Day2Day

Four people I know lost their mothers yesterday (three deaths, two of those are siblings).

Another friend lost hers around a month ago.

Getting older has some really nasty consequences and I guess I'm going to be seeing more of this from here onwards.

I wish there was something more practical I could say or do for the grieving.

It's really odd watching your different sets of friends spontaneously have a chat with one another in various comments sections. If only we were all shaking hands we'd be doing wonders for our 6 Degrees connections.

I'm caffeinated and therefore awake at last. Although it certainly feels later than just after midday, despite me having got little done during the morning.

I've got conventions and fandom on my mind right now. The post-con crash, I guess. If I win the lottery I'll travel the world stopping off at conventions here and there and not worrying about the costs and the need to return to 'real' life. Then I'll probably die of alcohol poisoning or exhaustion, but there are worse ways to go!

I sort of touched on it in the con report I posted already, but Corflu was quite a big deal for me. I'm not the social sort. I watch telly when everyone else is going to the pub. I go on IRC or play The Sims when others are going to nightclubs. It's weird to have this suddenly burgeoning circle of friends all over the place when life used to be me Raz and Sin sitting around the TV or playstation and maybe going to the cinema if Ruddy and Karen were up for it.

I suppose I never found the right group, before. I'm not typical. I never did the usual pub, nightclub, youth group type of things. When I DO go to a party or whatever I'm not confident enough to walk up and chat to strangers. The standard advice for meeting people is always "join a group or club for people with your interests". But they don't have TV-watching groups. And reading groups, while they exist, aren't my idea of a good time - besides, I barely read these days if it ain't on a computer screen or in a fanzine (though I AM trying to change that fact). So there I was thinking I was pretty much a loner and never mind cos I've got friends worldwide that I can email any time and suddenly *wham* I fell into fandom.

Well, I was already halfway there. Red Dwarf did that. But Red Dwarf is like those bodies being pulled up in Columbia (is that where?) right now. Should be burried, should be at rest, but instead it's on display and rotting visibly. But that was my club, my group of people with similar interests. But the socialising is difficult when everyone's scattered throughout the world. You can't have a newsgroup meet for everyone if they're all in different time zones.

So this con attending thing is pretty bloody cool. I called it a travelling circus, and maybe circus is harsh (though, looking at some of us you do wonder...) but the travelling bit is right. I mean, I go 3500 miles and I'm hanging out with the same people I meet up with in London every month. And in November we'll be in the midlands at Novacon. And in between times we're online.

I've had Bill and Tracy say they want to take me to lunch. I've had Alison Freebairn say we should go out for drinks sometime soon. The Brit contingent on the flights were keen to be seated together - with me as a part of the group. I had an offer for a room share at the con.

What I'm trying to get across is that I'm really not used to being social, to being popular, and yet here it is happening. And it's DAMN cool.

There were no fireworks for us this year. At least, not in the proper, traditional sense of watching a bonfire and seeing the full display. The best we got was those rogue examples that flew high enough over neighbours' houses for us to watch. I'd have liked to go and watch a proper display but we didn't manage it, mainly due to not being a real part of the local community. We don't know anyone and we don't know the familiar names for the local area. There were signs all over the place, flaunting the fact that some place called The Meadows was having a display on Saturday night - but who knows where that is?

So we spent Saturday evening over at Ruddy and Karen's place, just watching TV. Sunday, the highlight of the evening was the televising of Scream 2. And this evening I'm sitting home in front of the computer, pretty much like any other average night.

Since I spend so much time in front of it, I figured I'd take a break from the money-must-be-saved-for-a-house-deposit ethos and spend some cash upgrading it. I'll get to play my few games at a decent speed and also stand a chance of playing new ones that come out. It will give Photoshop and its ilk a much needed boost as well.