who_you_know epitome of incomprehensibility Possibly bragging: telling my Advanced Historical_Linguistics classmates that the person who wrote Because Internet is a friend of a friend. Someone in the chat (it's an online class; my others are in person) was all, "You know her?? So cool!" And maybe it was bragging again to write how it's my "computer scientist" friend who knows her. Like, "I have friends who are COMPUTER SCIENTISTS" instead of just "programmers." Pah. But it did give the linguistics student association rep. the idea to invite the author for a talk. Still, the way I expressed myself seems a misstep. Not a horrible one, not worth moral gasps, but still a bit embarrassing. Who cares who I know? I can't take credit for others' accomplishments. It's almost like bragging about being born to rich parents. (Trump, anyone?) Earlier today, similar "knowing people" convo, but without unwarranted bragging (I hope). I was talking with two classmates. Topic: all the profs in Concordia's linguistics department seem to know each other; there are even two married couples among them. So I said how my boyfriend did philosophy at McGill and THAT department had four married couples. But I was smiling - not treating it as a competition, but a "hey, look at this weird thing." Plus, my ulterior motive was to tell the Most Talkative Classmate that I had a boyfriend. Because he was talking to me a lot and I didn't want him to get the wrong idea. Not that he was only talking a lot to me! There's a group of three of us who are in a class together - we're all a bit older than the fresh-outta-HS/CEGEP crowd - so we formed a Talk Gang. And the other two, a she and a he, are both in their late 20s. Aha. Commonality. Let's matchmake THEM! (In which a bisexual Epitome assumes everyone else is straight unless proven otherwise. Self-directed eyeroll.) But seriously, of course they can hook up or not hook up or become friends or worst enemies completely independent of my input. The self-admo (self-admonition in Fake Australian) of this exercise was "Kirsten, don't make 'who you know' into a weird, pointless brag." (I AM three degrees removed from Ezra Pound, though. He's like a racist great-grandfather to me.) 210920 ... e_o_i They're both in relationships, so no matchmaking them. But I had lunch with them both after the Phonology exam back in early Dec. - we had a nice wide-ranging conversation. Wide-ranging, yes! Our selves didn't move much, but our talk roamed to different places, covering travel and immigration. Weirdest thing described: a late medieval church decorated with bones (the Sedlec Ossuary in Czechia - check it out if you don't mind a bit of creepiness). 220106 what's it to you? who go blather from