Marathon and home again

The Boston Marathon was a lot of fun. The general criticisms were that the floor was too sticky and that the program was in general mediocre. But socially it was a pleasure. The short-version, since the long version would be dull as dust: it was great to see some folks I don't see too often and reassuring to see Nathan and to realize taht we were both still the same people, not the caricatures that I realized we'd been building of each other the last few weeks. Overall- very worthwhile. Em and I stayed until the end this time, and got a ride back to our hotel from Em's most recent ex (ok, actually at this point most recent is a good while ago- they broke up February of 2002). I enjoyed the crowd- lots of Boston folks whom I knew, plus friends of mine from out of town: it put me in a good place, socially.

What was also amusing/interesting was this group of 4 folks who kept to themselves at the beginning and eventually opened up. They were pretty distinctive by dress and style: three women and a man, the women all had very long hair, full trousers, a shirt and some sort of vest or dress over that. Sort of a comfortable flowing concept, probably also designed to hide the figure. They seemed like nice folks, in that sort of gentle cult-ish way. Cute, sort of. Their ideology seemed to have some large holes, but they weren't missionizing, and they seemed very quiet and happy about it, so I'm not going ot fault them. They seem very into peace and being happy with yourself, etc: no bad goals by any means. They fit so oddly with the greater IFD culture though- no couples dancing, and they only seemed to do the older stuff or stuff explicitely about peace and that sort of stuff.

And continuing on the theme of group lifestyles (they seem to live in communities, I'm guessing in the commune line of things): I just saw a film with the folks (yes, me, a movie: see? it does happen) entitled Antonia's Line. A weird movie, but I liked it quite a bit. 'Twas about this woman who returns to her home village to bury her mother, with her young daughter. Over the course of the film, one meets the highly eccentric villagers, and in general people persist in falling in love, not falling in love but having sex, and dying. It follows these folks for several generations in a sort of matter-of-fact, mostly plotless way.

The film definitely reminded me (it the concept, not the particulars: myself, I'm a fan of marriage, and the only one in this film was between the two cute retarded people whom Antonia rescues from assorted abuses, and who hence end up staying with her in some sense) of one of my sort of daydreamy ideas of one osrt of life that I'd enjoy, although that's less than practical in society as it's currently formed. The idea of having people one cares about around en mass, and being able to sort of create a family impresses me. And well, I have a thing for taking care of people. And the reciprocal having people around to take care of you- well, that's of course appealing. But the whole idea of large family groups is something I've always found appealing.

Marathon and home again

The Boston Marathon was a lot of fun. The general criticisms were that the floor was too sticky and that the program was in general mediocre. But socially it was a pleasure. The short-version, since the long version would be dull as dust: it was great to see some folks I don't see too often and reassuring to see Nathan and to realize taht we were both still the same people, not the caricatures that I realized we'd been building of each other the last few weeks. Overall- very worthwhile. Em and I stayed until the end this time, and got a ride back to our hotel from Em's most recent ex (ok, actually at this point most recent is a good while ago- they broke up February of 2002). I enjoyed the crowd- lots of Boston folks whom I knew, plus friends of mine from out of town: it put me in a good place, socially.

What was also amusing/interesting was this group of 4 folks who kept to themselves at the beginning and eventually opened up. They were pretty distinctive by dress and style: three women and a man, the women all had very long hair, full trousers, a shirt and some sort of vest or dress over that. Sort of a comfortable flowing concept, probably also designed to hide the figure. They seemed like nice folks, in that sort of gentle cult-ish way. Cute, sort of. Their ideology seemed to have some large holes, but they weren't missionizing, and they seemed very quiet and happy about it, so I'm not going ot fault them. They seem very into peace and being happy with yourself, etc: no bad goals by any means. They fit so oddly with the greater IFD culture though- no couples dancing, and they only seemed to do the older stuff or stuff explicitely about peace and that sort of stuff.

And continuing on the theme of group lifestyles (they seem to live in communities, I'm guessing in the commune line of things): I just saw a film with the folks (yes, me, a movie: see? it does happen) entitled Antonia's Line. A weird movie, but I liked it quite a bit. 'Twas about this woman who returns to her home village to bury her mother, with her young daughter. Over the course of the film, one meets the highly eccentric villagers, and in general people persist in falling in love, not falling in love but having sex, and dying. It follows these folks for several generations in a sort of matter-of-fact, mostly plotless way.

The film definitely reminded me (it the concept, not the particulars: myself, I'm a fan of marriage, and the only one in this film was between the two cute retarded people whom Antonia rescues from assorted abuses, and who hence end up staying with her in some sense) of one of my sort of daydreamy ideas of one osrt of life that I'd enjoy, although that's less than practical in society as it's currently formed. The idea of having people one cares about around en mass, and being able to sort of create a family impresses me. And well, I have a thing for taking care of people. And the reciprocal having people around to take care of you- well, that's of course appealing. But the whole idea of large family groups is something I've always found appealing.