Two Black Women Talking About Me In Front of Me.

At the last adjunct unionizing meeting, I was in a small group with a (black) (female) adjunct and a (black) (female) organizer, to talk about ‘next steps’ in what we could do to move forward at our schools.

When I had mentioned my one situation with class cutting because of “that [first name] guy,” the (black) (female) adjunct repeated me and was like, “‘That [first name] guy,’” and then was like, “He’s hilarious,” to which the (black) (female) organizer was like, “Yep.”

They just said that as asides in normal voices right in front of me, in a moment when I was paused from speaking.

Naturalization Ceremony in the City.

This past month, a (Mexican) friend became a U.S. citizen, and me and my one lawyer friend from Missouri went downtown on a weekday early afternoon to go watch him get sworn in.

At one point, they named all of the countries of the people present, and had the people from those countries stand up when their country was called.

Usually there was just a single person or a handful, but when they said “Mexico”, like a third of the room stood up, and everyone laughed, something that my one lawyer friend from Missouri said that she had just known would happen, when they began calling the names of countries.

Interestingly, the next greatest country was the Philippines, and Poland and South Korea were also decently well represented.

When the judge said “Saint Vincent and the Grenadines”, he also paused to say that that was the first time that he had had the honor of swearing in someone from that particular country.

The ceremony was very moving, esp. when they had people abjure obedience to princes and potentates, since it really got to what democracy was all about. 

The part about willingness to serve in the military was a little much, though, and I felt it was out of place.

The German Mentality?: Chocolate.

Like a month ago, a (German) colleague from when I did my masters was in town visiting people (she used to live and work in this city), and me and her got together for lunch.

She’s nice, and brought some German chocolate bars as a gift, of the brand Ritter Sport, which is made into a knobbed grid pattern that is easy to break apart.

The slogan on the back was “quadratisch – practisch – gut” (‘in square sections – practical – good’), which I found a very odd way to advertise a candybar.

Essentially, you’re bragging about its orderliness!

Somehow, I feel that only Germans could have come up with that slogan.

“We are Germans,” they are like.  “We have orderly candy.”

More dreams of decay: Food waste.

So, I dreamed that I took a big, half-eaten watermelon out of my fridge…

And I noticed that there was a crack down the bottom, like it had begun to fall in half from its weight.

One perspective on Ultra-Catholics chastity-encouraging girlswear.

So, over my vacation, I visited this one Ultra-Catholic monastery, which had many highlights, and the highlight of the giftshop was this evangelical-flavored uber-pink girls t-shirt that said something like “Maria Goretti’s Girl Club – Chastity Forever!”.

The punchline of that is that Maria Goretti is this really effed up early 20^th c. Italian saint, who as a teenager refused a rapist b/c it’d be a mortal sin, and b/c of that was stabbed 14 times and died.

I was telling that to this one (Italian) I know from the city and this one (older) (white) (female) eccentric bar acquaintance of his, and she was like, “Hon, you need more than a t-shirt.”

. . .

And, too, about the monastery, which was very very elaborate and focused on worship rituals to all else, the (Italian) guy was like, “Man, so much money for so much bullshit.”

Bedbug frustrations, and other methods of dealing with them.

To help me cope with bedbugs, I also tell myself that I shouldn’t be any more disturbed than with a mosquito bite.

I can’t tell you how incredibly frustrating it is, though.

You think they’re gone, and then you wake up with a handful of itchy welts on your back or buttocks, and find the droppings in your sheets.

Then, your bed isn’t a safe spot anymore, though you’ve done everything possible to make it so, and there’s no reason your bed shouldn’t be safe.

And, you start to lose sleep, b/c once you wake up with an itch and find a welt, you leap straight awake out of anxiety and can’t go back to sleep.

Honestly, the first morning I woke up in bed to find them back after I thought I made my bed a safe place, I cried, and there’s been times I’ve been close to crying again.

It’s funny, b/c so much else that’s happened to me hasn’t brought me to tears, but I think the difference is that suddenly you aren’t even guaranteed sleep or safety in sleep, and it’s like something you never thought would be taken away from you suddenly has been.

My One (Hippie) Friend from Michigan’s Perspective on Bedbugs.

So, with my bedbugs, just like with my losing a job at the art school, I tell myself that I’m in solidarity with so many other people through these experiences, as well as that with these common experiences, who am I to think that I’d somehow be exempt?

My one (hippie) friend from Michigan had a slightly different perspective.

She says, it’s part of being human in the 21^st century.