"Then Bear went face down in the caterpillar roll."

Good sushi last night, good conversation. Got to meet dlandon's sister and spend time with elisem, porphyrin, Mike, and Roo, allochthon, and of course matociquala. Who got my brain doing a Hee-Haw/Laugh-In/Cthulhu mix, and oh, how we wished sosostris2012 was there for it. Aren't you flattered, A.? that we think of you when we think of these things? Umm. (In my head, the tentacles are still getting shut in the little Laugh-In doors. This may not be what we call "a good thing.")

Bear pointed out that they did not seem to be coming around all that often to see if we wanted more drinks. But perhaps they should have, because as the evening progressed, Elise got to reminiscing about old times, and it got rather quieter than we had been in the Shoggoth-Minnie Pearl stage of the evening, as we crowded around for the juicy bits. (Speculation about who should turn pink at the phrases "Elise got to reminiscing about old times" and "juicy bits" should not be too worrisome; likely it's not you. At least, I think it's not. Sometimes hard to say who might come wandering around, and somebody certainly ought to turn pink here.)

On the drive home, my brain insisted that a different novel entirely was, too, connected to the Thermionic Night universe, albeit not with any characters or magics or countries in common with Thermionic Night. A different part of the same secret history, I guess. This is alarming and also may not fall into the category of "a good thing." But if I sit very still and breathe very quietly maybe they will stay entirely separate everywhere but in my own head. Maybe? Apparently this was neither still nor quiet enough, as it is being insistent. The problem is Canada, and to a lesser extent the northern US, Washington state really. We'd be all right if not for Washington and BC. I had the middle bits worked out just fine. We were just dandy up to the Montana border.

Secret histories: they are a lot of trouble. The jury is still out on the "worth it" question.

Also I forgot to have Bear sign a book for me, which was extremely silly of me, because I thought of it, but then the Pacific Northwest came waltzing in upsetting the proverbial apple cart, and I forgot. Brains: also a lot of trouble. Probably worth it on the whole, though.

Complimentary problems

I have figured out one of the hard things about taking compliments.

For a large-ish portion of my life to date -- thankfully decreasing as a percent every day -- almost all compliments carried with them implicit negative comparisons. It couldn't just be, "What a great dress on you!" It was almost always, "What a great dress on you! I could never wear something like that, it would make me look like [a cow/a wall/some other negative thing]." Some of the girls who learned this pattern were being perfectly sincere, and that was bad, because who wants to make their friends or even their cordial acquaintances feel worse just by showing up? And some of them were fishing for compliments, which was bad, too, because it made it feel like they wouldn't have brought the subject up to begin with otherwise. And you certainly can't smile and say, "Thanks!" when someone had just said, "You look great and I look terrible!"; not unless you dislike them and want them to think they look terrible. You can't feel warm and fuzzy about it. You have to go into caretaker mode -- um, maybe that part is just me, actually -- and try to make it all better, and later when you think of it, that's what you think, not "so-and-so liked my dress."

(Boys were much less of an issue. I think most teenage boys had the feeling that complimenting a girl would be equivalent to publicly offering to raise children with her or something like that: a large commitment of interest at the very least. And many girls seemed to reinforce that belief, so. Men of my acquaintance have a firm grasp on the difference between, "Nice dress" and "please reproduce with me," and for this I am deeply grateful.)

So now when matociquala pops up today saying I would Stop Traffic (caps hers) if I bought a corset at World Fantasy as I have threatened to do, it is a delightful relief that her own traffic stopping abilities are not in question here simply because she has raised the subject of mine. (I mean, the Bear, the jade green corset, the boobs, and did I mention that it was green? And did I also mention the boobs? So: not in question, really.) It's just unadulterated nice. It's very cool but also fairly new. I'm still practicing with this bit.

This is almost certainly not the only problem I have with taking compliments, but it's on the list.

I also tend to want to verify that people know that they're totally making up who is pretty and who is not. It's not necessarily a bad thing to be making it up, I just want to know that they know they're doing it. Social construct and all that. Standards and tastes vary etc. Everybody got it? Okay then.

Week of June 26-July 2

Three rejections, one acceptance. Could be a lot worse.

timprov will have markgritter's and my emergency contact information in London. We will have high-speed internet in our hotel room, but we don't intend to spend a lot of time on it, which means that I will not be caught up on livejournal this week. If there's something I really, truly should know, but something that is not an emergency, e-mail is the best way to go.

See you all in a week.