(no subject)

Huzzah! I've been feeling for the last few weeks that, if we must have rain, at least let it be thunderstorm! But until this week, no, just grey rain. (Well, except for that day with the tornado warnings.

This week we are on storm # 2. The world outside my window is rumbling and flaring. My study is, alas, crappy for viewing the sky, but nice for listening, as I can have the window open in a downpour and not get rain in.

Writing:

Yes, I have. Not as much as I should, but I got some progress yesterday and today. It's easy to see why i was avoiding the first part of this scene. It's not just nasty; it's brutally nasty and, for the character, emotionally devastating. I can only hope I managed to get across the brutality in the right way, as wrong in every way. The last thing I want is to ever have this read as a book for people who get off on violence, but there are places where it can't be avoided, and to flinch would be worse than to convey. (This is, after all, the story where, whem my mom read older drafts, even when she found good things to say about the writing, she asked why I had to write such depressing stuff. The tongue-in-cheek phrase was "happy little bunny rabbits". It got pulled out again for the medical trauma question I just sent on to her...))

Anyhow, we're now into the scene where I introduce the new and improved China, a minor character I've always loved, and she's managing to lighten things considerably. I'm supposed to introduce another, nastier one, too, but I think that could end up too much trauma.

Real life:

Work continues apace. Sleep doesn't; my body won't always *let* me sleep as early as I need to for my work schedule. I'm working every day this week but Friday, when we leave town for Schutzenfest, the big archery event down by Minneapolis. We're travelling with _aura_ but not her husband, who is alas busy. I also mean to make a stop at DreamHaven Books on the Sunday, probably closer to noon or one than otherwise, since they say they're open, and... well, I can't *not* go there.

Folkmoot last week had a strange twist for me; an old friend - for the sake of internet anonymity, I'll call her Northlight - showed up to the Barony for the first time in ten years. I've seen her in other places in much of the time between, but not in about the last 3 years or so. We've known each other since High school, where we were difficult to separate even when we drove each other batty. We went to the School of Art together, and worked on a very remarkably odd persona/storytelling project for years (Not one that could ever be published, but which was a hell of a lot of fun to work on.)

It wasn't a perfect friendship, it wasn't always comfortable (Can you have a comfortable friendship with a schizophrenic?)*, and lord knows I messed up my fair share of the time, often by disagreeing with her choices in a strident manner, and sounding, even when I didn't mean to, like I was sure I knew best. But it lasted, we had a lot of connections, a lot of good times, around books, art, animals, music. Silliness.

Still, we started drifting apart, as happens. Fewer friends in common, fewer reasons to get together -- then, there came a really nasty bit of business with a role-playing game run by my brother (I wasn't part of the game, but it had meant she was over at our place regularly in spite of our drifting apart). It pretty much broke our last direct contact. No reason I couldn't have called her on my own, but I've never been good at calling people I don't see regularly anyway. A bit of phone phobia, a bit of laziness, and I have this worse phobia, about personal rejection. I seem to assume people won't want to talk to me, that even people who ostensibly like me will one day tell me I'm annoying and should go away. Certainly it kicks in when i think about getting hold of anyone I haven't seen in months/years. It's not invariably wrong, either. I've been stung enough to reinforce it, even knowing, intellectually, that it's 95% wrong.

I'll be honest (And it's not impossible she'd read this, so this is actually scary for me to write about at all): I did think, often, about calling her or e-mailing her or leaving a message on her LJ, in spite of that phobia. Then, just as I was gathering myself to actually do so, I learned -- from a reliable source -- that she said a few nasty things about me in the intervening time. Things that implied she did think herself well rid of me, and would definitely throw any attempt to contact her back in my face.

Until I learned *that*, I'd been trying to mostly think of the good parts of our friendship (No lack of those!), and imagine that the rough bits might be things that could be smoothed over. But this new information hurt me; I hadn't even gone through with the call and I'd had my worst fears confirmed.

Which is stupid wrong-headed thinking. People sometimes say things. Sometimes they mean it. But sometimes there's a misunderstanding about past events -- or a context which isn't obvious. Or they meant it then, but reconsidered, or stopped being angry. Sometimes they don't mean it. Sometimes it doesn't even occur to them it would be taken badly, it's just gossip. None of which I can say for sure is Northlight's motive. I just know all these have happened to me with other people who've talked about me behind my back.

These last couple of months, and I do literally mean since early May at most, I'd been thinking that I should get over myself. I most specifically had decided just last week to ask a mutual friend how Northlight would respond if I ever did try to drop her a line; whether she'd react per the nasty comments and treat me as unwelcome, or whether things could go well. A tentative step back towards making the attempt, but a more substantial one.

Then it turns out I don't have to go roundabout; she and I are in the same place at the same time regardless. The business meeting and dance both happened much as they normally do (Fewer people for folkmoot than I'd have liked...), but we had a few spaces before and after to talk.

It's not like old times, and that's good. We've both changed, and that's also good; there'd be nothing worse, I think, than two human beings not getting on with their lives. We've both done a lot over the years (She'd heard that I got married, but still had trouble believing it; I was astonished to learn her bird-breeding sideline also now includes training birds as service animals -- can I just say that's just cool?). We do both have some baggage in there; we both referred, obliquely or directly, to things which had come up over the years that had been less than resolved. But we did find common ground, and casual conversation, at least, seemed to come easily. I hope it keeps on that way; we can't be the friends we were, but maybe we can be new friends. And if not, I do believe we can at least be amicable. That's far more than I was afraid of, and almost exactly what I hoped.


* NOT a figurative question. She didn't find out until after she left University. On the one hand it explained so much, on the other - I dealt with that very badly, partly from disagreeing, again, and far too stridently, with how she handled it, or didn't, in my opinion. Which was that of someone without a clue about mental illness, so who was I to say?

(no subject)

Huzzah! I've been feeling for the last few weeks that, if we must have rain, at least let it be thunderstorm! But until this week, no, just grey rain. (Well, except for that day with the tornado warnings.

This week we are on storm # 2. The world outside my window is rumbling and flaring. My study is, alas, crappy for viewing the sky, but nice for listening, as I can have the window open in a downpour and not get rain in.

Writing:

Yes, I have. Not as much as I should, but I got some progress yesterday and today. It's easy to see why i was avoiding the first part of this scene. It's not just nasty; it's brutally nasty and, for the character, emotionally devastating. I can only hope I managed to get across the brutality in the right way, as wrong in every way. The last thing I want is to ever have this read as a book for people who get off on violence, but there are places where it can't be avoided, and to flinch would be worse than to convey. (This is, after all, the story where, whem my mom read older drafts, even when she found good things to say about the writing, she asked why I had to write such depressing stuff. The tongue-in-cheek phrase was "happy little bunny rabbits". It got pulled out again for the medical trauma question I just sent on to her...))

Anyhow, we're now into the scene where I introduce the new and improved China, a minor character I've always loved, and she's managing to lighten things considerably. I'm supposed to introduce another, nastier one, too, but I think that could end up too much trauma.

Real life:

Work continues apace. Sleep doesn't; my body won't always *let* me sleep as early as I need to for my work schedule. I'm working every day this week but Friday, when we leave town for Schutzenfest, the big archery event down by Minneapolis. We're travelling with _aura_ but not her husband, who is alas busy. I also mean to make a stop at DreamHaven Books on the Sunday, probably closer to noon or one than otherwise, since they say they're open, and... well, I can't *not* go there.

Folkmoot last week had a strange twist for me; an old friend - for the sake of internet anonymity, I'll call her Northlight - showed up to the Barony for the first time in ten years. I've seen her in other places in much of the time between, but not in about the last 3 years or so. We've known each other since High school, where we were difficult to separate even when we drove each other batty. We went to the School of Art together, and worked on a very remarkably odd persona/storytelling project for years (Not one that could ever be published, but which was a hell of a lot of fun to work on.)

It wasn't a perfect friendship, it wasn't always comfortable (Can you have a comfortable friendship with a schizophrenic?)*, and lord knows I messed up my fair share of the time, often by disagreeing with her choices in a strident manner, and sounding, even when I didn't mean to, like I was sure I knew best. But it lasted, we had a lot of connections, a lot of good times, around books, art, animals, music. Silliness.

Still, we started drifting apart, as happens. Fewer friends in common, fewer reasons to get together -- then, there came a really nasty bit of business with a role-playing game run by my brother (I wasn't part of the game, but it had meant she was over at our place regularly in spite of our drifting apart). It pretty much broke our last direct contact. No reason I couldn't have called her on my own, but I've never been good at calling people I don't see regularly anyway. A bit of phone phobia, a bit of laziness, and I have this worse phobia, about personal rejection. I seem to assume people won't want to talk to me, that even people who ostensibly like me will one day tell me I'm annoying and should go away. Certainly it kicks in when i think about getting hold of anyone I haven't seen in months/years. It's not invariably wrong, either. I've been stung enough to reinforce it, even knowing, intellectually, that it's 95% wrong.

I'll be honest (And it's not impossible she'd read this, so this is actually scary for me to write about at all): I did think, often, about calling her or e-mailing her or leaving a message on her LJ, in spite of that phobia. Then, just as I was gathering myself to actually do so, I learned -- from a reliable source -- that she said a few nasty things about me in the intervening time. Things that implied she did think herself well rid of me, and would definitely throw any attempt to contact her back in my face.

Until I learned *that*, I'd been trying to mostly think of the good parts of our friendship (No lack of those!), and imagine that the rough bits might be things that could be smoothed over. But this new information hurt me; I hadn't even gone through with the call and I'd had my worst fears confirmed.

Which is stupid wrong-headed thinking. People sometimes say things. Sometimes they mean it. But sometimes there's a misunderstanding about past events -- or a context which isn't obvious. Or they meant it then, but reconsidered, or stopped being angry. Sometimes they don't mean it. Sometimes it doesn't even occur to them it would be taken badly, it's just gossip. None of which I can say for sure is Northlight's motive. I just know all these have happened to me with other people who've talked about me behind my back.

These last couple of months, and I do literally mean since early May at most, I'd been thinking that I should get over myself. I most specifically had decided just last week to ask a mutual friend how Northlight would respond if I ever did try to drop her a line; whether she'd react per the nasty comments and treat me as unwelcome, or whether things could go well. A tentative step back towards making the attempt, but a more substantial one.

Then it turns out I don't have to go roundabout; she and I are in the same place at the same time regardless. The business meeting and dance both happened much as they normally do (Fewer people for folkmoot than I'd have liked...), but we had a few spaces before and after to talk.

It's not like old times, and that's good. We've both changed, and that's also good; there'd be nothing worse, I think, than two human beings not getting on with their lives. We've both done a lot over the years (She'd heard that I got married, but still had trouble believing it; I was astonished to learn her bird-breeding sideline also now includes training birds as service animals -- can I just say that's just cool?). We do both have some baggage in there; we both referred, obliquely or directly, to things which had come up over the years that had been less than resolved. But we did find common ground, and casual conversation, at least, seemed to come easily. I hope it keeps on that way; we can't be the friends we were, but maybe we can be new friends. And if not, I do believe we can at least be amicable. That's far more than I was afraid of, and almost exactly what I hoped.


* NOT a figurative question. She didn't find out until after she left University. On the one hand it explained so much, on the other - I dealt with that very badly, partly from disagreeing, again, and far too stridently, with how she handled it, or didn't, in my opinion. Which was that of someone without a clue about mental illness, so who was I to say?