blissmorgan (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
blissmorgan) wrote2019-01-11 07:45 am
blissmorgan) wrote2019-01-11 07:45 am
Good Mornthing: Transition and Liminality
What a week this has been! I've been dealing with an interpersonal matter that I am not going to get into here for Reasons, but it is causing me to take stock of how I operate in certain relationships, how I act and react, and how I really do need to adjust and hone my focus in terms of the sorts of connections I'm seeking to make. This is on top of/in addition to the similar adjustments and honing I am making in terms of my internet and social media, what with the impending doom shuttering of G+ and the clumsily-handle-at-best attempt at sanitizing Tumblr enough to make it palatable to Apple's pinched mouth app store. Holy crap you guys I had forgotten how much I missed using strikeout for snarky asides in the middle of my text.
All of that came into very deliberate focus on Wednesday night when I went out for celebratory shenanigans with my brother.slipjig3 has just imported his LJ content over here (WOO!) and is joining us in the wide dream, for which I am very excited. He and I became friends in the intertubes well over a decade ago, when I was still heavily/frequently using Livejournal - before Strikethrough, before I got married to my Ex even. That initial bonding was really simply as tenuous as we had some friends in common and shared a birthday. It is amazing, the foundations a friendship can be built upon. I suppose it would be more fair to simply say that initial connection was the breaking of ground. We've woobled in and out of each other's orbits since then, and have frequently made the noises at each other in passing of "Hey, we should do a thing for our birthday!" and then promptly failing to follow up on that.
This year, though - this year, we did it! Like real grownups! We made concrete plans, and followed through! Check us out!
There was bowling, which became "disco bowling" less than ten minutes after we started, but maybe three songs in the "disco" music became 90s alt/rock and we were both very happy campers. We were also really bad bowlers. Like, really, TERRIBLY bad, to the point that we went at least three boxen before anybuggy got a pin down, and the woman in the next lane was trying to offer me tips on how 
to manage my stance and release as if I were new. I'm not new, I'm just old, and it's been more than half a decade, and I was raised on candlepin so full size bowling is not really my bag... okay fine, I'm a little new, but also not. She was funny though. She told me she needed to help me so that I could kick his butt, because on a first date it's important to win the game so as to show dominance.
Reader, I just about died laughing. XD
Post-fooding we discovered how incredibly terrible the bowling alley is in terms of food service - or rather, in making it clear how their food service operates. There is a distinct area in the middle of the alley, blocked off with half-walls, where there are booths and hightop tables surrounding a small 3-sided bar. We seated ourselves, talked, perused the menu, talked, waited, talked... finally I got up and went to the bar to inquire to the bartender about foodservice and whether the kitchen was open. The bartender proceeded to completely ignore me to serve and talk to a dude for at least three full minutes. Finally I snagged another alley worker on her way toward the back to ask how we get food. Apparently you have to go to the front desk to order it, get a buzzer, and then go back there to collect it when ready. That was all well and good except that then we went to the counter to order food and got ignored as well.
This probably wouldn't have rankled so much if (A) we had known how their food service rolls and (B) if we weren't so dang hungry. We found another place to go and headed out - but wait! What is this?! There is an arcade within the bowling alley! I looked atslipjig3 and asked, "Do you think they have Skee-ball in there?" 
because what could possibly tickle my fancy more than tiny pseudo-bowling although really the more I think about it Skee-ball is the love-child of bowling and darts housed within the actual bowling alley. The micro in the macro! They had it. So of COURSE I sorted out the loading of money onto a card (because in this arcade, all the machines are fed not by actual coins, nor by tokens meant to be similar to but gently distance you from the cash reality of coins, but by plastic cards onto which you load money that is then deducted from them by the machines not in denominational amounts but in points, which mathed out to be one point per twenty-five cents) and played a round of Skee-ball. I got 18 tickets (which, as with the money, are not real tickets but rather the concept of tickets the mere CONCEPT of APPLEBEES, stored on the card), which the girl at the desk rounded up to 20, and we scoped out the tiny prize options, because it was our BIRTHDAY and we deserved PRESENTS. There was very little that one could get for 20 tickets, let alone get to of, but then I saw the temporary tattoos. There were unicorn designs, pirate designs, dinosaur designs, and a few other things, all for five tickets apiece. Naturally, we each got a unicorn design and a pirate design. I haven't used the pirate one yet. (It's a compass rose.)
This has been a very long-winded recounting of events to get me back round to where I initially intended to go, which was that we found a place to have a really delicious dinner (Their liver and onions was SPOT ON) and chat. It was half catching up, a small portion vent session, and a big portion navel-gazing and vaguely philosophical rumination. And also a whole bunch of Oh There's This Thing You Might Like To Watch/Listen To/Experience. We talked about a lot of mistakes we have made, or unsatisfactory experiences that we've had, and introspected together on coping and learning and trying to proceed more carefully and thoughtfully in the now and future (because, obviously, we can't do aught about the past). Ultimately what we both came to is that we desire meaningful connection, rather than the appearance of voluminous connection. I talked up Dreamwidth to him because, while there are not a lot of us here, I find myself having actual conversations with folks here - asking questions, learning things, not attempting to meme-ify or outclever each other.
Not having emoji reactions here is a blessing. It relieves me of that unconscious feeling that I need to click something and prove that I read it; instead, I read all the posts my folks make because I want to read it all, and I respond to the things that I feel like I really have something to say about, or ask about. We wondered aloud,slipjig3 and I, about where that all started, and came to the conclusion that it's a part of capitalizing on the internet. How do you know which posts/blogs/tweets/etc. to yank out of their chronological place to push at people unless there's a way of quantifying the attention it's getting? And you cannot easily quantify with actual word-based responses; many people are lazy, or nervous, or just don't want to respond with typing, yet will have no problem with a one-click response to show I Was Here I Saw This Thumbs Up Yes Good. A thumbs-up, a plus-one, a clickyheartforlike - these are easily quantifyable, measurable, and therefore easy to plug into algorithms to assess for marketability. It makes it easier to give the thinnest veneer of interaction, because how many things have I clicked a little button on today? I'm making my presence known to my friends! I'm interacting!
Except that I've also been ravenously lonely. Friends in the internet are real, but the methods by which we are allowed to communicate with one another have changed insidiously over the last decade to decade and a half, and I don't know that that is necessarily going to slow/change. In the last three weeks, I have had in-person get-togethers with three different people, and each time it was focused, content-rich (so to speak), and gratifying to me in an unquantifiable way, on a human-to-human, we-are-social-animals-and-crave-interconnection kind of way. It feels good, and I want more of it. This goes well hand-in-hand with some discussions I have been having recently with SALM, vis-a-vis trying to balance the making of plans with people without needing PERMISSION from my partner with the making of plans with people while CONSIDERING THE NEEDS of my partner. In brief, basically...I can make plans without consulting him first, and I'm not going to end up being somehow punished. We're partners, and just as I hold down the fort at home when he is at class or out with friends or visiting family, he can hold down the fort while I'm getting tea with someone or attending a gaming session or visiting folks out of state for a weekend. He's supportive of me having a social life that doesn't involve him, because it's healthy for me and because it does not in any way lessen his and my relationship for me to have connections and experiences with others.
There's been a lot of stuff in the intertubes that I've been seeing for the first time this year, although it's apparently been A Thing for a lot of people for a while, wherein one chooses a sort of guideword, a touchstone word for the coming year. I thought my word was going to be something else entirely, but instead it seems to be the one I gave the jeweler who made my shawl pin: Release. I am being released from a lot of my entrenchments, and also am releasing certain habits, reactions, and modes of thought to which I have clung and in which I have wrapped myself. As I move through this personal and social liminal space, this transition, this uncharted borderland, I am the Lindworm, and I am shedding and burning my old skins. I will grow new ones.
All of that came into very deliberate focus on Wednesday night when I went out for celebratory shenanigans with my brother.
slipjig3 has just imported his LJ content over here (WOO!) and is joining us in the wide dream, for which I am very excited. He and I became friends in the intertubes well over a decade ago, when I was still heavily/frequently using Livejournal - before Strikethrough, before I got married to my Ex even. That initial bonding was really simply as tenuous as we had some friends in common and shared a birthday. It is amazing, the foundations a friendship can be built upon. I suppose it would be more fair to simply say that initial connection was the breaking of ground. We've woobled in and out of each other's orbits since then, and have frequently made the noises at each other in passing of "Hey, we should do a thing for our birthday!" and then promptly failing to follow up on that.This year, though - this year, we did it! Like real grownups! We made concrete plans, and followed through! Check us out!
There was bowling, which became "disco bowling" less than ten minutes after we started, but maybe three songs in the "disco" music became 90s alt/rock and we were both very happy campers. We were also really bad bowlers. Like, really, TERRIBLY bad, to the point that we went at least three boxen before anybuggy got a pin down, and the woman in the next lane was trying to offer me tips on how to manage my stance and release as if I were new. I'm not new, I'm just old, and it's been more than half a decade, and I was raised on candlepin so full size bowling is not really my bag... okay fine, I'm a little new, but also not. She was funny though. She told me she needed to help me so that I could kick his butt, because on a first date it's important to win the game so as to show dominance.Reader, I just about died laughing. XD
Post-fooding we discovered how incredibly terrible the bowling alley is in terms of food service - or rather, in making it clear how their food service operates. There is a distinct area in the middle of the alley, blocked off with half-walls, where there are booths and hightop tables surrounding a small 3-sided bar. We seated ourselves, talked, perused the menu, talked, waited, talked... finally I got up and went to the bar to inquire to the bartender about foodservice and whether the kitchen was open. The bartender proceeded to completely ignore me to serve and talk to a dude for at least three full minutes. Finally I snagged another alley worker on her way toward the back to ask how we get food. Apparently you have to go to the front desk to order it, get a buzzer, and then go back there to collect it when ready. That was all well and good except that then we went to the counter to order food and got ignored as well.
This probably wouldn't have rankled so much if (A) we had known how their food service rolls and (B) if we weren't so dang hungry. We found another place to go and headed out - but wait! What is this?! There is an arcade within the bowling alley! I looked at
slipjig3 and asked, "Do you think they have Skee-ball in there?" because what could possibly tickle my fancy more than tiny pseudo-bowlingThis has been a very long-winded recounting of events to get me back round to where I initially intended to go, which was that we found a place to have a really delicious dinner (Their liver and onions was SPOT ON) and chat. It was half catching up, a small portion vent session, and a big portion navel-gazing and vaguely philosophical rumination. And also a whole bunch of Oh There's This Thing You Might Like To Watch/Listen To/Experience. We talked about a lot of mistakes we have made, or unsatisfactory experiences that we've had, and introspected together on coping and learning and trying to proceed more carefully and thoughtfully in the now and future (because, obviously, we can't do aught about the past). Ultimately what we both came to is that we desire meaningful connection, rather than the appearance of voluminous connection. I talked up Dreamwidth to him because, while there are not a lot of us here, I find myself having actual conversations with folks here - asking questions, learning things, not attempting to meme-ify or outclever each other.
Not having emoji reactions here is a blessing. It relieves me of that unconscious feeling that I need to click something and prove that I read it; instead, I read all the posts my folks make because I want to read it all, and I respond to the things that I feel like I really have something to say about, or ask about. We wondered aloud,
slipjig3 and I, about where that all started, and came to the conclusion that it's a part of capitalizing on the internet. How do you know which posts/blogs/tweets/etc. to yank out of their chronological place to push at people unless there's a way of quantifying the attention it's getting? And you cannot easily quantify with actual word-based responses; many people are lazy, or nervous, or just don't want to respond with typing, yet will have no problem with a one-click response to show I Was Here I Saw This Thumbs Up Yes Good. A thumbs-up, a plus-one, a clickyheartforlike - these are easily quantifyable, measurable, and therefore easy to plug into algorithms to assess for marketability. It makes it easier to give the thinnest veneer of interaction, because how many things have I clicked a little button on today? I'm making my presence known to my friends! I'm interacting!Except that I've also been ravenously lonely. Friends in the internet are real, but the methods by which we are allowed to communicate with one another have changed insidiously over the last decade to decade and a half, and I don't know that that is necessarily going to slow/change. In the last three weeks, I have had in-person get-togethers with three different people, and each time it was focused, content-rich (so to speak), and gratifying to me in an unquantifiable way, on a human-to-human, we-are-social-animals-and-crave-interconnection kind of way. It feels good, and I want more of it. This goes well hand-in-hand with some discussions I have been having recently with SALM, vis-a-vis trying to balance the making of plans with people without needing PERMISSION from my partner with the making of plans with people while CONSIDERING THE NEEDS of my partner. In brief, basically...I can make plans without consulting him first, and I'm not going to end up being somehow punished. We're partners, and just as I hold down the fort at home when he is at class or out with friends or visiting family, he can hold down the fort while I'm getting tea with someone or attending a gaming session or visiting folks out of state for a weekend. He's supportive of me having a social life that doesn't involve him, because it's healthy for me and because it does not in any way lessen his and my relationship for me to have connections and experiences with others.
There's been a lot of stuff in the intertubes that I've been seeing for the first time this year, although it's apparently been A Thing for a lot of people for a while, wherein one chooses a sort of guideword, a touchstone word for the coming year. I thought my word was going to be something else entirely, but instead it seems to be the one I gave the jeweler who made my shawl pin: Release. I am being released from a lot of my entrenchments, and also am releasing certain habits, reactions, and modes of thought to which I have clung and in which I have wrapped myself. As I move through this personal and social liminal space, this transition, this uncharted borderland, I am the Lindworm, and I am shedding and burning my old skins. I will grow new ones.