Paksworld

https://youtube.com/watch?v=KgoapkOo4vg%3Frel%3D0

A flash mob performing to “Puttin’ on the Ritz” in Moscow, as it snows slightly.  This is your feel-good moment for the day, and maybe the month.  I could not resist sharing it with you, though I can’t think of anything (other than “It snows in Paksworld”) that connects.

A good friend sent it to me as I switched from work to email, I watched and…enchantment.

Dropping out of the choir concert was definitely the right decision:  the hours I  did not spend driving to and from the city, and in rehearsal, have been put to use, and the lessened strain helped too.   Usually I spend a lot of time in prep for a concert working on the piano at home, listening to rehearsal tapes or CDs of the music, and I like to come into a concert able to “hear” my part in my head the whole way through, no doubts.  This time I couldn’t–and I could not take the time to do the prep work I wanted to do.    That made it harder to concentrate on the edits.

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Those of you in the romper room…er…spoiler space for speculation…should probably know that all the comments show up in my email and also–when I come here to answer comments in other threads–the main comments display as viewed by the Admin (the hat I was given by having this place.)

So, although I try not to pay any attention to that thread’s comments (and mostly I don’t) sometimes a phrase catches my eye.   And so, without any intent to peek, I’ve peeked here and there (by no means the whole thing.)   My only real concern, folks, is that something might happen to make people unhappy with not just that playroom but the whole space and (worst case) Paksworld itself.    On other threads, we’ve hit on some serious topics as well as fun ones, and occasionally it’s seemed (to me, but being a writer I may be hypersensitive to this) that one or another person is getting upset.   Feelings hurt.  Anger roused.  That sort of thing.

Here, where I’m not reading every comment every day, that could happen and turn into a storm before I’m aware there’s a cloud in the sky.   Was there a cloud in one of the comments that flashed a phrase in my eye before I turned away?   I’m not sure.   I hope not.   Among other things I have a long hard rehearsal for which I should be leaving two minutes ago,  to sing music I don’t like, and I really don’t want to deal with other problems.   So I would ask you all to refrain from painting the playroom walls with…any bodily fluids.    No name-calling, no hair-pulling, no kicking of shins.    Take deep breaths.  Recognize potential friends, not enemies.  If it’s not being fun for you, take a break outside in some fresh air.

Given the music schedule and the work schedule for the next two weeks (extra rehearsals, long hours) I won’t be able to do any more than glance at this place, cross my fingers, and hope to find it all in order when I come back.    However, if one of you has a complaint to file with Admin, please email me directly (link on my website, if you don’t have the email addy already) and I’ll try to resolve the situation.  I value all of you, and your participation, and want it to be a good experience.    And if I’m overreacting to that briefly seen phrase or two,  my apologies for thinking, even for a moment, that you fine adult people might be experiencing any unpleasantness.

(I’m now 7 minutes behind schedule and still don’t have shoes and socks on.  Bye, now.)

I really admire Sharon Lee & Steve Miller’s Liaden books, because they handle issues of register and custom so well.  For those not dragged backwards through a linguistics course at some point, “register” refers to the way people speak in reference to social roles.    Most of us learn as children that one mode of speaking is fine with another child–a friend, say–but another is needed to satisfy expectations when talking to a friend of our parents.  That’s register: everything from the choice of words to the tone of voice to the topics considered appropriate…communication changes with social situations.

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Just in case you’re wondering where I am, I’m digging through the computer file line by line, while changing things in accordance with (or similarly to, or in a related way to) Editor’s comments.    I don’t always do *exactly* what Editor advised, because in some cases the exact phrase Editor wanted to change isn’t there now (having been expunged in my own editing earlier) and in other cases I see what I (no doubt arrogantly) think is a better fix to the problem Editor pointed out.   (I’m nearly always agreeing that what Editor points out is indeed something to be pondered and then fixed.)

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It was a wild and woolly weekend, mostly great fun…until today’s trip home, when this happened.    Yes,  that’s the train I was on.   A very sad situation (still not sure if it was accident or suicide.)   And I got home to discover that a friend had committed suicide last night.

So some of the bloom was off the rose, so to speak….but the A-Kon memories are all good.   I had time with old friends, made some new ones, and signed a few books.   First load of laundry is done, and I’m leaving the other for tomorrow morning.    I went into the convention with my three pairs of hand-knit socks, and by judicious washing (I took my own towel for drying them, so they wouldn’t “bleed” on hotel white towels)  got through just fine.

Back to work on various fronts tomorrow…starting with a necessary visit to a government bureaucracy and then straight into my editor’s notes on Limits of Power.