Hippo, birdie, two ewes...

... to the lovely and talented ladyat!!!! Have a great one!!!

River: Talking long distance

My long-distance communication style has changed quite a lot over the last few months; this post is basically a status report. This is the first of a series of three River posts about communication and conversation: the other two will be titled "Talking with you" and "Crosstalk".

( Email )

 

( Phone )

 

( IM )

 

Just to say hello:

The main change over the last few months is that I've come to welcome simple social contact and brief, casual conversation -- along the lines of meeting in the hallway at work or at a con. I occasionally even initiate such contact, at least on IM. I expect that, overdone even a little, it would be a problem, but that hasn't happened so far.

When you get down to it, my main form of casual contact these days is LJ comments. They have the editability and asynchrony of email, they're as quick and casual to dash off as IM, and they're always about something, so there's an excuse to write.

That's always been my biggest problem: starting a conversation. I'm delighted to get the occasional greeting out of the blue -- it happens so rarely that it sometimes feels like a major event. But I hardly ever send one, in part because the results have not always been all that positive, but mostly because I rarely feel that I have something to say to any one person in particular. Usually I don't have an audience in mind, so I'll post it and sometimes get a handful of replies.

The idea that there may be one or two people who might actually call me even if they have nothing in particular to say beyond "Hello" is, at this point, pure fantasy. The idea that there might be a few people out there (besides my mother) who wouldn't mind hearing from me even if I have nothing in particular to say is still completely new and, I guess, a little frightening.