revealing once again i know nothing about childrens
So, okay, since my office moved, I've been taking JUST the bus in to work. This is fine, but a bit different than taking bus AND subway, because you get more rigid into a schedule, which means you get a bit more familiar with the various other people also locked into the same basic schedule. The same faces keep popping up.
ANYWAY. I do a lot of reading on the bus because wtf else am I going to do on a 45 min ride. Staring vacantly into space does nothing but get you weird looks. Also it is my main reading time. My usual Thursday reading materials are all of my new comics that came out on Wednesday. It is a system that has worked pretty well in the past.
But! Recently, when reading my comics on the bus, a random thing happened to me. I am sitting there, minding my own business, when this woman and her two young sons get on the bus. She sits down with the littlest one, but the other - who cannot be more than three years old - sees the comics in my hand and promply plops down next to me. And starts pointing at my comic. He is transfixed. I don't particularly blame him. :) So he's poking at it, especially whenever Spiderman happens to be in a panel, and eventually starts trying to turn the pages and sort of tugging it out of my hands, all the while making unintelligible little kid noises and grinning like a maniac.
It is very cute, but also very annoying, and his mother showed absolutely no interest in what he was doing. Admittedly, she has her hands full with the other kid, and I suppose I don't particularly present a threatening picture. The kid next to me is obviously quite into the comic and Spiderman in general and asking me questions that are really more sort of gurgle than anything else, and eventually I just kind of give up on trying to actually read my comic and I just let him pull it away to look at the pictures. I do eventually get the comic back, but it is an interruption in my routine and I am not so fond of those, especially in the morning.
Now, I'd seen this little family unit on the bus before and I've seen them since. It makes me more than a little hesitant to read comics on the bus because as great as it is that he's interested, I kind of want to read my own reading materials. So I was thinking about this and. Well. I was thinking about, the next time I at the shop, picking him up something specifically aimed at kids, like Marvel Adventures or something like that. That way, the next time he sees me reading comics and is SUPER INTERESTED OMG, I can give him his own book full of colorful superhero pictures, and I can read my own comics in peace.
My question is: Is this an incredibly inappropriate thing to do? On the one hand, it's a mutually beneficial nice gesture. On the other hand, stranger giving things to young child = CREEPY, generally. Also, while she did not seem perturbed by her son reading a stranger's book, it's entirely possible that his mother would not want him looking at comics or would like to control what it is he does get his hands on, and it's not my place to make that decision for her. Though, in counterpoint to that, while the book he was looking at over my shoulder was a New Avengers, which is mostly okay especially if you are not reading the text, a good deal of the stuff I read is quite graphically violent, and really not something that would be appropriate for someone else's child to look at. Something harmless and kid-friendly would be better, I would think. Skirts issues nicely.
SO. WHAT DO YOU THINK, FLIST? Creepy, not creepy, not my problem, shove the kid out of the seat next time, stop reading comics, WHAT? I dunno, I don't have my own kids, and all the kids I generally interact with (read: NOT MANY) are the children of people I know fairly well, so things like this are not usually an issue. I've actually read comics with one of my neighbors' kids, and it was a lot of fun. But those kids are not strangers to me and I am not potentially encouraging habits their parentals do not approve of. Also, CREEPY. What do you think?
IN OTHER, MORE IMPORTANT NEWS
shyshutterbug and I are not doing rhr_awards again. I had meant to post about this in the fall, but well, one thing led to another and time made fools of us all. But we are now, OFFICIALLY, saying that we aren't running it. Neither one of us particularly has the time or inclination this year, and it also seems (sort of) that the fandom is getting quieter and may in fact not NEED to have the awards again this year. STILL. We wanted to offer up the modships to anyone who might want to do this, because it is not up to us to kill the awards, as it were. If fandom as a whole has lost interest, that is another thing altogether.
Basically what I am trying to say, with way too many words oy, is that there are AT LEAST two modships up for grabs here, and I'm offering it here first. Two is the necessary minimum, but I also think the workload could be nicely distributed amongst three, if there is that much interest. If this is something you definitely want to do, or if you would like more information as to the responsibilities before deciding, comment here, or email me, or shyshutterbug, or the R/Hr Awards account, and we'll do our best to answer any questions or get interested parties hooked up with passwords and accounts and spreadsheets and the like. And while I won't speak for shyshutterbug, I personally am happy to give advice and tips and such throughout the process, if need be.
It is something that is quite rewarding, I promise. :D
BE A MOD BE A MOD BE A MOD
heh
one small unrelated note: where do people go to get themselves fandom related mood themes? i think i have officially given up on making one myself, sigh