World Enough and Time

Of course not. Why bother?

Beside, 'normal', if it existed, would be boring.

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I've found that I've gradually dropped the 'Mundanes'/normal people of my acquaintance over the years. Unfortunately, I can't drop all of them, as some are close relatives...

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I have mundanes as close friends - well, some I'm not seeing much these days, which is too bad, it isn't that I don't love them dearly. But it's the fannish types I most enjoy spending time with because they understand - even when they don't share my fandoms. Often conversation with others seemed more superficial, or more limited.

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I find it impossible to sustain conversations with people who aren't interested in art/history/literature/gaming/fic. I can forgive many things, but not lack of imagination.

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It can certainly be difficult to sustain conversations when imagination is not an active ingredient. But I do have mundane friends with imagination, and enough tolerance and/or sympathy to listen to me when I'm getting excited about history. If they are friends in the first place, we probably have something in common. And I can, at need, listen to people talking about their babies or their work for hours at a time, though probably not on a regular basis.

Some of the people I was thinking of as 'mundane' are still not so by most standards... They read (usually mysteries, biographies and travel books) and that in itself is a good starting point. But there's such a difference between someone who reads the we way we do, and those who don't. Someone was talking the other day about people - readers all - who even though they read a lot, would never reread a book. I'm sure they don't understand my multiple rereads of books I love, or seeing movies or TV shows I love over and over (Tolkien, Dunnett, Runciman?) - any more than I can understand how they can be so casual about reading something wonderful and then tossing it aside, never to be read again.

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I have one specific book, which I shall not name [OK, The Stealers of Dreams by Steve Lyons, it's a Doctor Who tie in] that I re-read at least once every 3 weeks.

I've even written a fanfic for it.

In fact, I've only brought one [ficton] book with me that I haven't re-read, and I havent read that at all yet.

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I should try to find that book. Which Doctor does it feature? My library has only one Steve Lyons book, "Salvation". No, wait, there's another - an X-Men novel from 2003 called "The legacy quest trilogy, part 3". Cool.

My collection of fiction is probably 1/3 books I have not read yet, 1/3 books I have read twice or many times, and 1/3 books I have only read once. Roughly speaking.

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It's Ninth, and includes both Rose and Jack. I'd also like to plug Only Human by Gareth Edwards, with the same usual suspects.

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Sounds like a must-read. I'll have to see if I can track it down, one way or another.

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Oh, it is amazing...

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Anticipation builds.

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I'm sure they don't understand my multiple rereads of books I love, or seeing movies or TV shows I love over and over (Tolkien, Dunnett, Runciman?) - any more than I can understand how they can be so casual about reading something wonderful and then tossing it aside, never to be read again.

Something has to be very bad for me to toss it aside and not re-read! And even truly bad books are fun to dissect and analyse in terms of writing up how bad they are! (The dreaded Graham Shelby, for example, or various historical romances which have a complete disdain for history.)

Babies just make me switch off, unless they're the sort with fur, feathers or scales. Or even leaves.

It's also difficult dealing with people who don't understand that it is possible to form deep attachments to long-dead or entirely fictional people. I think a fannish mentality is essential in friends, whatever the fandom. I can converse happily with people who are in fandoms I don't share (and perhaps learn from them to try a new film/book/whatever).

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And even truly bad books are fun to dissect and analyse in terms of writing up how bad they are!

True - even if just to remind oneself how bad it can get.

It's also difficult dealing with people who don't understand that it is possible to form deep attachments to long-dead or entirely fictional people.

I usually don't try to explain. Yes, it's difficult. They can understand a love of history, I think, in an abstract sense, even if they don't share it. But few people make that 'connect' that history is about real people who once lived, who were as complex and intersting and viable as anyone alive today - not abstractions or stereotypes, but real men and women. And they don't get it, so they don't see how fascinating that can be.

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One of my aunts said she thought mediæval history was too far back to seem like anything but fantasy...

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And whether that's good or bad probably depends on one's opinion of fantasy.

As a lover of historical fiction, I have found it odd that the contemporary writers of good fiction are writing fantasy not historical fiction. I'm thinking of people like George R.R. Martin or Guy Gavriel Kay. I love their books but wish at the same time they were turning their talents to real history and real settings.

For me the strength of Tolkien lies in his historicity, not his fantasy. But it's hard to make a separation like that, especially since Tolkien has transmuted with time a popularity from 'genre fiction' to 'classic'.

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What she meant (she doesn't read fantasy fiction, and wasn't meaning it in a literary sense) was "it might as well all be made up".

You see why I have problems with some of my relatives? ;-D

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It's sad. But... I don't know anyone who doesn't have problems with their relatives, of one kind or another.

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kikibug13.livejournal.com

Hahaha :) I've posted that quote as a "quip" in our problem reporting program - so it may show up when somebody performs a search.

Those quips are nice ways to have spontaneous laughter errupt at work. And this one is a good one.
(I had been trying to get the hang of pretending to be normal for a while. Then recently I just gave it up. Whoever doesn't like my not-normal, can go look for his liking someplace else!)

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Yes, it's a good line for a tag - any idea who Ancis is? If I wasn't busy, I'd look him up.

I've yet to see anyone even define 'normal', let alone achieve it!

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kikibug13.livejournal.com

Sounds like he was a comedian. I cannot find _much_ about him, but he seems to have been associated (and from the summary it sounded like pre-dating) Lenny Bruce.

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Interesting! Thanks for checking him out.

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Normal:
1. The perpendicular to a curve.
2. The home of Illinois State University.
3. A solution with 1g of solute per litre

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Yup, all of that. I suppose I am sometimes perpendicular to a curve. But only occasionally, by happenstance.

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I can end up perpendicular to curves, then I eat the cake and it isn't curved any more.

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At the very thought, my diet totters in the balance...

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Sorry. Should I suggest a rice-cake instead?

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Oh, probably, but it hardly has the same mystique.

Temptation is a pleasure with a unique tang.

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idiotgrrl.livejournal.com

No, but if I eat the cake, I end up curved!

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but but.... I consider myself normal.

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In the nicest possible way, I'm sure. (g)

But really, you're way too interesting to be normal.

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well, thank you {smile}

but I am reading Judith Butler and she tells us to appropiate the dominant meaning of a word. So, instead of being labeled crazy and abnormal (as I am by officialdom, in a sense) I think I like to carry the sign 'normal' for a while.

Don't worry, I am not going to change because of it

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Well, in the sense you mean, I guess I'm normal too. In fact I think I'm more normal (in the sense of being self-realized and healthy about it) than most. We ought to have a word (in any language) that means 'abnormal, but in a good way'. "Extraordinary" means the right thing but is a little too strong. "Independent" isn't bad.

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eccentric?

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no.

If you take as the norm for this term that you need to be self realized and healthy about it, than I don't want the word to strongly suggest it is a minority position. I wish everyone such luck

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Individual.

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Good word. Close to what I'm looking for. But even the mundane are individual, so I'm not sure it has that nuance of differentiation that I want.

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Did you hear about the guy who got "Individual" tattooed on his neck?

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Heh. "I am not a number, I am an individual" - ?

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He got it cos his mate did.

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Individual #1 and Individual #2. Somehow it makes me think of Dr. Suess.

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Heh. ;)

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duncanmac.livejournal.com

To go back to

wijsgeer's comment, how is "normal" being defined? In my beliefs, one person's *normal* is another person's *totally*weird* ... or "one man's Mede/meat is another man's Persian/poison." [Sorry about the pun.] I don't think there really is such a thing as a normal person ... especially *not* once you know them; the "visibly normal" people are just rather good thespians. :-)

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Good thespians? Yes. Good line.

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meret.livejournal.com

Hee! Great quote! :

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