New York May-June 08

[rsadelle]

I feel like I should write about New York since I wrote something about the other stops on my friend tour, but I'm not sure what to say about it. The closest we got to something touristy was going to Angels & Kings (aka AK, aka "Pete Wentz's bar"), where Sky hangs out all the time anyway. We also went to French Roast for brownie sundaes (also dinner, but mostly the brownie sundaes) because Barney and Robin have their brownie sundaes in Clio's Leave No Man Behind. (And I could totally picture them sitting there, leaning over a table for two with their coffee and dessert.)

Mostly, as in all good fangirl weekends, we ate and sat around the living room with lots of laptops (I'm the only one who doesn't have one, and Sky had two for the weekend) and everyone else talked bandom around me while I didn't understand.

See, the thing about New York is that I loved spending time with Molly and Sky and getting to meet some of Sky's entourage New York friends, but I felt like I didn't fit in and I didn't have anything to contribute. I can't pick Pete Wentz out of a lineup, much less anyone else in any of the other bands. (I do have a six degrees of separation sort of connection to one band, but the fandom is now so hooked in that by the time I hear any inside information, it's already out of date.) I don't drink, so I couldn't join in the evaluation of the strength of the mojitos or tell any stories about going out and drinking. I don't know any of the same RL or fandom people the New Yorkers do, so I couldn't join in conversations about them. At one point, I threw a bit of old-school comics knowledge into the conversation and there was this awkward silence where no one knew what to say.

Hanging out with a bunch of fangirls made me realize how much I don't fit in fandom anymore. (I wrote the first draft of this entry longhand on the last plane home, and writing that made me tear up.) Actually, this whole trip made me notice/realize that I don't even know of hardly anyone in fandom, whereas I used to have at least heard of all kinds of people, even if I didn't actually know them. On the plus side of things, there are aspects of hanging out with fangirls, even if we don't have any specific fandom in common, that I really like. I recognize the pattern of the conversation (although bandom is slightly different since somehow everyone in the fandom knows the subjects of their fannishness). I felt comfortable talking about my novel, even with people I'd never met before this weekend, which is not necessarily true in other groups of people. I also really liked it that we could go out and other people would just show up to join us, which made me realize how much I miss having a large group of local friends.

Comments

[meacoustic.livejournal.com]

I feel like you and I have mostly overcome our whole lack of fandoms in common 99% of the time thing; I know our friendship is more than that. But I felt kind of bad that we were talking bandom all the time, like it was a foreign language and I was worried you would be so lost. I think you kept up remarkably well! :-)

[rsadelle]

We have done a good job of making a connection beyond fandom!

I kept up mostly because I didn't say much and just let you all talk.