We Will Know Them By Their

[mrissa]

Continuing the "M'ris is mentally twelve" theme, last night upon meeting one of you poor people, I blurted, "Oh, you're one of my friends!" Livejournal. Aiding my social gracelessness since...hmm, only since 2003 or so, I guess.

eileenlufkin has a livejournal name even more sneaky and hard to decipher than mine. But some of the rest of you are quite pseudonymous. Others have icons that are not even trying to look like you. (pameladean, for example, has no wings. Neither does fairmer. matociquala does not look like any television spy ever...although I might very well watch a spy show with her in it if they ever made such a thing.)

So what I want to know is, if I don't know you know, how will I know you if I meet you? For the people who don't know you, how will they? You will be the one who's wearing lime green tights? You will be the one who offers to let people pet your stuffed head cold virus? You will be the one who mutters clever jokes about jazz saxophonists when you think no one is listening? Which one is you?

Comments

[palinade.livejournal.com]

You've met me. But here I am again. :-D

[adriennelily.livejournal.com]

I'll be the one who cringes at the idea of actually meeting someone, then runs (anywhere) to hide.

Or; I'll be the one who's drunk and obnoxious.

Could go either way.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, that is you! Hurrah.

I like icons of their people. I like creative/personality ones, too, but the ones of their people are nice. (dd_b's doesn't count.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

No one would ever find me as I have perfect protective coloration (if Fan is a type of human species, my Genus is Middle-aged woman, glasses, scruffy braid).

I look so much like so many others, in fact, that twelve years ago Steve Brust rushed up to me, hugged me, said he hadn't seen me in so long--and how was I? I was gratified and delighted until I realized he thought I was Pat Hodgell.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

It has occurred to me that my social inhibitions may actually keep me interacting with people instead of running away and hiding. Whether or not this is the case, it always annoys me when drunk characters in movies have their inhibitions lowered in exactly the same way as each other.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

One presumes you have some different behaviors than Pat Hodgell, though?

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I was irrationally delighted when I met Steve Brust, for he was wearing a leather tricorn, had a piratical moustache and long black hair, and had a winged creature on his shoulder. (A parrot named Doc Holliday, but close enough.) I don't know why, but on some level I always expect writers to look like they could have stepped out of their books, and unless their books are about middle-aged people with glasses, they very rarely do.

I am Genus undersized young woman, short hair, glasses. Slightly more common at anime conventions than sf ones. In ten years I'll be undersized middle-aged woman, short hair, glasses,, and then everyone can mistake me for Barbara Hambly.

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I've proven I can do the recognizing, from behind, 50 feet away. I shall find you, if you cannot find me. Broad, generic "you." I spotted Jo Walton before I figured out she was actually Jo Walton. I thought, "Hm. Woman in a blue shirt. Ribbon on the badge." If only there'd been an opportunity to lay bets. I would have won.

In the future (at future cons, at least) I will be adding my LJ name to my badge. And before I go to cons, I will post a variety of pictures, in a vain hope that some photo shall look actually like me. (If we are to believe the majority of the photographic evidence, I am the woman pointing her decidedly non-pointy-but-rather-broad chin at the camera. Otherwise, I'm the woman pointing the top of her head at you and looking sidewise at you. This is supposed to be a grumpy look, but never as grumpy as I want.)

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

The diagnosis for me, drunk: Miles on fastpenta.

I wasn't pleased, but (shrug). I remember I kept wailing, "I just want to shut up!" and arguing that beagles can bay as well as howl, and demonstrating. :-/

I *wish* I were a morose, quiet, run-away sort of drunk.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

msagara sounds Asian enough, I should think, except that her books say Michelle West on the cover instead.

You don't look very much alike, though.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Well, I've only seen her twice, one of those times sitting next to her at a con while she told me the story of book three, then being written. (And people passing by kept looking from one of us to the other in puzzlement.) But I confess I only saw a shy, quiet person, no other behavior traits.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

LJ name to badge--what an excellent idea! I hope I remember that, next time I get to go to a big con.

[bafleyanne.livejournal.com]

This is me, here in the picture. :)

In groups, I'm the one who's shy at first and all of a sudden gets comfortable and starts making a nuisance of herself while giggling nervously. ;)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Yeah, sorry about that :-).

[pameladean]

I thought you were being very witty when you blurted that out.

I think, really, that that's how most of the people there took it.

Pamela

[landofnowhere]

Unlikely you'll come to meet me. People who know what I look like find me hard to miss (except they get me mixed up with my sister)... the above icon is a bad and sort of old picture of me, my hair is rather wilder now. I'm extremely quiet around people I don't know well, so you can pick me out that way. Short and sort of klutzy too.

[msagara.livejournal.com]

msagara sounds Asian enough, I should think, except that her books say Michelle West on the cover instead.

You don't look very much alike, though.

But I will have a Michelle Sagara book out (after twelve years) next year (2005) for added fun & confusion <wry g>.

My answer would be: Medium-short, middle-aged, oriental, (which I believe is supposed to be asian, but I'm older and that's the word I tend to use), of average weight & wearing glasses; loud, hyper, and over-focused; talks with hands. A lot.

Scary to some, but I don't know why.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I am either invisible, so that you'll walk into me, or look like everyone else, so that you'll see tens of other people and think they're me.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You seem dreadfully sorry.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yes, certainly. Witty. That's exactly how it was intended. I'll just go with that.

I think this is one of the distinctions between people who like one and people who don't: the former are willing to find things charming that the latter will find annoying.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I would dismiss the number of people who think they look like everyone else, except that I was at WorldCon just recently and saw a startling number of similar-looking people.

[dendrophilous.livejournal.com]

I am frequently asked, "I thought I saw you at X this weekend," where I was nowhere near X.

[scottjames.livejournal.com]

I know. I was at X, and I didn't see you there.

[carbonel]

We met last Saturday, but it was rather an odd experience to be introduced to someone, and realize that while I'd never me her, I'd seen her writings on LJ, and she might have seen mine, and that unless I told her my LJ nickname, she would never know this. I guess this is comparable to being introduced to a friend of a friend that you've heard stories about but not previously met.

In any case, it was very nice meeting you and getting a chance to chat.

And if you meet me again, I'll probably be the one in T-shirt and jeans. Very helpful, hmm? Unless it's a dress-up occasion. I enjoy dressing up, and don't get enough opportunity.

I'll also sometimes be the one who drops an unexpected pun into the conversation and tries to look innocent, with varying success.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

In this case, it was very comparable, since I think I had heard stories about you (and I know we hadn't previously met for anything that would actually qualify as meeting). Unless I'm conflating multiple people with your real world first name, in which case, oops.

It was nice meeting you, too.

Oh, puns, T-shirts, and jeans. It's a good thing I know what you look like now, because those things are so rare in geeky circles....

and I, as always, will be Dr Mung-mung.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

Well, actually I'll be the quiet, faintly interested/amused looking guy in some neutral or green-toned polo and dockers carrying around a backpack. Unless I'm trying to get somehwere in a hurry, in which case my 'determined not to be late' face is often mistaken for a 'I'm really pissed' face. It's unlikely that I'll get to any major SF conventions, but just in case...

Re: and I, as always, will be Dr Mung-mung.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

You are the one who looks like Kev. Before you got here, C.J. couldn't really picture what you'd look like, and then when you got here, he thought, "Oh, of course, he looks like Kev."

Re: and I, as always, will be Dr Mung-mung.

[greykev.livejournal.com]

"Oh, of course, he looks like Kev."

Hurray for axiomatic me! Or would that be tautological me? Kev=Kev!

Either way, I'm glad my Kevness is self-evident, rather than him saying "Hmm, Kev looks like a Steve."

Re: and I, as always, will be Dr Mung-mung.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

No Stevitude. Your Kevness shines through.

Hmm. Brains are strange places. And this is about to be a different journal entry....

[ckd]

Yes. Many folks had either stickers or separate LJ-badges at WorldCon, which helped immensely.

(Amusingly enough, mrissa and I turn out to have met at WorldCon, but without her realizing that I am in actuality a small blue foam shark toy.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Oh, you were that small blue foam shark toy! See, it was just that "small blue foam shark toy" is such a fannish archetype that I had a hard time remembering which one you were. But now that I see the picture, it's all very clear.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!