You Know You Are In a Strange Place When

I've just arrived in San Diego for Comic Con. While I waited for my suitcase at the baggage claim, I saw a man dressed in full pirate regalia stride by. And I do mean full regalia, from his patched shirt to his deck sandals to his long, curly hair and beard topped with a pirate hat. He even carried a pirate chest up on his shoulder, a malevolent thing of black leather and metals studs. A mysterious name was scrawled in smeared ink on the lid. He strode through the area with a slight roll to his gait. He might as well have been at sea, carrying his ill-gotten gains to the ship's hold. I smelled the sea air in his wake, and smiled to be among real roleplayers once more.

A few minutes afterwards, the same pirate came back to the claim area, set down the chest, and picked up... an identical black leather, metal studded pirate chest, with a different name on it.

And you thought you had problems picking YOUR luggage out of the crowd.

We Interrupt This Bout Of Self-Pity, Obscenity, and Semantical Chicken To Bring You the News

It's been an interesting week, what with learning contract law, missing Pete Best, looting my boss' office like a drunken beadcatcher from New Orleans, and so on. I decided to watch the Daily Show. After that I headed to the computer and pulled up some old friends I hadn't talked to since the weekend.

Hey, um, listen, I don't want to be a buzzkill, but World War Three appears to be kicking off.

The WaPost has some creepy pictures of Lebanon burning, while CNN has the headline "Major Escalation" on the main page with pictures of refugees fleeing their countries. The NY Times, bless her Gray heart, refers to the rising street violence in Egypt as "pressure."

Er... does this mean I don't have to learn contract law?

Don't Eavesdrop On My Lunch Pod, Part 22

(Heated discussion of what constitutes an "invention," followed by speculation over a particular common acquaintance, now in progress.)

Guy #3: What did [Very Self Important Person] ever invent?

Guy #4: (in funny voice) "The question mark."

Me: (Obscene tongue gesture in the shape of a question mark, combined with obscene hand gestures indicating that the curve was applied to a pair of very sensitive male bits, and the dot shoved where the sun does not shine.)

Guy #1: Oh, and then [Very Actually Important Person] says "Talk to me in SPANISH."

(General laughter, immediate recognition of the Spanish double punctuation:

¿?)

Guy #1: (in girly voice) AY DIOS MIO!

We Fear Change

That started as an observation that everyone thought was a joke, on the ur-blog. Back before all you crazy kids even called it blogging. Back then it was ranting. Back before ranting was something every loser with net access and three cusswords could do. Oh, that was a long time ago.

But this is not nostaglia. I wear no rose colored glasses for that time. That was back before I knew that the net's false faces are worse than the real ones, before I understood what false intimacy was, before it all began for me online. I was a disaster waiting to happen and almost did. And that's aside from the squalor and the misery I enjoyed offline!

So I don't wish for a return to the way things used to be, back when I believed that happy endings were inevitable. They are no such thing. You earn your happy ending, and when you have one, you guard it fierce and close like a sparrow with a nest on a mailbox.

I don't wish for a return to the days between now and then. There was a lot of happiness in between, but there were signs even then. I would not go back in time to see those signs, and, in pointing out the potential disasters, cut short the laughing.

I don't even wish for the things happening now to happen any other way. All the miserable things of the past led to this now - my home, my husband, my life. Who knows what awful present tense is paving the way for some future joy?

But I fear change. I hate it while it's happening to me. It disrupts all the security on which I need to build my best days. And this year has had too fucking much. Wake me up when it's over, and call me when the band is back together.