River: Conversation with the Middle-Sized Bear

OK, I realize that you are almost certainly not sitting around wondering why on Earth you would want to spend your time talking to a shy, elderly computer geek with delusions of wisdom. And you probably aren't wondering exactly what a reference to Cordwainer Smith is doing in my user profile, either. But just in case you did want to know, here's a little background information that might help, as well as illuminate the possibly obscure relationship between the two.

A long time ago in a Usenet group called alt.callahans, before I became the Mandelbear, I originally referred myself as "the Medium-Sized Teddybear". It was a deliberate reference to a character, the Middle-Sized Bear, in the story Mark Elf by Cordwainer Smith. You'll find the relevant chapter, "Conversation with the Middle-Sized Bear", here.

Back in late 1990, I quoted the relevant section in a post, and I will do so again here, though you'll find it well worth your while to read the entire chapter, if not the whole story.

( You can skip this if you've read the story. )

Back half a decade ago I quoted that same passage in this post, with a bit of the Usenet post for context.

Oddly enough, I really can become the Middle-Sized Bear: comfortable and comforting to be around. Not all the time, of course, but often enough to occasionally make a difference for somebody. I'm not entirely sure what it is that I do, or how I do it. It may have something to do with being comfortable with silence. In any event, there it is.

For those following Hurricane Gustav,...

...gustavbloggers.com, live from the Zipa datacenter in New Orleans. Via interdictor, who was there blogging Katrina.

Wrapping up

Back an hour ago from a good practice session at Joyce's; things are coming along. Came up with a nice arrangement for the last verse of "Millennium's Dawn", and decided that, no, I really have to stick to one melody for the men's and women's ending choruses to "Quiet Victories". Good: it's simpler that way.

Spent most of the morning puttering around and ripping CDs. It's comparatively mindless work, except that it requires physical action and attention every 10 minutes or so, so I can't really do anything that requires concentration. Can read LJ. There's also the temptation to immediately go shelve the CD I just ripped.

I did, however, get almost all the CDs shelved, after picking up some 1" angle brackets on the way home from my walk. It's too tight; even with the extra shelf and removing duplicates and convention compilations they won't all fit. However, the stacks near the CD drive are gone, and there's room for more shelves in the corner stack and off to the right, especially if we move cassettes, gaming books, and the like out of the way.

The cassettes all need to be ripped, too. That's another huge project.

On the whole, not a very productive weekend. Lots of puttering done, and I'm glad to have some clutter out of the living room, but still... Sometimes things just get a little overwhelming.