The usual assortment

[hrj]

The Consonance songbooks were ready and waiting for pickup yesterday after work, so although I still have to deliver them at the pre-con committee dinner tonight, I've checked them entirely off of Thing To Worry About. I don't know whether I'm going to volunteer to do it again next year. It's a little tiny project, but my big weakness in getting my own personal projects done is to evaluate every tiny little project I take on only in isolation. This year, which I'd been proclaiming "the year of Me" is turning out more like "the year of trying to clear the decks for the year of Me".

And speaking of tiny little projects, I have a rant coming on. I do a lot of random casual research for people who contact me on the net. Some of it is SCA-related, but some is simply generated by the research topics I put on my web page ... often by a rather tenuous connection. I don't have any problem telling the folks who write asking, "Where does my surname come from and what does it mean and who are my ancestors?" that I simply don't do genealogical research, and moreover that the web page they got me e-ddress from SAYS that I don't do genealogical research. And I don't have any problem answering questions that I can do right off the top of my head without having to crack a book. But there are also a lot of requests where my answer is: "That's a really interesting question, but it would take me a bit of time to dig into it. I don't have the time at the moment, but I'll get to it when I can." And about half the time it simply sinks deeper and deeper into my in-box because the To-Do list grows faster than the To-Done list does.

Most of the time, people are happy if I get back to them and understanding if I don't. Sometimes a year later I'll send off an e-mail saying, "I have no idea whether you're still interested in this, but I finally had a moment to work no it." And sometimes they'll thank me and sometimes it will have become irrelevant and sometimes it'll simply fall into the void. But what I'm ranting about is the folks to whom I've said, "I don't have time at the moment, but it's an interesting question and I'll get to it when I can," who then send me nasty notes complaining about my lack of promptness, or claiming that I clearly had no intention of helping them. (The response is independent of the actual amount of time involved. I've gotten responses like this two months after the initial contact and 24 hours after the initial contact.) So tell me, what part of "You are a random stranger asking me to spend my personal resources for your benefit" do these people not understand? I do research because I enjoy it. I do research for other people when I can combine personal enjoyment with charity. But there are extremely few people in the world to whom I OWE research, and none of them are random strangers who contact me through my web page. It's a good thing that these sorts of contacts are relatively rare or I'd decide that it's less painful simply to turn all specific requests down and leave people free to benefit from the stuff I feel like doing ... or not. I'm not going to do that, but every once in a while I have to rant. I don't think the internet has actually increased the number of people in the world who feel inappropriately entitled to others' efforts (I recall some of the snail-mail requests that the linguistics department got to field), but it does enlarge the field of contacts.

In anticipation of Consonance, last weekend I broke out in the mother of all cold sores smack dab in the middle of my lower lip, which looked like it was going to put the kibosh on any flute playing, but now it looks like it should be healed enough to manage. I don't know if I'm going to bother bringing other instruments, though (i.e., the harp). Over the years there's been a steady increase in the cost-benefit ratio given that I'm hauling the thing around all weekend, dealing with places to stash it if I don't take a hotel room, feeling tethered to a single room when the open filking eventually starts, and all for maybe playing one song over the whole weekend -- or maybe two if I'm feeling especially pushy. It would be different if I were writing anything new. (But then, I'd be more likely to be writing anything new if I felt people were interested in hearing it. As it is, pretty much the only requests I get are the "party trick" variety -- i.e., "Hey play something on that big-ol-weird instrument there.")

Memo to self: Must make reservations for ski trip. Lots of new snow. Don't wait too long.

Comments

[ohiblather.livejournal.com]

I dunno. Last time I went to Consonance without Allison and Jodi, I wasn't sure if some people recognized me outside of Urban Tapestry. :-)