The World That's Coming

If you’re wondering how the UK trip is going so far, this was the most explosive moment of last Friday. And I mean literally explosive.

Who needs to recharge their phone, right? Or, you know, have a working power adapter that can keep everything else working properly in this country?

I am, famously, terrible at taking compliments.

I used to believe this was part of my societal make-up purely from coming from Scotland, a country where it’s far more accepted — and arguably more fun — to take the piss out of yourself as a defense mechanism than to boast of your accomplishments… or, really, acknowledge them in any real manner, outside of a noncommittal shrug and attempt to quickly change the subject. And, don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that’s a significant factor in the who I ended up being today, because how could it not…? However. However.

I’ve had conversations with other people from Scotland, and elsewhere in the UK, about our inability to take compliments, and how we navigate it; I’ve also had conversations with a number of Americans about the same subject, and the ways in which the British method — essentially, just deny everything and pretend that whoever said the complimentary thing is objectively wrong — might actually be rude when you really think about it. And through all of this, I kept thinking one thing: there are some compliments I’m actually okay with.

Specifically, they’re compliments about things that come second nature to me; things that I don’t even think of as being worth noting, never mind complimenting. I am, for whatever reason, good at liveblogging or livetweeting events; I’ve been complimented on that many times, most recently at Emerald City Comic-Con earlier this month, and when that happens, I find myself surprisingly able to say thank you, and move on. No dissembling or argument; I just acknowledge it and say thank you.

What’s the difference? I’m unsure. Is it that if I don’t try, I don’t feel self-conscious if something notices me? Perhaps, but that just makes me embarrassed to consider. Maybe that’s more of the Scottishness that I hadn’t thought about coming out.

As you read this, I’m likely hurtling through the air. Actually, maybe not; time zones are hard. I think I might actually have landed in the UK by the time you’re reading this…? Well, I definitely will if you’re reading it an hour or so after it’s published. Go with me here — this is far from an exact science.

(I say that, but the passage of time and time zones are, strictly speaking, a pretty exact science. So it goes.)

My point being: I’m in the UK for the next week and a half for work — well, the first half of the trip is all for work, and it’s also the entire reason there’s a trip to the UK at all. I’m covering Star Wars Celebration, a four-day event in London that’ll be filled to the brim with all things Star Wars; I did the same show in Chicago four years ago for THR, and it feels especially weird to be back doing it again for Popverse in an entirely different country. The more things change, I guess…?

The second half of the trip is seeing family — and introducing Chloe to my family in person for the first time, as well as introducing Chloe to Scotland for the first time, too. It’s my first time back there in over a decade, and it’s far too fast for my liking; we basically leave two days after arriving, and so won’t get to see… well, anyone outside of my family, most likely. (Sorry, anyone reading this who hoped to see us.)

I’m excited to go to the UK again, and pre-emptively exhausted by the travel and the work and the constant movement while we’re there. It feels suitable to feel conflicted about going home again. Ask me how I feel about the whole thing when I’m back, though.

The dog has been particularly reactive to the outside world, lately. He’s an anxious dog at the best of times, but in the Spring and Summer, that gets almost incomparably worse because there’s so much activity outside and almost every noise he hears makes him panic. The worst noise of all, it turns out, is the sound of ladders being set up or taken down; whenever that happens anywhere near the house — by which I mean, honestly, anywhere within a one block radius, because dogs have really good hearing — he goes into full-on, running-around-the-house freak-out mode. He runs throughout all the rooms, barking and sounding the alarm: there are ladders close by. We should watch out and be prepared for invasion.

I mention all of this not to make fun of the dog, although there’s no small amount of humor to the whole thing; instead, I bring it up because there’s an unexpected side-effect of dealing with all of this, which is: now I have found myself surprisingly reactive to sounds around the house.

That’s not to say that I’m also running around the house sounding alerts at the smallest provocation (nor that I’d even be tempted to do such a thing; it sounds like far too much work, for one thing), but I can’t deny that my ears perk up when I recognize particular sounds outside the house — especially ladders, it’s true — and I find myself tensing, waiting for the dog to run through and bark in alarm. I feel as if my hearing has ended up being supercharged by the whole thing, much to my amusement, making me wonder both what other sense is going to start failing to balance our this newly enhanced hearing, and also whether this background awareness of everything around me is what it feels like to be Daredevil from Marvel comics.

It’s a cliche to say that people become like their dogs the longer they’re together, I know; I just didn’t think it would happen like this.

I’m not entirely sure how to describe what I spent the last week or so doing, outside of the usual everyday “work and eating and cleaning just to get through the day” existence. The phrase “Taking care of business” is both apt and descriptive, but also sounds like the kind of euphemism preferred by shitty trailers for shitty movies from the 1980s to refer to some romantic and/or sexual congress that will ultimately fail to happen for reasons that are, apparently, hilarious and touching.

And yet, I have been taking care of business: I’ve had to book flights and hotels for the upcoming UK trip — which included actually sitting down and working out where and when said flights and hotels need to be, and how expensive that would be without breaking the bank (spoilers, I failed that last part; international travel is not cheap, friends.) — as well as work out just what the fuck I was going to do about taxes this year after the surprise retirement of my accountant after something like a decade of faithful service. That’s not including various behind-the-scenes elements of my job that also include reimbursements and travel plans and the like. I’ve been planning the important plans; I really, genuinely have been taking care of something that could easily and deservedly be called “the business.”

It’s been exhausting.

Here’s the thing; I am very bad at doing these things. Or, more correctly, I’m very good at doing them but none of it comes naturally. I don’t have the important mix of macro and micro focuses such things need to work properly, at least in the measures necessary to do it right; I get hung up on the strangest details and have to unplug my head after awhile because I start thinking like a journalist — “why is this the case, let me follow this thread” — instead of, you know, just completing the task. As a result, everything takes a little bit longer to finish than it probably should, but there’s an upside: everything else I accomplish while distracting myself from the task at hand.

(That sounds like a joke, but it’s not; in avoiding finishing taxes, I managed to clean a bathroom and the kitchen, sweep the stairs and the entire first floor, and take out the trash and the recycling. Would that I could be so productive on other occasions.

I tell you all of this because, as I type this, I have finished everything that’s been hanging over me for… the past couple of months or so…? I can’t quite believe it’s true, but I take comfort in one horrifying fact: there’s going to be more to deal with almost as soon as I finish this sentence. That’s how it works, these days.