Visiting

• Its a bad situation, when I meet Dr. Superstar after nearly 4 years, the first thing he asks about is Epsilon, and then proceeds to tell me how he also now has a child. It doesn't help that the connection I want to draw between my work and his starts a philosophy discussion, since he is less aware of my particular sub-field than I'd thought.
• Pubs with obscure literary names make me very happy. Especially when I catch the reference.
• We all send off class signals, in the way we dress, the way we talk, and even how we carry ourselves. I don't know if we do this less in the US than in other countries, or if we are more likely to believe that the US is a classless society, and therefore we don't have a socio-economic class, but we all do it. I can't help the class signals I give off, but I do try to not be pretentious about it. So when I find myself surrounded by The Accent, I have to remind myself that I should not go running with my tail between my legs from my social betters; I do belong here, that in the US, I belong to the equivalent class. 
• The conversation on the train between the drunk guys next to me and the trans man in front of me sounds like I may need to intervene, until one of the drunks tells the trans man how one of his friends now wants to be a woman. Sometimes things go well.