update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/selected-letters/016.md

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ They bade me stay in my seat while they waved away the plates and ducked back to
 
 Delicious as ever.
 
-Finally, they asked how we were doing. I forced myself to think for a moment before just blurting out a response. I decided to just explain our day-to-day experiences much as I did in the last letter. I talked about how we'd started exploring the sim more. We laughed about us having to learn how to cook something other than stews and college student food. They commiserated with me over just how intense two Odist foxes in the same house must be.
+Finally, they asked how we were doing. I had to force myself to think for a moment before just blurting out a response. I decided to just explain our day-to-day experiences much as I did in the last letter. I talked about how we'd started exploring the sim more. We laughed about us having to learn how to cook something other than college student food. They commiserated with me over just how intense two Odist foxes in the same house without any other moderating force must be.
 
 They talked about their own process of setting up a new life, about procuring a bunch of stuff off the exchange with only the vaguest of ideas of setting up a restaurant, then slowly tweaking and tweaking and tweaking until they got closer to what they thought of as ideal. "I'm still figuring out how I'm going to decorate this place. I thought about putting up my own paintings, but how tacky is that? Might as well just name it "█████'s Wish Fulfillment Bistro" at that point, right?"
 
@@ -25,9 +25,9 @@ Finally, though, we switched from coffee to wine and moved from the table to a l
 
 They nudged me to lead, I think maybe because they expected I'd have quite a lot of grievances to air about them leaving as they did. Instead, I started with what I told you, that I could certainly see where they were coming from, about how things change after fifty years, and how our happinesses change as the world we live in changes.
 
-They readily agreed, saying that, while they loved Dear and Serene on their own, their dynamic together was as frustrating as it was fun, and that never fit quite into the 'romantic' category of fun. They got pretty awkward when they described how I've changed and I had to urge them on several times, but they said that they'd long considered me a comforting, if passive, personality who made a good active listener, and that while I was still good at listening and still comforting to be around, me taking the step to start working at the library, shifted my passive nature to a far more active one. They said that, while they're happy for me, it was such a change as to be jarring, that, as bad as it sounds, they liked the passive version of me more.
+They readily agreed, saying that, while they loved Dear and Serene on their own, their dynamic together was as frustrating as it was fun, and that it never fit quite into the 'romantic' category of fun. They got pretty awkward when they described how I've changed and I had to urge them on several times, but they said that they'd long considered me a comforting, if passive, personality who made a good active listener, and that while I was still good at listening and still comforting to be around, me taking the step to start working at the library, shifted my passive nature to a far more active one. They said that, while they're happy for me, it was such a change as to be jarring; that, as bad as it sounds, they liked the passive version of me more.
 
-What a strange thing to hear! I'll admit that I had to tamp frustration at that. Isn't self-actualization something we should all aim for? And when I'd talked about it initially, they were incredibly supportive of the decision.
+What a strange thing to hear! I'll admit that I had to curb my frustration at that. Isn't self-actualization something we should all aim for? And when I'd talked about it initially, they were incredibly supportive of the decision.
 
 Having thought on it, though, I think I can see where they're coming from. It wasn't that me being passive itself was good and me being more active with my life was bad, so much as there was a set of habits that we'd all built up around me following while they led, and to have those shaken up was a prime example of those new happinesses at work. I love what I do at the library. I love the feeling of taking charge of research --- I always have --- and to do so in a setting that requires active participation and, often, leadership had shifted the way that I acted at home.
 

writing/post-self/selected-letters/017.md

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 
 Sorina,
 
-Thank you so much for your letter. I was delighted to wake up to it this morning, though I have to admit that I needed quite a bit off coffee before I could actually manage to read it. I sometimes get the feeling that there's just too much coffee in our lives, but hey, it's good.
+Thank you so much for your letter. I was delighted to wake up to it this morning, though I have to admit that I needed quite a bit of coffee before I could actually manage to read it. I sometimes get the feeling that there's just too much coffee in our lives, but hey, it's good.
 
 Convergence has pretty well settled down over here. The border with Castor has been firmly limited --- instances are allowed transit only once per week, so if you head out to Castor, you have to spend at least a week out there --- but there are plans to open it back up. It sounds like they've come up with a better solution to the reputation market. I don't know the details, but I've been promised it's rather like having multiple currencies back phys-side, with an exchange and trade and such. Smarter people than I are working on it.