I thought I was going to talk more about MyMaidenName and the idea of bloodlines, but instead I am tired and happy and instead going to tell you about some of my day. It was Jawsfest at the Mystic Seaport, which involved some shark-related activities, a lovely talk by the person who founded Living Sharks Museum, learning the difference between why some people call them great white sharks and some people call them white sharks - according to the person staffing the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy booth scientific nomenclature usually uses great when there is also a greater, so since there is no greater white shark, there's no need to use great white shark, and got to watch a demo of Newfies doing various kinds of water rescues and, more important, got to cuddle a couple different Newfies for a solid ten minutes. Then, after the sun went down, they had Wendy Benchley (Peter Benchley's widow) give a short talk and then we watched Jaws on a big inflatable screen, and I saw a shooting star.

I've managed food badly this trip, I'm reluctant to plan but Light is bad at planning, so two nights I declared a CVS dinner, after we found a lovely restaurant we could eat outside at, and then the thunderstorm came and we walked to a CVS in the rain, both of us fuming, and dined on string cheese and tortilla chips and nuts sitting on a blanket on the hotel room floor, and tonight we raided the hotel's pantry for cheese and crackers because we'd had overly optimistic beliefs about the word "concessions" at the Seaport.

Something the shark lecture human said is rattling around in my brain, about the belief that everything's already been discovered, and how believing that might demotivate people, especially kids. And clearly, that's not entirely true, there's a lot of stuff that would be either cured or much, much easier if everything had been discovered, but I feel like I believed that and still kind of do, either once longed or still longing for a version of scholarship where I could have just gone and sat in a random room in a random library and ordered and read a million pages of correspondence from days of yore that no one had ever gone through before and assuming there's no such opportunities available anymore.

Also, I remain absolutely delighted by the idea that no one has ever seen a white shark mate or give birth.

We're headed off to Mystic tomorrow, to go to an anniversary celebration of Jaws, to see the beluga whales (to have complicated feelings about the ethics of aquariums), to sleep very late because there are no animals to wake me up. I'm mildly anxious, or at the very least, my nigh-permanent anxiety has decided to attach some of itself to this trip, and for all I tell myself overpacking for car trips is a perfectly legitimate way to self-soothe and make myself more comfortable going on trips, I judge myself every time I do.

I have a couple social outreaches pending, two I have to respond to (one to I, which is easy, one to a stranger I met at polyam speed dating, which is not) and two I need to decide if I want to reach out to again. There was one person from polyam speed dating I started to text with that I really liked but after initial contact, our attempts to schedule petered out on her end. maybe because she was trying to let me down easy, maybe because, as stated, she was swamped by helping out with a local pride weekend last weekend. There's a very cool-seeming (in a not-dating way) person on a local discord server, who expressed interest in hanging out, I proposed a couple times to and never heard back.

And maybe it's like how I sometimes go quiet because I don't actually want to talk to that specifically person, but it's so much more likely that I got overwhelmed by the world and my own fears and not wanting to talk to anyone, and then I can't reach out because I believe it's been too long, and I'm really grateful when the other person checks in.

I don't want to feel like I'm bothering anyone, ever, I try to read all the hidden cues, but I also am at least aware on an intellectual level that my traumas lead me to assume the worst of everyone all the time, and when I go looking for a hidden "go away" cue, I'm likely to make one up if I don't find one outright.

When Abundance asked me about going on dates as a result of going to speed dating, I kind of panicked, and firmly refuted the idea I wanted to date, declaring I was at capacity for the number of people I could model and adjust my wants to fit. I don't think I said it that way, I suspect it was something more obviously damaged, but while I remain quite lonely while polysaturated, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't pursue any kind friendships because I might not bring much to the table.

But I'm definitely not saying anything to anyone until we're back from vacation, so I guess we'll see how Monday me feels about all of this.