Updates with 2023/2024 edits

mitzvot/content/letters/013.tex

@@ -5,10 +5,10 @@
 \itshape
 systime 227 (2351)
 
-Pollux---Lagrange transmission delay:\\
+Pollux—Lagrange transmission delay:\\
 38 days, 3 hours, 2 minutes
 
-Pollux---Castor transmission delay:\\
+Pollux—Castor transmission delay:\\
 76 days, 22 hours, 34 minutes
 \end{quote}
 
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ All the same, it really does feel like we're settling into a new sort of normal,
 
 Food has honestly been the biggest adjustment for me. For a while, Dear and I just stopped eating. \Partner\ cooked just about everything, and while each of us know how to make some of our own favorites, even just engaging with food left a sort of longing for how things had been. Wasn't required, was painful, why bother?
 
-It was Serene who knocked us out of that particular slump. Dear was starting to get particularly jittery, lots of restless forking, and I pulled her aside to mention that I thought it might be on the way to overflowing, to which she readily agreed. We wound up heading out for sushi at a place that floats plates of sushi down to you along a little canal that winds its way between the tables — J2? Do they have that on Lagrange? Well, turns out you can special order there, too, and they'll float a whole boat down to your table. It's built like a full three-masted ship,\footnote{A barque, perhaps? Cue a Bălan-style research binge\ldots{}} complete with little cloth sails, and on each of the decks, rolls are piled up or splayed out in neat rows. We ate way, \emph{way} too much sushi, and the two foxes got in a small contest of adding larger and larger amounts of wasabi to their bites until both had tears streaming down their faces.
+It was Serene who knocked us out of that particular slump. Dear was starting to get particularly jittery, lots of restless forking, and I pulled her aside to mention that I thought it might be on the way to overflowing, to which she readily agreed. We wound up heading out for sushi at a place that floats plates of sushi down to you along a little canal that winds its way between the tables—J2? Do they have that on Lagrange? Well, turns out you can special order there, too, and they'll float a whole boat down to your table. It's built like a full three-masted ship,\footnote{A barque, perhaps? Cue a Bălan-style research binge\ldots{}} complete with little cloth sails, and on each of the decks, rolls are piled up or splayed out in neat rows. We ate way, \emph{way} too much sushi, and the two foxes got in a small contest of adding larger and larger amounts of wasabi to their bites until both had tears streaming down their faces.
 
 Again, I've never claimed to understand them.
 
@@ -34,11 +34,11 @@ Our explorations have largely been to the south and west, where we've been hunti
 
 I'm told that we'll soon get inter-System A/V transmissions, though it'll be restricted to still images for bandwidth's sake. I'll make sure you get some pictures of us as well as of the landscape.
 
-There have been a few bumps as we sort things out. Obviously, we still occasionally wind up feeling low from \Partner 's absence. There's been a few days where one or the other of us winds up in a sulk, though we're increasingly getting used to this new life.
+There have been a few bumps as we sort things out. Obviously, we still occasionally wind up feeling low from \Partner\'s absence. There's been a few days where one or the other of us winds up in a sulk, though we're increasingly getting used to this new life.
 
 Dear and Serene have also wound up in feedback loops a few times. Remember when I wrote ``Two foxes in the same house? Never again''? Well, I still have my occasional moments of regret. One of them will get a little extra sarcastic and the other will try to one-up them. Or, worse, one will get a little snippy, and it'll turn into a quick volley of shitty comments followed by a sulk, then back to as it was before.\footnote{I don't mean ``pretending it didn't happen'', mind. They seem to accept these little spats as part of cohabitation. They take them seriously, address the issue, but then just get on with life. It's taken a bit of getting used to, as it's different from how Dear interacts with me. I haven't figured it out at all, but I guess when you have a fight with yourself, you get over it far quicker.} When this happens, either I'll step out, or I'll kick them both out to deal with it. It's been a quick adjustment, honestly; far easier than when \Partner\ was here. Maybe just because there are fewer different interpersonal dynamics at play? I'm still thinking about it.
 
-I have seen \Partner\ a few times, for what it's worth. It's not like they just up and cut contact. We've gotten coffee a few times, and they stopped by for an incredibly awkward dinner party. While we have largely worked out that things are just kind of over between us and them, that doesn't mean that our feelings have just dissipated — nor, indeed, have theirs: ``It's still a break-up, I'm still hurting over it, even if it's for the best.''
+I have seen \Partner\ a few times, for what it's worth. It's not like they just up and cut contact. We've gotten coffee a few times, and they stopped by for an incredibly awkward dinner party. While we have largely worked out that things are just kind of over between us and them, that doesn't mean that our feelings have just dissipated—nor, indeed, have theirs: ``It's still a break-up, I'm still hurting over it, even if it's for the best.''
 
 And you know, as I take a look back at who we were, at who Codrin\#Castor is and, hell, who you and Aurel are, I see where they're coming from. We can't stay the same forever. Our happinesses change as the world around us changes. We can't possibly remain the same, but neither can we possibly change in exactly the same ways. Something like this was bound to happen eventually, and it has me thinking that there will probably come a day when Dear and I drift apart. I don't know if that'll be any easier for being the second time around, or just differently hard, but I suppose one upside of the whole thing is that it has me focusing on the love I have in front of me.
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Speaking of the love in front of us! Aurel and Sasha? What a delight! At first,
 
 If I may ask, how has the dynamic worked when you're Aurel, when you're away from May Then My Name but still with Sasha? I can't imagine it's entirely comfortable to spend much time away from her, even if you're still with someone you love. You live in the same building,\footnote{I'm trying to picture this: it goes your and May Then My Name's bedroom, the den/kitchen, then a door to Aurel and Sasha's bedroom, then their own den/kitchen? Like a duplex? Do you use that door often? Do you see each other out on the deck? Eat together? I'm hungry for details.} if I'm understanding this right, but I'm assuming you're hardly seeing your other partner all of the time, right?
 
-I guess I ask because there's at least a small analogy to be made between our two situations, in that I'm no longer with \Partner\ but still with Dear. I know — or at least suspect — that it's not exactly the same, as Aurel's still a fork, however long-lived, and thus not \emph{not} in a relationship with May Then My Name, just that that's on pause.
+I guess I ask because there's at least a small analogy to be made between our two situations, in that I'm no longer with \Partner\ but still with Dear. I know—or at least suspect—that it's not exactly the same, as Aurel's still a fork, however long-lived, and thus not \emph{not} in a relationship with May Then My Name, just that that's on pause.
 
 If I'm to keep seeing \Partner\ on occasion, then I'm going to have to figure out how to interact in a way that isn't strictly in a relationship, yet also isn't as fragile as I feel.