How wonderful Cory is
2004-11-28 21:26![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beowabbitMy friend [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
chienne_folle] doesn’t have a LiveJournal account [but she does now]; she does her communicating the old-fashioned way, and she’s very good at it. I first met her when I was subletting an apartment in Princeton from her and her partner Norman one summer. In echos of my story about keyne, I thought she was a really neat, interesting person, and I was sorry I wasn’t likely to really get to know her. But then she and Norman moved to Boston years later, and now she’s one of my closest and most trusted friends.
She is an amazingly warm and kind person, and an incredible listener. I tend to lean on my friends a lot, and I lean on [chienne_folle] more than most – she’s just so very good at it. I feel especially good when I can reciprocate a little bit. She’s always been supportive, free with advice at the same time she realizes that advice isn’t always the point, perceptive, engaged, and caring. She’s very intelligent, but not just in a scholarly, fact-oriented way: she understands people. The things that don’t make sense make sense to her, and to have somebody like that in your life is a blessing.
She’s another one of those people who seem to me like a real grownup, while most of us are just faking it. She’s mature and responsible and trustworthy, but she doesn’t forget to put the oxygen mask on herself before assisting other passengers. If everybody on this planet had a tenth of her interpersonal smarts, this would be a much, much better world; as it is, it’s a much better world than it would be without [chienne_folle] in it.
chienne_folle] doesn’t have a LiveJournal account [but she does now]; she does her communicating the old-fashioned way, and she’s very good at it. I first met her when I was subletting an apartment in Princeton from her and her partner Norman one summer. In echos of my story about keyne, I thought she was a really neat, interesting person, and I was sorry I wasn’t likely to really get to know her. But then she and Norman moved to Boston years later, and now she’s one of my closest and most trusted friends.She is an amazingly warm and kind person, and an incredible listener. I tend to lean on my friends a lot, and I lean on [
chienne_folle] more than most – she’s just so very good at it. I feel especially good when I can reciprocate a little bit. She’s always been supportive, free with advice at the same time she realizes that advice isn’t always the point, perceptive, engaged, and caring. She’s very intelligent, but not just in a scholarly, fact-oriented way: she understands people. The things that don’t make sense make sense to her, and to have somebody like that in your life is a blessing.She’s another one of those people who seem to me like a real grownup, while most of us are just faking it. She’s mature and responsible and trustworthy, but she doesn’t forget to put the oxygen mask on herself before assisting other passengers. If everybody on this planet had a tenth of her interpersonal smarts, this would be a much, much better world; as it is, it’s a much better world than it would be without [
chienne_folle] in it.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 13:43 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 14:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-30 15:43 (UTC)himit! (He hasn't been on LJ for a while, what with the recent move and work hours. I'll see if I can't poke at him to post something, maybe pics of Xica riding in the back of the truck in her Regal Perch?)no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 17:12 (UTC)Cory
Some of what makes Jay fabulous
Date: 2004-11-29 17:47 (UTC)This is Cory. I don't have a Live Journal, so if I want to say how marvelous Jay, is, I'll have to do it in his very own journal. I hope that's not an enormous faux pas. :-)
Why Jay is wonderful.
Jay moves through life dripping little bits of sweetness all around him. Sort of like Pigpen in the Charlie Brown cartoons, except that it's sweetness and not dirt. :-) There's lots good to say about Jay, but it's his spectacular sweetness that makes him so precious and so unusual.
Jay also manages to be amazingly calm. Oh, I've seen him scurry around to set up before people come over and seem a little frazzled, and I've seen him be sad or hurt when bad things happen, but none of this seems really deep. It's like the wind blowing up a few waves on the surface of the water, while the lake stretches down for hundreds of feet. I think Jay might be a good mediator, because radiating this calm sweetness seems to help the people around him. Maybe we could send him to see what he could do with Israel and the Palastinians. :-)
Jay is wonderful at seeing the good in others while overlooking the bad. He's generous and nonjudgmental in thinking about others, and it's no wonder that pretty much everybody wants to be around him.
I know that I don't have to tell anybody that Jay has been extraordinarily generous to the poly and bi communities, contributing loads of time and effort (and computer power). And while he gets a great community out of his efforts, he also seems to genuinely enjoy it when others meet partners or find support for coming out or do other things that show that they are nourished by the community that he has been so instrumental in bringing together.
When Jay cares about somebody, he CARES about them. I've seen him be there for people in his life, sometimes in ways that weren't as good for him as they were for the person he was caring for. He's learning to take better care of himself, but he still seems to care an awful lot about other people.
Jay is an extraverted introvert. By that I mean that he needs time alone to function well, and he's introspective and reflective. Yet he's way more social than most introverts and enjoys the company of both a broader variety of people and a larger quantity of people than most introverts can manage. He seems to be really well-balanced in this regard, having all of the strengths of introverts while still having many of the strengths of extraverts. This is pretty rare, in my experience.
Jay is flexible, nondefensive, and confident. This is a really powerful combination. It means that he doesn't need to prove anything to anybody, so he can try new things with delight for the novelty, without worrying that he'll fail at it or seem silly. He can be himself without having to hide behind arrogance or combativeness or any of the other things that people use to mask their fears and insecurities.
And, of course, he's got a lot of the more common virtues. He's smart and funny and interesting. But I meet smart and funny and interesting people at every con; it's rare to meet someone this kind and this sweet. I'd nominate him to be an honorary woman, if he weren't so good at being the kind of man we need more of. :-)
Can we clone him?
Cory
P. S. -- Yes, Jay, I want you to unscreen this. :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-12-05 12:54 (UTC)