The fear of becoming 'real' through the purposeful pursuit of meeting other Jatraqueros.
I am real by accident (I met KACard and OSC @ bootcamp); and once I flirted with meeting other Jatraqueros in D.C. But in reality, I'm not too keen on all these real life meetings.
Posted by ak (Member # 90) on :
Oh, I LOVE them. The only sad part is coming home again where the painful lack of hatrackers in day to day life is made all the more keenly obvious.
Posted by ElJay (Member # 6358) on :
Since I met a dozen or so Hatrackers in person before I ever joined the forum, it really seems like no big deal to me. Plus, it's a lot of fun.
Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
So if you meet OSC you're real?
I'm real? No way, that's to easy.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
I think the rule is that you have to meet two Jatraqueros.
(I actually met 3; OSC, KACard, and Brock, who lurks)
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Wait, you went to OSC's Writers' Bootcamp, and consider that accidentally meeting OSC and KACard?
You're slipping, my friend.
-Bok
[ August 23, 2004, 09:30 AM: Message edited by: Bokonon ]
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
We usually talk about you during the meetings anyway. Just as well you aren't there to hear - you'd have to blush.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Oh, I'll admit I'm slipping-- but kamaphobia is the fear of meeting Jatraqueros for the express purpose of meeting them.
I had ulterior motives when I went to bootcamp. Like, trying to become a better writer. So while it was unnerving, I wasn't thrown into fearful fits.
Kat, you have no idea. I mean, Ralphie just says the word, 'Scott' and I begin blushing.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
:curious now:
What kind of thing are people saying about me?
:buffs the Implacable Engine of Ultimate Destruction nonchalantly:
Posted by MaydayDesiax (Member # 5012) on :
Hatrack get togethers are great for me for one of two reasons--I get to see either Toretha (who lives across the street from me again ) or my beloved Bernard every time. Not that I'm showing favoratism...
Besides, Hatrack get-togethers are cool, no matter what.
Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
Then I am real. I met KACard as well. The only glitch here is that I didn't tell them I was "Tammy @ Hatrack". I did tell OSC that I enjoyed the Hatrack Forum. He nodded and looked at me funny.
Does this count?
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
quote:What kind of thing are people saying about me?
I can't tell you. I can't be responsible for making you blush. *grin*
Posted by Little_Doctor (Member # 6635) on :
Am I imaginary then? Posted by Teshi (Member # 5024) on :
I do not exist and I am proud of it.
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
I don't exist and probably won't for a loooong time. Posted by digging_holes (Member # 6237) on :
If I'm about to meet Javert, does that make me exist, or do I still have to meet another jatraquero after that? If so, will meeting Javert make me half-real?
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Tammy, if you didn't admit who you were, how could they vouch for you?
I am not sure you are realy yet....what do you think, guys?
You have to meet two people who are also real, but I don't know if it has to be at the same time....It's half a joke, although the reason the "rule" exists is the multiple names people go by here, and the fact that people do troll at times. This way we know that you aren't a figment of someones imagination, for good or bad...
Kwea
[ August 23, 2004, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: Kwea ]
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
About a week after I started posting, my wife drug me off to a Jatrquero gathering at BYU. I never had a chance to enjoy my lack of existence. Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
I was real about a month after joining the forum. (Porter had been on "the other side" for perhaps a year already) There just happened to be a local gathering. Porter and I both felt like we were doing something really strange, going to meet a bunch of people from an internet forum. But we were really excited too and had a lot of fun.
I am sad that it will probably be a long time till I am able to meet many of the eastern Jatraqueros. Not to mention all the wonderful Jatraqueros around the world.
[ August 23, 2004, 12:34 PM: Message edited by: beverly ]
Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
This thread sounds like a chainletter I would find in my e-mail:
Become Real On Hatrack Can Change Your Life
I became real by meeting just three Jatraqueros and suddenly my life changed. I won the lottery, fell in love, met God in line at the Winn Dixie, and reached level 20 in KoL.
You too can have this fantastic stroke of Luck, just by passing on yourself to two or more Hatrackers.
Financial success.
Romantic success.
Better game play through cheat codes, all when you "Become Real"
Jack had the chance to become real, and chose not too.
Now Jack lives in a van down by the river.
And his video tape of Princess Bride broke in two.
And LDS Missionaries avoid him.
You don't want that happening to you.
So go, meet two other Hatrackers, Jatraqueros, Wenches or Burninators today. Pass on the Good Luck that only "Being Real" can bring.
I was a boring old man who could barely cross the street. Then I became real and now, not only am I the life of the party, I am President of the Street, in a way. Bob Scopatz
I was a liberal pawn totally enslaved to the vast Liberal Cabal and its Media until I became Real. Suddenly my eyes were opened as the light of truth, justice, and the American way burned into my brain. Now I fight to defend my country and the true conservative values for which it stands. Pixiest
I was just a standard program for Poland until I became Real. Now I know that I am the Queen of Hatrack and that everyone loves me for my accent, if not for Annie's pants. Kama.
Posted by mr_porteiro_head (Member # 4644) on :
Posted by the master (Member # 6788) on :
i'm not real and posters claiming i am real are lying or delusional. take your pick.
Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
Ok, I choose delusional. I get to see such pretty colors!
Posted by breyerchic04 (Member # 6423) on :
I'm real but I have never sought out meeting hatrackers. Last school year our lunch discussions could be pretty interesting with 4 or so hatrackers there most days.
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
My pants, then, are also real. So you can become real by meeting my pants.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
No, I think you have to meet your pants, along with some other piece of clothing that has met two Hatrackers.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Ahem. Annie...nah, not going there.
-Trevor
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
So, theoretically, you could meet my pants and the orange tights, or the infamous brown jacket.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Hey, my dream could come true!
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
Not going there, eh? You think there is a joke that hasn't already been made about my pants?
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
Hey, now that you mention it, I don't recall the infamous brown jacket being at Kamacon. I feel totally gypped!
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
Cool. I met several Hatrackers. I guess that makes me real Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
Kwea...you're probably right! If I recall correctly, I was busy trying not to confess my eternal love for Ender and my great awe at meeting his creator to properly introduce myself as a member of the forum.
I don't really feel real.
I have to go to Greensboro again sometime this week or next week. Anyone around? Maybe that's why I'm still not real, that scares the heck out of me...asking complete strangers to come meet me.
Our invisible fence blew a fuse during a recent lightening storm. The dogs don't know their really free, so don't tell them. The closest invisible fence office is in Greensboro.
Dan_raven
Posted by mackillian (Member # 586) on :
re: brown jacket
It was SUMMER.
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
What, do they not have nighttime during the summer anymore? Or did Chicago just pick up and move to Alaska?
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
For me, 60 degree nights are pretty darn tropical.
<--- brought no coat to KamaCon
Posted by saxon75 (Member # 4589) on :
I'm not saying that a coat was necessary while we were there, merely that it certainly wasn't too hot to wear a jacket for a few minutes so we could all have the experience of being in the presence of the Infamous Brown Jacket.
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
I've comandeered the Brown Jacket before. *reminisces*
He keeps his cards and driver's license in the left pocket.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
The only clothing I'm interested in meeting is Twinky's guitar.
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
For the record, to be truly real, you need to meet a minimum 2 Hatrackers who, through a chain of meeting at least 2 other Hatrackers, can trace their Jatraqueriosity back to Pat (or was it Slash?). It's all a vile Ponzi Scheme.
So you and your family/buddies who post on Hatrack don't count, unless two of them can trace their Hatracker lineage back to the top.
-Bok
[ August 23, 2004, 03:47 PM: Message edited by: Bokonon ]
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Gah! Well, I've met pooka...and are there any other hatrackers an AZ who've met Pat, or someone from Utah, or someone who's met Pat? I need to be real!
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
It's Slash. Slash started the Being Real meme.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Okay, how am I ever gonna find out if I'm real?
Or maybe I'll just ignore the old laws and follow the law of my choosing.
I pick the second one. That way I'm not only real, but queen of Hatrack with many lovely maidens and handsome knights. Yes....fantasy IS better....
Posted by Bokonon (Member # 480) on :
Okay, saxon75 bumped the One True Thread. No connection to Slash is necessary.
But it helps.
-Bok
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
quote:Okay, how am I ever gonna find out if I'm real?
you'll just have to come visit me Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Cooool. How close are you to Kentucky? >_<
Posted by katharina (Member # 827) on :
PSI, you're in KENTUCKY and you didn't come to KamaCon? Why was I thinking you were in Arizona?
*brightens* Can you visit the campout in October? It's a day trip, right? Those states back east are so tiny...
Posted by Annie (Member # 295) on :
This is how I became real:
I met Hobbes, who was at EnderCon and met Papa Moose, who hangs out with Alvin Maker, who starred in Footloose with Kevin Bacon.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
I am not in Kentucky. I am planning to visit Kentucky in a few months to get together with some previously unmet Hatrackers that I need to meet. I'm just thinking, that's all. Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
When are you coming into town, PSI? Is this for the camping trip or the cincy clump thing, or something else entirely?
space opera
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Well, technically something else entirely, but I could aim to do it around a clumping. (How's that for a gross get-together name?)
I'm thinking around March but it could be earlier...not sure exactly.
It would be to see my mom who will be getting married and moving there pretty soon.
My reasons to visit Louisville just keep growing. Posted by Space Opera (Member # 6504) on :
Oooh! You have to include me in the clump. Yay!!! I'm gonna meet PSI!
space opera
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
I coulda sworn I already mentioned this to you. Sorry. The plans are EXTREMELY tentative, because no specific times have been set, but it's very likely going to happen, I just don't know when.
I'm hoping to do something in the middle of a clump so I can meet the Louisville people, and other people who are nearby.
I didn't want to say anything publicly until I had more info, but oh well.
(As a side note: I have a really bad habit of spelling meet like "meat" which sounds really bad, if you replace it in the sentence above.)
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
A clump of meating?
Isn't that what the Romans called an orgy?
-Trevor
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Another job well done for Obvious-Man.
Posted by TMedina (Member # 6649) on :
Yeah well - it's not like I have anything approaching charm.
Play to your strengths.
-Trevor
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Scott R,
I was definitely nervous moments before I became real. It was about the easiest thing to do, though, and felt quite natural.
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
Being real?
I'd rather have the blue pill, please.
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"
"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.
"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."
"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"
"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
"The Boy's Uncle made me Real," he said. "That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always."
The Rabbit sighed. He thought it would be a long time before this magic called Real happened to him. He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these uncomfortable things happening to him.
There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for no reason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustled them away in cupboards. She called this "tidying up," and the playthings all hated it, especially the tin ones. The Rabbit didn't mind it so much, for wherever he was thrown he came down soft.
One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the china dog that always slept with him. Nana was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to hunt for china dogs at bedtime, so she simply looked about her, and seeing that the toy cupboard stood open, she made a swoop.
"Here," she said, "take your old Bunny! He'll do to sleep with you!" And she dragged the Rabbit out by one ear, and put him into the Boy's arms.
That night, and for many nights after, the Velveteen Rabbit slept in the Boy's bed. At first he found it uncomfortable, for the Boy hugged him very tight, and sometimes he rolled over on him, and sometimes he pushed him so far under the pillow that the Rabbit could scarcely breathe. And he missed, too, those long moonlight hours in the nursery, when all the house was silent, and his talks with the Skin Horse. But very soon he grew to like it, for the Boy used to talk to him, and made nice tunnels for him under the bedclothes that he said were like the burrow the real rabbits lived in. And they had splendid games together, in whispers, when Nana had gone away to her supper and left the night-light burning on the mantelpiece. And when the Boy dropped off to sleep, the Rabbit would snuggle down close under his little warm chin and dream, with the Boy's hands clasped close round him all night long.
And so time went on, and the little Rabbit was very happy -- so happy that he never noticed how his beautiful velveteen fur was getting shabbier and shabbier, and his tail becoming unsewn, and all the pink rubbed off his nose where the Boy had kissed him.
Spring came, and they had long days in the garden, for wherever the Boy went the Rabbit went too. He had rides in the wheelbarrow, and picnics on the grass, and lovely fairy huts built for him under the raspberry canes behind the flower border. And once, when the Boy was called away suddenly to go to tea, the Rabbit was left out on the lawn until long after dusk, and Nana had to come and look for him with the candle because the Boy couldn't go to sleep unless he was there. He was wet through with the dew and quite earthy from diving into the burrows the Boy had made for him in the flower bed, and Nana grumbled as she rubbed him off with a corner of her apron.
"You must have your old Bunny!" she said. "Fancy all that fuss for a toy!"
"Give me my Bunny!" he said. "You mustn't say that. He isn't a toy. He's REAL!"
When the little Rabbit heard that he was happy, for he knew what the Skin Horse had said was true at last. The nursery magic had happened to him, and he was a toy no longer. He was Real. The Boy himself had said it.
That night he was almost too happy to sleep, and so much love stirred in his little sawdust heart that it almost burst. And into his boot-button eyes, that had long ago lost their polish, there came a look of wisdom and beauty, so that even Nana noticed it next morning when she picked him up, and said, "I declare if that old Bunny hasn't got quite a knowing expression!"
Posted by Eduardo_Sauron (Member # 5827) on :
Interesting, Beverly...where did it come from?
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Velveteen Rabbit...so sad.
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Eduardo, A classic Amercan children's story. Sad and beautiful.
[ August 24, 2004, 12:17 AM: Message edited by: Elizabeth ]
Posted by beverly (Member # 6246) on :
Yup, that's right.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Absolutly a wonderful story. I can't wait until I have children of my own to read it to.
OK, I lied. I can wait....
But I am still looking forward to it...
Liz:
quote: I was definitely nervous moments before I became real
Why? We don't bite...unless you know something that I don't...
Was it Nate? He can be talked into just about anything....
Kwea
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
That story is too sad. Posted by rivka (Member # 4859) on :
When I was little, I loved my copy of The Velveteen Rabbit so much, I wore it out. A bit Ironic, neh?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
The Velveteen Rabbit isn't sad. It's life.
Posted by Theca (Member # 1629) on :
O_o
Posted by Elizabeth (Member # 5218) on :
Kwea, I did not think anyone would bite, I was just nervous to meet people I had never met In real life before, that's all. It helped a lot talking to you in the AM, and also having emailed Mack a few times, and chatted, when my MSN Messenger worked
Also, after i said the Velveteen Rabbit was a classic American story, I thought, was it? or was it a British story?
Posted by Tammy (Member # 4119) on :
quote: It helped a lot talking to you in the AM, and also having emailed Mack a few times
I need to log on more. Jamie always makes me feel most welcome!
What a doll!
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
Sometimes life is sad, Scott.
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
WHAT?
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
What, what?
You said the Velveteen Rabbit isn't sad, it's life.
I said sometimes life is sad.
Is that not right?
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
ô_Ô
Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
:sigh:
I know that life is sometimes sad.
It is my beleif, however, that a life well lived is triumphant in spite of sorrow, as laid out in the Velveteen Rabbit.
Posted by PSI Teleport (Member # 5545) on :
So you admit it's sad. Posted by Scott R (Member # 567) on :
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
) or my beloved Bernard every time. Not that I'm showing favoratism... ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
![[Angst]](graemlins/angst.gif)
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[ROFL]](graemlins/rofl.gif)
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
Dan_raven
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
![[Taunt]](graemlins/taunt.gif)
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)