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Career GirlsMost Americans are born drunk, and really require a little wine or beer to sober them. They have a sort of permanent intoxication from within, a sort of invisible champagne.... Americans do not need to drink to inspire them to do anything, though they do sometimes, I think, need a little for the deeper and more delicate purpose of teaching them how to do nothing. |
   
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Friday, September 5, 1997
We had a big, team-wide meeting this afternoon at work. It was blessedly brief, about half an hour. Some hints were given about ship parties and celebrations to come.
When one doesn't usually drink alcohol, and all sorts of juices and sodas are free all the time anyway, it becomes a little puzzling as to what to drink of a celebratory nature at a party. Sometimes I have brought my own non-alcoholic wine or sparkling cider, or something, just so I can have something to toast with that isn't what I've been drinking every day anyway. At recent work-group celebrations they have provided special high-quality root beer from Thomas Kemper, which makes a nice change.
I don't avoid alcohol from principle. When I was working at a restaurant in the eighties, I would have a few cocktails after work almost every night, and I enjoyed it! My father's and brother's alcoholism did give me a few qualms, though. But in later years there, I started getting sneezing fits from alcoholic beverages. I switched from my regular Molson Ale to wine. Still sneezing. I switched to straight vodka. Still sneezing. I tried non-alcoholic beer. No unusual sneezing. I deduced from this that it was indeed the alcohol in the drink that was causing these fits, rather than the yeast, the hops, or any other component. Luckily my worries about being an alcoholic myself didn't seem to come true, since I was able to give it up without being bothered. I have had a sip or two since, but the sneezing comes back. Since these fits are enthusiastic and long-lasting enough to start to annoy people, I'll stay off the sauce out of consideration for others.
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Rox, another full series passholder from the Seattle International Film Festival, has gotten together a mailing list for "Fool Serious" people, and has been organizing some gatherings. Tonight was the first one I'd been able to attend. We met at the Harvard Exit theater to see Mike Leigh's latest film, Career Girls, with dinner to follow.
- Career Girls
I don't think that this will be the huge hit that Secrets and Lies was, but I really liked it. It skips back and forth in time from the present day to the mid eighties, showing the first meeting and further relationships of some young women going to college at North London Polytechnic, an apparently not too prestigious British university. In the present day two of the women are spending the weekend together after several years apart. The acting was great! But the accents were a bit difficult to understand in some places.
From there we went to a restaurant within walking distance from my home. I got a ride from Jon Newman, who I have known in an online way for years, and have met several times in real life. Jon has the valuable quality of laughing at my witty remarks, which speaks well for his intelligence and good taste.
It's interesting to read in other people's journals about their experiences and thoughts on meeting people in real life that they have known online or through writing. I wondered why this didn't seem unusual at all to me. I realized that this happens all the time at Microsoft. When I interviewed for my current position, one of the guys interviewing me said I had answered some questions for him on an internal mailing list quite a while back. I was a bit startled, since I didn't remember it, but said I hoped I had been able to help him! We often first meet people face-to-face only after working together, debating, or chatting. The fannish community is another world where written communication may last for a long time before or instead of meeting. One difference between fandom and the online realm is that in fandom we have regular gatherings where people can meet if they so choose. It's not unusual for an Australian fan, for instance, to plan a trip to the USA, staying with correspondents in Minneapolis, Seattle, Los Angeles, and New York; in each place drawing on connections built through fanzines, APAs, or rec.arts.sf.fandom.
HopScotch was the restaurant we went to after the movie; apparently they make a specialty of microbrews (not unusual in Seattle) and single malt scotches (this would be more rare). Dinner was fun! I talked with one of the folks who has been going to the festival since the earliest days, Zorah [?], and with Rox and Jon. The restaurant was loud, so talking the length of the table was impossible. This is one reason I like to meet at a chinese restaurant with round tables when I am planning a bookclub gathering; it's better for chatting.
One strange note: while my open-face roast turkey sandwich wasn't bad at all, it didn't resemble the sliced turkey piled on bread with gravy that I was expecting. The mashed potatoes, gravy and cranberry sauce were according to spec, but the bread was two small slices off of a baguette, and the turkey was apparently a turkey cutlet, cut into several chunks and disposed artistically on the bread.
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