Spoiled

[mrissa]

markgritter made kung pao. Mmmmm, kung pao. He did not dispute the rule about getting whatever dessert you want when you've had doctors poking bits of things into you, so I had the last of the raspberry fudge on some vanilla ice cream. It was good, but I keep wanting it to taste like the raspberry chocolate sauce timprov and I make. Which is easier to get anyway, so now we'll just do that next time. Also it is thundering.

I am so spoiled.

Mark does dispute another important rule, as discussed Saturday night, which is this: if you generally would hug someone goodbye, and you have done so, and then you talk for a sufficient length of time after that, you get another hug.

Mark claims this is a selfish ploy to get more hugs*. Well, duh. But really: there are hugs for hello and goodbye, and there are other hugs, and if you don't go away, you haven't said goodbye. So it became another kind of hug somewhere mid-conversation, and you are still due your goodbye hug if you would generally get one.

Say you are on the phone, and you say, "Okay, goodbye" in the middle, and the other person says, "Wait, now, when were you going to come over to eat my food and drink my beverages?", and further conversation ensues. You don't then get to just hang up whenever you feel done, on the theory that you already said goodbye. You still need to indicate to the other person that you're done. Proper goodbyes must be exchanged. (If the other person refuses to participate in proper goodbyes, the procedure may be altered to, "GoodBYE, [friend's name].")

The very easiest way to work this (with the hugs, not the phone) is to be in a conversation with more than one person. So then every time you move like you're going away, you get another entire round of hugs. Minnesota Long Goodbyes may have their origins in the weather, but their fruits are entirely more pleasant than sleet.

Wiser people than I have pointed out that I am a cuddly person. I do not dispute this. But really: more hugs or fewer hugs? And not from your smelly great-aunt-by-marriage that you wish your great-uncle had left out of the family entirely but from people of whom you would usually like hugs? It's a good rule, is what I'm saying. It's a just and reasonable rule. I stick by the rule. This, too, may make me spoiled. So be it. I will be spoiled, and cuddly, and hugged several times.

I really like my life.

*timprov's new theory is that most rules are designed to selfishly maximize one's own hugs or selfishly minimize hugs to people one doesn't like. There may be something to this.

Comments

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what's to explain. You announce your intended departure, and you get up from your seat and move towards the door. Your hosts move with you. Then you keep talking. You may at some point start putting on your shoes, if you take them off at that locale, or your winter gear, if it's winter. You keep talking. You hug goodbye. You keep talking. It's a scientific fact that there's more to say when you're standing up, even if it's less comfortable saying it. You may end up, in nice weather, standing next to the car, still talking. It is all part of the MN Long Goodbye.

Sometimes you tell yourself this is because you like the people you're bidding farewell a heck of a lot and don't get to see them that often. This logic breaks down if you have plans to see them in the next, say, week.

Amateurs have MN Long Goodbyes of 20-30 minutes. Real pros...well, let's just say that my aunties stayed with my grandmother for 3/4 of August, and may have been saying goodbye after the first day for all I know.

[retrobabble.livejournal.com]

*raised eyebrows* I think you just described my French-Canadian family. Are you sure we're not related? *g*

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

After WorldCon...no. Not sure at all, actually.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I was having a hard time seeing where Minnesota fit into it, and I think it may have developed from, as you said, putting on the cold weather gear. It'd be rude not to talk to someone while they're putting all that stuff on, right? So, it's merely a cultural holdover into summers. Right. I get it now. :)

[mechaieh.livejournal.com]

A high school best friend and I used to have a ritual: when we thought we were ready to get off of the phone, one of us would say "Eins," the other would reply "Zwei," and we were then supposed to say "Drei" together -- but usually one of us would interrupt with something else that needed saying for at least the first seven rounds.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

scottjames and I have a protocol with topic warnings. About half an hour before one of us has to get off the phone, that person will say, "Okay, major topic warning." So if we've been putting off something big and serious we've wanted to talk about, that's the time. About five minutes before having to get off the phone, the line is, "Minor topic warning," so if you've got a really great story you've just forgotten to tell so far but definitely wanted to remember, there's your chance. It works pretty well, especially because it isn't infinite: major topics can last more than half an hour and be followed by a minor thing or two, but there's a sense of winding things up, not just talking infinitely.