How Did I Get Here?

Thursday, August 27, 1998

I applied (with some trepidation) to be a member of a new webring, Thinking Aloud. I convinced myself to apply when I saw the list of sites that had been already added. Good ones, and I thought to myself, if Columbine likes those (and the ring is made up of almost-daily reads that Columbine wants to read) zie might like mine! I've been enjoying Stay Tuned, Columbine's writing on advertising stuff, for a long time, and dipping into zir other writing occasionally.

So I got in! And Columbine wrote a rather long "postcard" that started from me, and went on to other issues.

This paragraph interested me (and puzzled me, a bit):

"Perhaps ... perhaps, I think, reading Anita's site, if I had gone to Microsoft when I was twenty, and been immersed in an environment where it was considered acceptable to dissect SF films all night and play weird board games and so forth ... perhaps if I had been in a place where the stigma didn't apply, a community where even if you're not involved with Microsoft, the culture is very loose and forgiving, and technology is appreciated (unlike Louisiana) ... perhaps everything would have been different."

Now, does Columbine think I came to Microsoft at twenty? I didn't even touch a PC until 1990, at the age of thirtyfour or so. Even then, doing data entry at the office of a family friend who was a tax accountant, I never saw myself as working in the software industry. That came about entirely by chance, from a proofreading stint at a legal publishing firm that ended in a strike. The CD-ROM boom meant that most of us striking proofers and editors got contract assignments at Microsoft right away, and I've been contracting there ever since.

Or is it the fannish circle I'm attached to here in Seattle that caught zir attention? Columbine talked about zir attraction/repulsion to zir ideas of fandom in a recent report on the Worldcon. "I feel like I can't resolve the two - my wanting to be in the fan community and my rejection of some aspects of it."

Finding fandom in Seattle has truly been wonderful for me. Vanguard, dear friends, a whole social network has made Seattle home in a way that Northern Virginia never was. It doesn't bother me if I'm not fond of some fans in particular; we can pick the parts of fandom that suit us.

But even in Virginia, where I didn't know that many people who shared my interests and tastes, I never particularly minded. I never had the concern about a geek stigma that Columbine talks about. Maybe my mother instilled us with a self-confidence that stood us in good stead. Why should I care that other people didn't like the same things as me? I was a Rowland, after all!

*     *     *     *     *     *     *    *

We had another journaler gettogether tonight. Alan of Heinovision fame is in Seattle, and I've been wanting to meet him! We missed each other at the Fremont Solstice Parade; he had quite an adventure that day!

After dance class, I walked over the hill to the Starbucks on Broadway. The man sitting on the outdoor patio resembled the scary pictures from his journal only slightly. In person Alan is much more gentle, with a slight nervous laugh popping up now and then. He and I talked for a while before Bluejack and Helen arrived. Alan was struck by her beauty, as I think most are. He had the familiar reaction to Bluejack; everyone always expects someone older! I was totally caffeinated after a large mocha frappucino! We'd given up on Andrew "Coredumps" Denyes (there had been some confusion about which place "the Capitol Hill Starbucks" denoted) when I suddenly looked up and saw him standing in the middle of the brightly-lit store, all in black, of course. (He later told me, dressing all in one color and having square furniture makes the world render faster.)

Alan expressed a wish for some beer, and Bluejack had an appointment at the Elysian Brewpub with some chess-playing friends, so we walked on over there. Of course, it was too crowded and noisy for us all to hear each other talk; we could only converse in pairs. We ended up trading places a few times, so that I was next to Alan, then next to Andrew (Helen, Bluejack and I had chatted yesterday, of course).

I do still get a kick out of meeting these folks that I've been reading online. I can't think of anyone that I read currently that I wouldn't want to meet. I enjoy connecting the online world to my real life, and connecting one journaler that I like with another. I was joking with Bluejack about my master plan to bring all online journalers to Seattle, and he said that I would have done the same connecting thing with the journalers in another place, no matter where I lived.

Alan says he'll be staying in Seattle for a while. I don't know yet what set of activities I'll try and introduce him to.

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