Hop, Skip, and a Jump
{{ | date=09/15/2018 | time=11:00 EST | cast=
| place_name=Jumpin' Jive | place_desc=Along the storefront, bar seating stretches the length of two generous windows, so that one can sit and people-watch. Alma is people-texting and bird-browsing. | log=Saturday September 15, 2018
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I think you are a nexus
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Many are. :) Remind me how I am one?
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I like how you grin. I don't always know why you grin. I don't think it's a grimace. The grin in you touches the grin inside of me. but it's not just that
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: but it might be a grimace. but that's ok. I have grimaces too
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: people! that's why?
After the flurry of texts, there is a pause as Alma quiets.
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Sometimes it's me choosing to smile in the face of adversity. Sometimes it may seem inappropriate, but <shrug emoji><grin emoji>
Alma has texting brainstorms and Wednesday has been on her mind a lot since a really disturbing incident this week. Poor Wednesday.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: Aaron isn't going to work with me (previously), but I suggested that if he is interested in helping prevent more deaths he could have more info and dig around in his lib. I told him to talk to you. uh, was a little sarcastic beause I deadpanned that you are a member of the chantry and one of the leaders. :p har har. I told him he did not need to have any contact with me.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: that is a nexus. a connector? not the same but... huh. anyway I keep telling people to contact you. Like I told James when Maya was hurt and I had to leave.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: he does not find me credible, so if you could maybe reach out a little and explain the deaths and how they are related to everything maybe he will be willing to put forth a little effort
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: it's really hard to explain to him how everything is related. he can't stand to hear it from me.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: it takes too long to jump the gaps? but I'm really confused because I thought he was a mathematician
Another moment of peace for Wednesday as Alma watches people through the coffee shop window.
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Sorry to hear that, re Aaron. I'll see about reaching out.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: Is Maya still uncomfortable with you?
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: She is more comfortable with me now, I think.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I bet I would qualify with 'I think' too. She constantly gets information. It's similar for me, but different.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I mean the information overload
Almost almost stops the flurry, but quickly picks back up, hastily typing.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: well, there is similarity in the trust shape? but I think I'm in a better place near you
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: but... I was thinking maybe I'm worried about you because you are walking a dangerous path
She drinks more coffee (what could possibly go wrong) and browses her notes.
Wednesday, Saint of Restraint, just waits for more info. :)
Alma after a little more zoning out with her notes. Alma suddenly realizes that people ahve to pay for texts. And then is a little chagrined and embarassed that she's flooded Wednesday with all these texts. 1. for the potential cost 2. oh she's doing the brain thing again! oops
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: do you have to pay for all these texts? <sob emoji>
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: No, unlimited texts. Decent data plan. You can get a good phone when you don't pay rent.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: <rofl emoji>
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I think I found knowledge in the universe but it depends. I have to try again bunch of times to be certain.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: oh did you know that I talk in certainties? it's like possibility clouds. that's why now I am anxious about using words near you. huh maybe phrases. words stand alone?
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: so anyway, the universe said something about you
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: or maybe it didn't! I can't tell for certain yet!
Alma watches people walking outside the window. the day. the birds. She is not texting at the moment. Sometimes the sky above is dove grey, but sometimes spots open up in the clouds.
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Decisions aren't just phrases that are said - and you don't often repeat those certainties.
There are birds, of course. Some are dotting the ground. Hopping. They are the little brown jobbers. Ones she can't help like despite house sparrows being an invasive species. They are cute. The ones in the sky are crows, and they have fly the fluid paths. The little brown jobbers hop from node to node.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: can you detect decisions? is it a snap in the mind?
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Perhaps, if I tried, but I know sometimes when a person is confident or resolute.
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: I don't feel comfortable talking about my conversation with the universe about you on the phone. are you busy?
TEXT: Wednesday to Alma: Mildly, sorry. I'll finish here and can text you when I am more free?
TEXT: Alma to Wednesday: okiedokie <thinking emoji> <green heart emoji>
Grayson has arrived.
Afternoon, but only just, and the coffee shop is busy. Stepping away from the counter is a blast from the past, a ludicrously-tall man in a full-on redcoat uniform, with the red coat and sash (including gold braid and brass neckpiece) over white breeches and shirt, and black boots so well-polished you can see your face in them. Grayson doesn't seem to mind attracting odd looks - he is apparently more interested in the coffee he's just acquired. Perhaps disappointingly he acquired said coffee for money, rather than by demanding it at swordpoint.
While it is true that sometimes Alma ranks birds above humans in the order of life it is also true that a Red Coat is startingly like a bird. Alma has twisted in her seat head-cocked with a quirkening smile turning in to a full on one. "James?" she says, "How can you hear anything in all that dashing color?" Grayson turns at the sound of his name and offers Alma a polite nod. "It looks different when you're the one wearing it," he says, making his way over towards her, his accent matching the outfit. "Mind if I join you?" He's definitely getting some funny looks, and some angry looks as well. For all that it was more than two hundred years ago, apparently redcoats still evoke an emotional reaction in some.
"You have very flashy plumage from over here," Alma says. "I don't mind." She suddenly picks up the phone next to her two esspresso cups and quickly types out a short text. send! She looks at Grayson, "I just realized I bombarded my friend with all these texts, and I don't know how much they cost. Sometimes you just, I mean, I just think of all this stuff. But anyway, on your way to or from?"
Grayson smiles ever so faintly. "There's a reason I don't do much texting," he admits. "Me? Lunch, actually - I'm due back in an hour or so. They offered lunch as part of the event, but I decided I'd rather not. Even redcoats can get food poisoning." He shudders, then smiles. "So how goes the twitching?"
"I'm glad to see you here," She says, when he mentions lunch. "When I first met you I was trying to remember the name of places in this neighborhood. Starbuck? meh?" She looks puzzled for a while. "Twitch." She hmms. "twich, twitch. Is it a twitch of the body? Is it British? fidget?"
"Birdwatching," Grayson explains. "Twitching means birdwatching. I'm not entirely sure why, it just does. As for this place - well, even a redcoat can get a nice coffee every once in a while. And no, I don't consider Starbucks to be nice coffee. They burn it too often for me to give it another try."
Alma looks delighted. "I twitch! I twitch both ways! wait, how many ways are there!" She shakes her head, "Nevermind, it's not important." She nods about Starbucks. "Yeah, but one of the baristas there knows how to foam the milk right? and it's on a path from A to B, my office. So sometimes I stop." She grimaces, "Starbucks is really gross if the person doesn't get the foam right. I don't even bother when she isn't there. It changes the bitter, but then when it's wrong it's ... euwch." She contemplates Grayson's face. "You hearing things these days? I'm trying, but I got a mind full of bees." She frowns in concentration.
The mentor she cannot remember told her she has a mind full of bees but she no longer remembers this exact moment. she only has a vague uncomfortable feeling that she was told that by someone.
Grayson shakes his head. "I've had too many bad Starbucks to go there again," he says. "I don't have the money to splash out on inferior products, so I just don't bother." He smiles ever so faintly. "As for ways to twitch, well, 'birds' can be more than just the feathery kind. I think it's one reason twitchers don't mind being labelled that - at least they're not being called perverted bastards." He shrugs. "As for hearing things - if you've got a mind full of bees, maybe it's the bees you're supposed to be listening to?"
Alma says, "I had a friend once..." but she trails off. "miss them?
They said I had too many bees." She guffaws, "Hah! I don't think I've been
called a perverted bastard for watching birds. But... maybe it just hasn't
happend yet." She puzzles over his explanation about non feathery birds. "Do
you mean, like, thoughts? flights of imagination--oh wait, there's the lady
bird bird. slang. Mind jumped to ideas first. little life forms of their own."
She makes a little bird with her flapping hands and then points to some house sparrows jumping around outside but then points to some crows way way up out there. "Man, I love those guys, especially when they take dust baths. Hmm, random people calling me a bird in slang is--I'd rather be called a twitcher yeah. Maybe you meant different slang. I talked--I talked right over you. See? bees!" She looks pretty embarassed at that. Her phone bzzzes. She holds up a finger, "One moment, I am figuring out when I can meet a friend. Hmmm, maybe not today." She replies. "Sorry about that."
Grayson listens to Alma thinking, sipping his coffee while she does so and smiling ever so faintly. "Have you ever considered taking a deep breath and thinking just one thought at once? Just saying."
Alma says, "I have." embarassed, "I don't always remember to." questioning pause. "I'm supposed to do it when I talk to some people."
Grayson's chuckle is soft. "I can keep up, more-or-less, but I suspect a lot of people can't," he says. "And even then, I've got no context for a lot of what you're thinking, so even I have trouble."
Alma looks like she is tabulating, "See? I had one fri--friendly acquaintance. But then they got completely irritated--said they didn't have time for garden paths. I have to remember that. You can ask for context if you like. You? hmmm, whe we met, you were new in town, and didn't know how people talk around here---I mean, more like socializing. or? um..." She looks around the shop, "co-existing respectfully? And then, I was thinking abuot the universe and the ground and trees. Sending out my thou--beees! and you said Sycamore. and Hearing. So, that's some context. Plus, ...I can't remember. You're disconcerting sometimes? Like I was worried about you overheating. Anyway, uh, So, what if you hear something and it's maybe from the universe, but maybe it's your imagination? I saw some ants that may or may not have existing. They weren't biting or anything, so I decided regardless, I would move them to a safer place and not accidentally crush them. But, anyway, knowledge from the universe?"
Grayson blinks at the information onslaught, then takes a loooong sip of coffee. When he lowers the cup again, he lowers his free hand, too. "Breathe," he says gently, then follows that one word with, "The universe can be hard to hear. I tend to find that asking the same question a few times over in different times and places soon tells me - if the answer's the same but everything else has changed, it's probably not my imagination."
It's a lot of information all at once, to be honest. Alma's eyes water from it. Like she just woke up from a night where she stayed up too late reading maybe. "Yeah." She takes a breath. and then a few more. "That kind of things is hard when you're in a hurry." She breathes again. "I have--we all probably have--capacity for caring about things. With people, I rush more. They might need me. Universe? maybe does, maybe doesn't. It's rather big. But I worry about it sometimes." She frowns. "and I don't want it to think I've forgotten it. I like reality. Hmm, Me and the univers. relationship status: It's complicated." She searches Grayson's face, "Do you ever worry about stuff like that?" Welp, she slowed down some, but then she sped up again. But hey, not as sped up as she was earlier so at least there's that.
Grayson smiles, shaking his head. "No, I tend not to worry about stuff like that," he says. "I tend to live by the serenity prayer. Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can change, and the wisdom to know the difference."
"If I make friends--god I know that sounds absolutely corny but I don't care--If I make friends with the universe, it might change. It's--It's like a law of ecology. 'You can never do merely one thing.' uh... you do something and it cascades and there all these consequences. maybe some good. so anyway, I might drop a grain of sand and it's a--something I would be content with for the universe and maybe it's content with it too. sorry for the anthropomorphizing, I find it hard sometimes. I think people anthropomorphize way too much, especially when studying birds. I can certainly sympathize with the tendency."
Grayson nods. "It might," he agrees. "It all gets a bit quantum, really." His smile broadens, and he turns his head to grin after a little boy who's run away shouting 'The redcoats are coming! Mom, the redcoats are coming!' He looks to Alma again, and points out, "Can't observe something without changing the observed, and all that."
Alma giggles at the boy and at Grayson. "Context! and, and," omg she's so excited, but she takes a breath. "One moment. One," she says, holding up a finger. "There's Garret Hardin. Two," She holds up another finger, "There's context collapse. Three," another finger, "Singular value decomposition and quantum mechanics. Did I get everything?" Why did she ask Grayson that? Maybe she was asking both of them.
Grayson blinks. "How the bloody hell should I know? I'm a re-enactor, not a bloody quantum mechanic. I can make tools from iron ore, ink from the tree and clothing from the fleece. I can't make the universe go round."
Alma's eyes widen, "But how do you know?" She raises her eyebrows because shwe does not know. "Ok ok, follow me. Because I don't know Quantum Mechanics either, but, did you know they use singular value decomposition when doing thingees? but, well, cognitive psychologists do too! and I was one before being a behavioral ecologist. really, I was. and it gets--n dimensions. ok? however many you want. but don't be ridiculout. And you reduce dimensions until you get some meanings. It's how you can look at... uh, text, and find semantic significance. well, my frein--not a friend--our shared context collapsed. I didn't think it would, because he's like a mathematician. I thought he would... not get angry about garden paths. but now, uh, Garrett Hardin. can I give you that context? It relates. Hardin versus Ostrom."
Grayson blinks, his brow furrowing in confusion. "Hardin versus Ostrom? Was that the heavyweight boxing I missed a couple of weeks ago, or something?"
Alma smirks at the joke, but then pauses. "I don't have a tv? I missed
it? Unless you were--I think you were joking. If you weren't I mean no
disrespect, I don't always follow."
Oh dear lord, something he said broke the TLDR and unleashed the
waterhose. Then she explains more, "Hardin is the fellow who said that quote.
His fFirst law of human ecology: 'We can never do merely one thing. Any
intrusion into nature has numerous effects, many of which are unpredictable.'
and he also wrote an essay on the tragedy of the commons. Which cascades in to
a lot of policies people make about resources based on negative assumptions --
but then Ostrom comes along. She's an economist who did research focusing on
ecological case studies -- fisheries, irrigation, coastal management
"The tragedy of the commons does not always apply, it turns out. there's context that can prevent it. but assuming other conditions. and so, sharing context.. oh my god we cannot know how vital it is. I bet I think I know but I don't. it's probably vaster than I realize. So.. I had a context collapse. I failed, and the trust is gone. I don't... I think I'm afraid of him and he--perhaps he is not afraid of me but would consider me a threat. ...but we share someone. who is a nexus, I think. and a friend to me." She smiles fondly, "to crows too."
Grayson shakes his head. "I hadn't been joking," he says. "I... look, I'm a re-enactor. I can have a meaningful conversation about which dyes are best to use with something, or what sort of paper they had six hundred years ago. I'm not a physicist or an ecologist, I don't have much of a clue about that sort of stuff. I don't know what you mean by 'context collapse', or the tragedy of the commons, or anything like that. The closest I can get to tragedy of the commons is that drink is the curse of the working classes, and I rather doubt that's it."
"Wait wait!" Alma says. "You might know! Maybe? I think the primary example he gave was about shared open pastures in... uh, Great Britian? England? a long time ago? before all the fences?" She puzzles her brow. "Also? You were just saying you did not share all the context with me? I thought it was the same thing. It might be. We can think about that." She pauses and then, "hey! I'm learning how to do blacksmithing. Not dyes though."
Grayson's head tilts a little to one side. "The Inclosure Acts? Yes, I do know a bit about those. Can't not, really. So it's the tragedy of /that/ sort of common? Oh dear." He grimaces, then nods. "Blacksmithing, yes. I'm not an expert by any means, but I can get roughly what I'm after. Dyes are fun, but easy to get wrong. I was messing around with red ochre a few days ago, look what happened." He turns his hand and points to where the usually-pale crescent at the base of his fingernails has been turned red.
"I don't spend enough time smithing to get very good at it yet. But I enjoy it." She pulls out--did you notice all of her pockets? She pulls a bumpy squashed ball bearing out to display on her palm. "This should be a little more round. and maybe like a golf ball. I want to make it bounce jangly when it rolls down a plane. for a sound sculpture. To be honest, I suck at art, but I have a lot of fun." She looks at his hand. "I like it. Maybe you can do the others? a tint. Do you ever dye your hair? Mine's too long to dye right now. It would be too much annoying work."
Grayson eyes the bearing, then smiles as he shakes his head. "Round is difficult," he says. "Very round is even worse. It can be done, but it takes a lot of patience." And then his smile broadens. "No, I'm in no great hurry to dye anything, by accident or by design. And I try to avoid dying the hair. Redcoats should have white hair, it's in the job description - I just don't have to powder mine for the right look."
"That is very fortunate, I think. I would hate having powder in my hair while I worked." She puts hte ball bearing away. "I watched someone who was an expert, and he finished one fairly quickly though he cold welded? maybe that was the word. He didn't use borax or whatever when he squashed it over. But we had talked and I didn't need that much integrety. but yeah. patience."
She gives him a look over. "Dude! if you ever decide to dye your hair--like maybe one day there's a punk rock version of a battle? You have half the work I would because you don't need to bleach your hair. It would be dope. Do you play anything?"
Grayson blinks. "Dope. I'm not sure that word means the same thing to me that it does to you." He smiles. "I'd like to go rainbow at some point, but it's really hard to do that while I'm working. Maybe if I take a few months off at some point. Play - er. I play football sometimes? That is, soccer."
"Oh, I meant an instrument. For if you do a redcoat punk rock battle of the bands." Topic switch, "Is there a soccer field around here? I haven't played but I could. I do pickup basketball on playgrounds with hoops."
Grayson ohs and shakes his head. "No, I don't play any musical instruments. Never really had the time." He blinks, then shakes his head again. "Haven't really been looking for any games since I got here. Basketball - well, I'm told I should be good at it, but I really don't know how it works."
"You would be surprised at how many varients there are on the playground. It's amazing. I didn't play much before moving here, but my best friend here is taller than I am," She evaluates Grayson, "not as tall as you. So I decide to duel him! and I picked--Basketball. Becuase tall people, yeah? But when I told him that he said that there was a five foot player who is really good, it's just different." She does a mindblown gesture, "Mind blown! assumptions poofed. I like this, because I learn things. So, exactly yes I play basketball with this person. Let it be a lesson to me. I can show you if you like. You may not be good at first if you've never played. But maybe you are a natural. You don't know yet."
Grayson grins, shaking his head. "Nah, you're alright. I'm not much good at most sports, to be honest - with the exception of one." He winks, then sips at his coffee again before taking a rather larger mouthful. It seems it's cooled enough to drink, at last.
"Charge! Is it charging?"
Grayson blinks at Alma, then smiles, shaking his head. "Er - no," he says. "We only did that after we'd fired." }}
