Eccentric Flower:199907/Aether hugs miscellany and soccer

The journal-l mailing list has sent me absolutely nothing for several days. Several people have written me, asking me "Are you not getting anything either?" so I presume no one else is getting any journal-l mail either. It makes my mailbox seem so quiet!

This leads me to speculate on the perils of friendships with Aether people. Eric and I have an ongoing discussion/argument about this, which I won't go into here, but it does occur to me that the vagaries of electronic communication make etiquette a little more difficult, even for simple questions, such as: If you write me an email out of the blue, is it polite of me to write back?

When I write someone who has never heard from me before, I don't generally expect a reply. Aether people are suspicious of strangers; they're usually trying to sell you something. But Eric does expect a reply; he wrote a couple of Aether friends of mine about their journals, or related matters, and was visibly unhappy that he had never gotten a reply from any of them. Eric works in the mindset of paper correspondence; I don't. I no longer think of email as being analogous to paper letters. I'm not sure what email is, actually, but I know the rules are different.

On the other hand, when I get an email from someone I don't know (usually commenting on something here), I feel it is only polite to send a reply, even if it's only "thank you" - which is what it usually is. I feel guilty if I don't.

There are other, more complicated problems: What do you do about someone you're meeting in person for the first time, but you feel you know very well?

I did fine with Melissa right up to the point when the dim sum was over and they had to leave. My body's reflex was to hug her. My brain stopped my body at the last minute.

I am weird about physical contact. I don't really like to shake hands; it's something other people do that I play along with. I generally am reluctant to touch people - even if it's only laying a hand on their shoulder - because most of those gestures are something I reserve for people I'm intimate with. Touch is the last level of contact for me; if I touch you, I must know you very well indeed.

But hugs apparently don't count. I still have to feel like I know you pretty well before I'll hug you, but the standard's a lot looser. I don't say I hug well - I am bony and thin and I'm sure hugging me is no picnic - but there are plenty of occasions where I've felt a hug was appropriate.

In this day and age, though, I never initiate a hug; just because I think it's appropriate doesn't mean the other person does. These days, what with everyone becoming ridiculously thin-skinned and all, that's not a good risk to take.

It's a shame. My goodbye to Melissa felt really incomplete. Even by my abrupt standards.

I had something akin to the same sensation - that feeling of emptiness, like something I'd been expecting was missing - later that day, when Nonelvis and I went to see Wild Wild West.

Let the record indicate that the Owen and Lisa Show was right on this one, and Owen was not just being his usual cranky self.

I was prepared to see some mindless action and spectacle - low standards, you'll agree - and I didn't even get enough of that. Oh, everyone did an acceptable job with the material they were given, but they weren't given much. There wasn't enough happening. I don't know what I expected to happen, but it wasn't there.

Presumably this is the other half of the topsy-turvy moviegoing situation this week, since the evidence continues to mount - from some very unlikely sources - that the South Park movie is actually funny. It is now inevitable that I will see it.

Meanwhile I just hope An Ideal Husband doesn't close before we can get there!

At this point, I think I'll close out a few more random items from my notepad. (See the previous entry for the list.)

History, museums, shopping refers to a comment I made on Saturday. This was when we were all trying to decide what to do. (Here's Patrick's description.) Finally I said, "Look. You basically have three choices. You can get the historical tour, you can get the museum tour, or you can go shopping." And all three of them said, in unison, "Shopping."

I felt there was some Fundamental Truth lurking in that at the time, but now I'm no longer sure.

The Polaroid ATM ad shows a party in Times Square, counting down the seconds to the New Year. A news program is talking about the Y2K bug and a celebrant is obviously getting a little nervous. He runs around the corner to an ATM, gets his bank balance to display on the screen - with seconds to go - and takes a Polaroid picture of the balance. Three ... two ... one .... and among all the cheering and the noise, we see that his balance has changed, sure enough ... it now says he has an obscenely huge amount of money. He looks at the ATM ... looks at the picture in his hand ... discards it, and takes another picture of the new balance.

It's a great ad, but if you haven't seen it already, you won't. It's no longer being aired. The American Bankers' Association threw a fit and pressured Polaroid into pulling it.

See comments, above, about how we are all becoming ridiculously thin-skinned. It'll kill us, I tell you. By slow stages.

The ETrade ad/Newsweek item ... well, this is complex enough to get its own entry, but I no longer have the energy to rant about it. The ETrade ad was on the side of a bus; it said "If your broker's so smart, why does he still have to work?" The Newsweek story is called "Everybody's getting rich but me!" and it's about the sinking feeling that your peers are making millions in internet stocks and other fly-by-night schemes, while you, a Patient Toiler, do not seem to be getting your Just Reward.

I hate the "make your pile and get out" attitude. It will not only destroy all pride-of-work in this country but will finally complete the decimation of our quality standards. It encourages the attitude that people are discardable. It causes a lot of other problems that I don't want to list here. It is currently my number two culprit for Causes of Eventual Decline of Civilization (number one is that thin-skinnedness).

On the other hand, yes, Newsweek, I do have at least one peer who seems to be getting rich and leaving me in the dust financially, and I do resent people who do that. But I don't resent them enough to compromise my Patient Toiling on the things that matter to me. So go to hell.

The above may seem a little long-winded, given that I started by saying I didn't want to rant about it. Well, that's the condensed version. I could fill about 3000 words with that topic. But it would only make me angry. Stop chasing internet stocks, sit down, do some quality work - and pass on your skills, for pity's sake. Especially in the computer industry, where a lot of the brainpower tends to vanish without leaving a legacy the instant it's fully vested.

Changing the subject - and not a moment too soon: It appears that the US will play China in the finals for the Women's World Cup this year. It should be a good game. It will surprise you to learn that I may even watch it.

I watched a game in this series a few days ago - Ghana vs. Sweden, I believe it was. To my great surprise, it held my interest. I am emphatically not a sports fan, but these teams had distinct personalities and styles and it was very interesting to see how they did things. Since then, I have caught bits and pieces of other Cup games. Today, while we were having lunch, the restaurant was showing the re-airing of the US-Brazil semifinal. It, too, was fun to watch.

I don't know what's come over me, but a lot of other people are catching it too. After several attempts to give men's soccer a following in this country, without much success - the current men's league is in no danger of going away, but the fan base, while fervent, isn't huge - it would be truly ironic if the women's game is what finally lights the fuse.

But it may turn out that way. It's the little girls, you see. Little girls play soccer. Soccer is something everyone can do. Women's soccer is one of the few events on TV which shows women doing wonderful role-model type things that are thoroughly real and yet also attainable.

Eileen McNamara, Globe pundit, reports that she saw the Gatorade ad with Mia Hamm and Michael Jordan competing in various sports to the tune of "Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better." She was impressed - here was this female being treated as if she was an equal, being given air time and a respectable stature! She told her young daughter, who didn't understand what she was going on about. To the daughter, it was already self-evident that women could be just as Important as men; it was so obvious it didn't bear mentioning. And that's the point, right there. Even Eileen thinks so.

The next few years will be interesting to watch.