Journals : 2002 : August

4 August 2002 Later | Link this

There are a few truths which must be uttered by someone at this point, so it might as well be me:

Some pictures and stuff from the birthday bash Saturday night. Casey has some more...

• Adam Ant. Enough said.
• The test, which I also took again today. I'm still an INTJ.
• How we're gonna get Mark's entertainment center up the narrow, winding stairway to my apartment.
• My nagging fantasy of a bachelor party where some scantily-clad boy pops out of a giant Jello No-Bake cheesecake.

15 August 2002 | Link this

Pauline (not her real name) was the stereotype of a middle-aged Southern woman in the 1970s. Born in 1925, she'd worked briefly at an insurance agency whe she was very young, but had spent most of her adult life as a housewife. She had three children, and supplemented her husband's income by watching the neighborhood children while their parents were at work. I was one of those children...

Pauline's family owned a spotless three-bedroom ranch house and two older Dodges. They attended church, ummm, religiously. Southern Baptist, of course. She made many of her own clothes, which tended toward polyester pant suits, and on dressier occasions, she wore a semi-bouffant wiglet she kept on a styrofoam head. She always complained about the moral transgressions portrayed on her afternoon "stories", but never enough so to stop watching them every day...

Pauline was all in all a very sweet and kind woman, very moral (if often a bit judgmental) and loving. She considered herself a good Christian, she valued education and manners, and she held the kids to very high standards...

And she was one of the most horribly vile racists I've ever known...

Pauline constantly said the most awful things about "niggers" and "jiggerboos", not only within earshot of the kids, but even when conversing with us. She declined to associate with African Americans in any way, even refusing to eat in restaurants because one might have washed the dishes or touched her food. The comments which came out of this woman's mouth were completely out of character with the "Christian love" she preached. Even at seven or eight years old, I had a hard time listening to her...

This was really not an uncommon thing in the south in those days, and I still see it on visits home among women (and men) of a certain age: a tendency for nice, loving, moral people to lose these qualities completely when faced with someone of another race. One of my favorite aunts was the same way, and it disappointed me terribly that an otherwise wonderful person could be so ignorant and downright nasty about such an insignificant issue as skin color...

I always tried, with some success, to blame it on their upbringing or on the peculiar and change-filled times they'd lived through. But it was still impossible to ignore, and it shaped many of my attitudes on race and religion and other differences among individuals. For the better, I hope...

I was lucky. I came home to relatively sane parents who helped me "deprogram", both from racist comments by an otherwise very nice woman, and from the fundamentalist dogma presented by my private elementary school. To their everlasting credit, they always encouraged me to think for myself rather than to parrot someone else's opinion...

I'm not sure why exactly my parents subjected me to such radically different worlds during the day (although the lack of choices at the time may have played into it), but in many ways, I'm glad they did. It taught me to be skeptical of questionable teachings and dogma -- whether from the left or from the right -- at an early age. I also learned to spot hypocrisy and inconsistencies between expressed beliefs and observed actions...

I think my elementary school years were more important to the development of my critical thinking skills than any university course I ever took. And I think that a lot of younger people today, growing up in an educational system where revisionism and "newspeak" guarantee they are rarely confronted with any alternatives to the "correct" opinions, are at a distinct disadvantage when it comes to these very same critical thinking skills...

It's all well and good to teach that racism is bad and that adversity must be overcome. But when the school library bans all references to what racism really IS (except in the most simplistic and cartoonish terms) and when some vague notion of "building self-esteem" negates the concept of any actual adversity (such as getting a grade which corresponds with the quality of the work done), students are doing little but reciting a memorized set of "principles" which have no real meaning to them. And they question nothing...

Pauline taught me to question lots of things, even if she did so unintentionally...

16 August 2002 | Link this

I think pretty much the whole world is having a crappy week. Seems that way anyhow, based on my very unscientific analysis revealing that a very high proportion of the assorted online journals I read regularly were last updated on Monday of this week...

Actually, I don't have anything much of interest to say either. I'm sure no one much cares about my thoughts on the remodeling of the miniature Safeway in the Financial District nor how frustrated I was at the lack of diet grapefruit soda there today. Nor does anyone much care about the client website front page I spent hours retooling tonight only to realize at 1AM that everything I'd done was pure shit...

I think all that's left is for me to bleed my lizard and go to bed. Sorry. I just felt like saying "bleed my lizard". And it's my website. So there...

16 August 2002 Later | Link this

Happy (belalted) birthday Shane. I'll keep my boots on all weekend in your honor...

I'm hoping Mark won't be too inconvenienced by this...

17 August 2002 | Link this

To my dad (who's more than likely not reading this): Happy Birthday. I'm sorry I'm not there to help you celebrate it, even though you hate celebrating birthdays anyway...

17 August 2002 Later | Link this

I really wouldn't lie about something like this. I was at the stoplight at Broadway and Woodside in Redwood City this afternoon, about to turn onto US 101 headed south, and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" happened to start playing on KABL. And then these two English guys in the next car motioned for me to roll down my window. Their question: "Is this the way to San Jose?"...

Which, of course, it was, and their query was just close enough to the name of the song to be creepy, so I let them cut in front of me as I pondered the various and sundry powers of Dionne Warwick...

19 August 2002 | Link this

So yeah, I did essentially nothing this weekend aisde from a bit of shopping and a few rounds of giving directions. No email, no significant writing or work, and none of the cleaning and junk-elimination I really needed to be working on. In fact, my computer was even turned completely off (a rare state) for the better part of two days...

Mark's here now and he's at an interview this afternoon. It'll be a quick dinner tonight and then he's back to Fresno for one of the last times. He brought up a big load of books, DVDs, and dishes yesterday. He's really moving in. It's happening. Damn...

And by that, I mean "damn, I'm excited" and not "damn, what have I done?"...

To clarify one thing, I don't think I gave Duncan a nasty case of homosexuality. I was already past my contageousness when we met, although I had indeed infected several toilet seats a few months earlier...

Yup, that's it. No more inside jokes today...

But yes, I'm in favor of a male nun for governor this year too...

And one last rhetorical question: why is it about ten times more likely that I'll get really insipid email from context-impaired strangers who came in via Google and read (at most) one paragraph of my site on Mondays than on any other day of the week? For the record, the answer is "no". I have no idea where to find a good bed and breakfast place in San Antonio. And I'm glad...

20 August 2002 | Link this

Hmmm. I always find the joke rather humorous and inoffenseive when the sexes are reversed, as they so often are (witness Patty and Selma with respect to Homer Simpson). And were it not someone whose opinion I trusted, I wouldn't bat an eye. But I'll withdraw a comment just this once, albeit slightly reluctantly...

And I'll say nothing more on the subject...

20 August 2002 Later | Link this

Heh heh...

I am very weary. My book and my bed are calling, not at all subtly. And thanks tons, by the way, to Todd (whose address I'm having trouble finding) for adding such a nice title to my library...

22 August 2002 | Link this

He got the job...

23 August 2002 | Link this

When I woke up a few minutes ago, I briefly considered turning on the heat to take the chill off the apartment but instead I just wrapped up in sweatpants and a quilt. I love August in San Francisco, when. on the average day, we struggle to make it into the mid 60s...

Yes, our daily high temperature in usually lower than the daily low temperature in much of the rest of the country. This is very sexy. And yes, it is the single reason I still live here after ten years...

And now, well-rested after my first really good night's sleep all week, I will continue with the process of making space in the apartment for the next load of new electronic equipment, music, and clothes which will be arriving tomorrow...

Or maybe I'll just go wrap up for a little while longer and watch TV...

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