THE WRITER MUST EAT -> patreon.com/trn1ty <- | \ | | blah! |\ | `\|\ | the rantings and ravings |/ |(_|| | * of a depraved lunatic <^> 2024-04-10 2024-04-08 (pu) Toki Pona: The Language of Good kinupolu te watusen a! - jan Sonja (ku) Toki Pona Dictionary soweli Tini o! mi pilin pona tan ni: sina lon! jan Sonja (su) The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: Toki Pona Edition mu mu mu I watched and smiled anxiously at Sonja Lang signing the three books I was purchasing for myself, as well as the two I was purchasing for my roommates. ku was signed first and I thought the note was really, really sweet. I needed that actually. Then pu. I don't know what "kinupolu te watusen a" means - "a" at the end is emphatic, "te" is a nimi sin (word, new) sometimes used to introduce a quote, but "kinupolu" and "watusen" are incomprehensible to me. "te" is interesting - from the Japanese -tte and conceived by kala kala and jan Lakuse, and the latter of whom was there. I discovered Toki Pona after I had been studying Japanese for a bit and it was cool to see some toki pona tan toki Nijon. At lipu su she seemed to have lost some steam in signing which was worrying because I was the first (though probably the least socially acclimated) fan in a growing line. "mu mu mu" was written in green pen below the toki pona title and above soweli Toto. [...] came over to where I was and asked for the second copy of su I was purchasing to be signed to jan Masi. At the end I thanked jan Sonja very much and anxiously stepped among the clumps of social masses and stood near a bookshelf with [...] while [...] got food. [...] wanted to socialize and I sort of wanted to socialize, or at least be a fly on the wall for socialization. We discussed the consequences of striking up a conversation with a stranger or trying to nestle our way into an already- formed crowd. Eventually they walked over to a stranger and started talking about toki pona and stuff and people gravitated towards us and we formed a semicircle (open, so others could join easily). [...] came back and the discussion continued, touching on xkcd, Lojban, alternate human interfaces for computers, Rust, Esperanto, and basically every topic we discuss at home, now with more opinions and others guiding the conversation, which is what socialization is for those of you who don't know. Then I checked my cell phone for the time and drat, it was 1805 and we would be towed if we didn't go back and move the car or renew the parking. I volunteered to go over to the car and pay for more parking (as I was the least invested in the current conversations, being dreadfully interested in them but having little to contribute) and took the keys and left, too awkward to say o tawa pona to the speakers who had come a long way to be there. I took the elevator down and left Norlin Library, stepping onto beautiful turf and having an intensely vivid mental image - blocking out my own vision, no matter how I tried to see past it or return to the present - of my own hometown and walking through the courtyard of my middle school. The grass was the same shade and the trails were the same sort of tar and even the buildings were the red brick with which I was intimately familiar. It is April and the trees are starting to bloom and though the Vernal air was filling my nose too full and giving me the sniffles I was in love with the view and wish I didn't have to hurry back to the car. I made it some minutes late though there was no tow truck in sight and none could have towed it since the parking had expired. I went to the kiosk and tried to pay for more time but it errored repeatedly, saying I had to enter the license plate (which I did) before trying to swipe my card. Eventually I tried to use ADA parking, which is ninety minutes for free, and it worked, so we had until 1900 to get out of dodge. I texted [...] and told them this and then sat in the car with pu and got to reading. My toki pona knowledge, two days ago, was not great. Only enough to be able to navigate around relevant websites and say some basic phrases. I started from lesson 1 and built myself a solid foundational learning rather than picking up things here and there (which works for many languages but not one of a hundred and extra words). Now I feel somewhat comfortable conversing though my spoken vocabulary is limited. tenpo suno pini wan la (I had jan Ema help me with this part of the sentence), mi pini pu. mi toki lon toki pona la, mi pilin pona. And stuff. [...] and [...] came back to the car eventually and explained that we could park where we were for free after 1900, correcting my jumbled belief that we would be towed if we were there. Then they said the remaining toki pona group was going to dinner and one of my roommates was invited, though they were unclear on whether the other one or myself were. We ([...]) drove to the restaurant and waited for confirmation from the toki pona group that we were fine to go in. No confirmation came back and after much discussing pros and cons of approaches (I sort of just wanted to go home and order a pizza) they went in while I was too fearful of public embarrassment to go. I stayed in the car and tried to sleep but couldn't. I tried to read but couldn't focus. I tried to play video games but can't play video games to save my life, the awful flashing lights and obnoxious sounds inflicting countless papercuts on my soul which craves, probably somewhere deep down, tranquility and comfort. I tossed and turned and as the temperature dropped so did mine, and by the time my roommates came back to the car I was locked in a running flashback to the Burger King parking lot where I had made my home and their unlocking the car and opening the doors threw me into a sheer terror on par with the worst I've felt. I asked to go to a gas station. And for a cigarette. They agreed to help with the first plea. On the way to the gas station they discussed a breakfast that would be happening the next morning and called one of my exes to chat. I sat in the back and played a game where the goal was to kill myself by sheer will, by wishing long and hard enough that I would simply be torn from existence by some divine act. Eventually we got to a Seven-11 (is that how you write that?) and I got a Monster, a danish, and Chex Mix, and consumed the three in the opposite order on the way back to [...], Colorado. I also decided to call out of work the next morning to go to breakfast, which is a recollection for another time. Meeting jan Sonja was really cool. Social anxiety got the better of me on most moments within the day and that was less cool. I think I ought to take more risks. I decided to write this in the style of Hunter S. Thompson (would he care if I spelled that wrong?) because I figure most writing on toki pona and its community is academic or starstruck and I wanted to even it out a bit. I had a good time and the toki pona speakers I met were some of the coolest people with which I've ever conversed. <^> No rights reserved, all rights exercised, rights turned to lefts, left in this corner of the web.