Another day...

I'm stepping out of a long, dull air traffic management R&D meeting. The organizers already know what they want to build (a evolution of their past decade's work) and quash any ideas or concerns that might cast doubt on the need or priority for their $500M Bright Shiny. Even though the FAA and airlines have already said that they don't want it and won't use the technology, if developed. Sigh. A waste, all around.

Time to go back, paste on an attentive smile and attempt to milk off a few million around the edges for something actually useful.

Social contraction

Today I passed on two social events that I would have otherwise quite enjoyed, because prominent members of the (for lack of a better term) dot_cattiness group were going to be there. And I'm conflict-averse, in my personal life. Last weekend, patgreene stayed home from another event because she didn't want to go alone, and I wasn't going because of the same personal-enemy-present considerations. The end result is that my social connections and opportunities are contracting, a not-unexpected outcome of last month.

At the same time, I feel terminally awkward and insufficiently cool to hang out with, say, the House Dreamland folks and their circles of friends... I was planning to go to rosefox's birthday gathering in SF tomorrow night, but now I'm not sure. And reading bikerscum's comments about his "network of affectionates," I feel both a bit envious and creeped-out at the same time... and wonder what any mutual friends could see in both me and someone like the other Bryan. Our values and actions and backgrounds are so conflicting, and so different.