moving on

Earlier this weekend I was thinking deep profound thoughts about friends and friendship. I realised that the friends I hang out with these days do rather different things to those I used to hang out with a year or two ago. It's as though I've reverted to my (usual) self--my time at uni and work overseas--a time before I came to the USA. A time when I refused to set foot in anything resembling a "club" or a "lounge", a time when I hung out watching football (and other sports) in dark, seedy pubs at odd hours of the day, a time when I hung out with people who have "game days/nights" (with the "game" in question being board games or video games), a time when I go watch films and plays with people (and end up in a pub after, discussing those).

I also realised that I have two groups of friends: one, people I keep in touch with via email (or, now, through Facebook) and whom I've known for over a decade and who seem to visit me at odd times and places (I had a vistor last weekend, a friend I'd not seen in nearly 4 years). The other group is friends I've just recently acquired--most of them in the past year. Sadly enough, apart from Fanny*, most of my friends from the years-in-between seem to have dropped out of touch and/or are living elsewhere.

I wonder if that means I've somehow become stable and set in this place where everyone is transient? I wonder if that means I should look into moving on elsewhere?

* Fanny doesn't get the luxury of not being in touch since, apart from us here, I also invite myself to her place every once in a while. Next month, for instance.

news you all should know

Finished grading. Went to catch up with news and found the BBC's "most read" story was this:

"Great tits cope well with warming"

Indeed.

Spinster.

There is a cute boy who works in my building. And of course I say "boy" though he is likely in his thirties. This keeps me in the "girl" camp because oh my God I am not a woman yet. Or womyn. Or lady. Though I do like the phrase lady-bird. I don't know why. Perhaps because I see a bird in a very elaborate hat. And that makes me smile.

Anyway.

So this boy-man who works in my building. I do not think I've tipped the stalker-scale yet. We've noticed each other in the garage. We've exchanged "oh, the dollar bill feeder isn't working" pleasantries at the vending machines. We've tossed shy smiles back and forth.

And I am a total pussy.

Because I will not go any further than this. Will not lay myself open to vulnerabilities and rejection and, lord save us, possibilities. Gracious, no.

I can hear Bum hitting her head against the keyboard right now. Perhaps screaming at me in that way that makes her voice go up just a little with exasperation. All very charmingly accented.

Because I feel like my days of flirting without alcohol are past. And I will be the woman in her house with millions of dollars worth of art that articles are written about and journalists can't call just "woman" or "lady" or "that crazy old bat." No, the call her spinster.

Except I will be the spinster with millions of dollars worth of cosmetics and trashy novels.

That?

That right there?

That's called catastrophizing. Pro tour.

(double) huh

A book recommendation for yous, just in time for a new week of reading in those shiny, happy cubicles.

As the io9 writer(s?) puts it, "[the Feminists] is the story of cubicle drone Keith Montalvo, who has been caught consensually slipping the pink torpedo to a female co-worker. Unfortunately, it's 1992 and the Big-Sisterish "Committee" has outlawed all unauthorized heterosex, and his crime is punishable by death. Keith flees underground, literally and figuratively, where he meets Angela, a boot-wearing resistance fighter hottie. Luckily for Keith, while women on the outside reject all males, Angela and other female members of the Subterraneans resistance movement are "attached to the men with arm-clinging closeness." Soon he and Angela are working (arm-in-arm, of course) to assassinate the President, and reclaim gender supremacy for men."

Why, Angela, why? Was the shagging worth it? I wonder if the book answers that (off to Amazon to check)

Thanks to io9 for the link.