early SF con days, I found someone I knew and asked, "Okay, so what DOES it take to get on panels?  How do I volunteer for the stuff I like?"

I'm not saying this because I feel like "kids these days" (or people new to fandom) don't have the same where-with-all that I did/do.  

But, because this term gets bandied about a lot, I do wonder if "not welcoming" actually is for them one of those words they use that means something that my generation doesn't quite understand the same way.  I wonder if it means more than what I'm describing.  I'm wondering if there are very specific ways in which the younger generation feels less empowered to just participate, despite the things I described above.

I'm not sure.

I want someone to tell me.  I want to understand.  I want to hear the stories that will open my eyes, so I can FIX the things for you (and, ultimately for all of us.)

In the meantime, I have to guess from context.

One of the back-and-forths in the twitter round-up made it seem like one person felt left out because Michael Thomas joked about "TRUfandom" (which is also a phrase I didn't know).  She said, basically:  "Whelp, see what I mean, I don't know this stuff."  To me, that's not being shown the door, and having it slammed in your face, that's just BEING NEW.  I've had the same experience as an old-timer, getting onto Tumblr and going to Anime cons.  I never felt unwelcome.  I just felt NEW.  

We all need to learn each other's language.  

I think that this is less 'insider-ism' than just the way sub-cultures operate.  I sometimes have to use the urban dictionary to parse out what my neighbor is saying to me or what comments on my fan fic mean.  I don't think my neighbor or the fans of my writing are trying to insult me or exclude me or intentionally make me feel unwelcome.  In fact, each time I deciphered a bit of the code, I felt brought closer in.  When someone left me ILU on my fan fic, I'd no idea for sure what that meant.  I looked it up, and it means "I love you!" or "I like you" and is kind of just a term of excitement, bonding, or, as my subculture would call it, squee.

I really think that when Michael made his comment his intention was inclusion, as in, 'like that joke we have about TRU fandom, you and me."  Yet it was seen as endemic to the problem.

I think we need to stop assuming hostility from each other.

Fandom needs all of us, young and old.

Srsly.

After my post about the horribleness of fruitcake, my friend empty_mirrors decided to send me DECENT fruitcake from the UK, where she's from.  The packages arrived earlier this week and included some other UK delicacies that we can't get 'round here, including Jelly Babies and Treacle (because Mason always hears about treacle in the Harry Potter books and had to know!)  We haven't had a tasting yet, because Shawn came down with a horrible case of the laryngitis crud that we've been passing around the household, and we wanted to wait and have a special UK day/tea where we tried ALL THE THINGS and it seems unfair with her snorfling and unable to taste much beyond her own mucous....

With any luck, that will be this weekend.  I plan to take may pictures and post all our reactions.

But, poor Shawn, this cold/laryngitis thing has been growing stronger with each person it attacks (like a shounen hero!), so she's been really knocked back, far worse than either Mason or I.  I'm still suffering a tiny bit--my sinuses are still runny and my throat hurts, but I'm otherwise mostly over it.

The issue of British food (and fruitcake) came up last Friday when I dined with the Wolves (the good folks at Sofa Wolf had me over when my friend and fellow writer Kyle Gold was in town.)  Turns out, the Wolves make their own figgy pudding, which is another one of those things that you always hear about, but... at least in my case, have never had.  So I slyly invited myself to some holiday gathering so I could taste it.  I mean, it sounds like some kind of sweet version of haggis!  You make it one year and let it... ferment?... age?... in a cold, dark place for OVER A YEAR????  Seriously, I can't wait.

I had a lovely time, as usual, with the Wolves.  Afterwards, Kyle and I have been emailing back and forth percolating on an idea for a furry-type novel for me.  Could be fun, is all I'm saying, and at this point, I have so very little to lose.

In fact, later this afternoon, I have scheduled a phone call with my agent that I'm kind of dreading.  It's one of those that could go either way.  Keep your fingers crossed for me.

Also, since I was sick, I've been neglecting my around the house duties.  Today I tackled a pile of dishes.  One of the things I like to do while doing the dishes is watch Anime on my iPad.  It sits nicely in the windowsill above the sink, so I can do my work and still read subtitles.  I've gotten through Full Metal Alchemist, Free!, Attack on Titan, and Samurai Champloo that way.  I've just started Death Note.  Death Note is different from a lot of other shounen Anime in that our hero is... kind of a villain.  No, not kind of... totally.  The basic premise is that a death god, a shinigami, has dropped his notebook , into which the names of the dead are written, into the Human World.  A bright high school boy named Light find it and discovers that he can kill people by writing their names, times of death, and cause into it.  His plan, of course, is to use it for GOOD.  He starts by picking off condemned criminals.  But, what's interesting about the story is that the slippery slope is VERY slippery and pretty soon we discover when the shinigami comes to track Light down, that our "hero" plans to create a new world and SET HIMSELF UP AS GOD.

I spend a lot of this show not sure who to root for.  It's like "Dexter," without the funny/interesting insights into human nature from the point of view of a sociopath. The only thing that's compelling about Light is how smart he is.  But he's DEVIOUS-smart, which is compelling, but also kind of... scary, especially now that Light is trying to save himself from discovery.  I like the show a lot, but it makes me remember why I'm not terribly fond of vigilante heroes, like Batman.

I know everyone loves Batman, but Batman has never been a favorite of mine (nor his Marvel analog Iron Man), because essentially Bruce Wayne (and Tony Stark) is a rich vigilante.  Both heroes use money to give them powers that allow them to operate beyond the law.  Both heroes believe they're serving justice.  In the Marvel and DC universes, it's very rare that either of them make a mistake and it's clear that we're meant to believe they're right, they *are* doing the right thing for the right reasons and filling a real need.  What's funny to me is that I'm a huge fan of two other rich vigilantes: the Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro, but in both those cases, the universe in which the heroes live is very clearly screwed-up and both heroes fight to protect those being harassed by corrupt governments.  You could make a case that Gotham is a corrupt government, but it's not usually portrayed that way OVERTLY.  Again, over in the Marvel Universe, the same could be said for New York (or LA, depending on if Tony is in the East Coast or West Coast Avengers at the time), but, you know, again not strictly obvious or overt....

I don't really know where I was going with this thought except to say that I guess shows like "Death Note" feel more honest to me, like a REAL exploration of what might happen if you have an intense sense of justice combined with the knowledge that sometimes the system fails to catch the bad guys/punish them properly.  And maybe some Batman story lines *have* dealt with this, I don't know.

I probably just don't like Batman because he has a butler.  Who has a butler in this day and age? (And yes, I KNOW some people still do, but do we LIKE them??)