Two movies with the Sudan.

The other week I went out to dinner with some people, including my one (half British) (half Sudanese) friend (the sister of the brother and the sister who I'm friends with).

I had texted her right after I saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and so I followed up and asked her if she had finally seen that movie yet (she likes blockbusters).

"Yes!", she was like.

"I thought of you when they mentioned the case of the young woman from the Sudan," I was like.  "Now you have to tell [her boyfriend's first name] not to ever fuck with you, otherwise you'll go all obscurial on him."

At that, she laughed.

Then, she was like, "Did you see Arrival?".

"Yes," I was like, "Why?".

"One of the twelve alien ships landed in the Sudan," she was like.  "You didn't notice that?  It's like, 'Yes, we've finally made it!'," and as she said "Yes, we've finally made it!", she raised up both arms in the air like in victory.

Third rude awakening by a text before 7am!

That same Monday morning, I got a *third* text from a friend before I had gotten out of bed that woke me up, like at 6:50am.

It was from my one friend from high school who does (domestic violence) work, on dates for a possible weekend visit to go see her and her husband.

She must have texted me in the middle of her morning (getting ready for work, getting the kids ready), and with her early rising and the timezone difference, it woke me up early, though I was getting up at 7:30am.

Pleasant Monday morning ride in!

The other morning on a Monday I was dogged tired and riding in to school, and on the last leg of my commute, this quiet leafy boulevard with a nice big bike lane, I was passing an elementary school that had started for the day, just as a (middle-aged) (black) (female) crossing guard in a neon green vest was putting her stuff in her van near the bike lane.

"You have a nice morning!", she said to me as I passed by, though we didn't make eye contact.

"You too!", I said as I sped by.

Then, I turned around and was like, "And you have a good week, too!", but she didn't seem to hear me.

Still, it was a lovely intereaction.

One day's library antics (3 of 3): Bathroom sight.

On that same day, too, in the middle of that reshelving task, I popped into the bathroom to take a piss.

A (young) (skinny) (dark-skinned-ish) (Japanese-looking) guy had his bare foot up in the bathroom sink, and was washing it.

He was still doing that, after I took my piss and washed my hands and left.  He didn't seem to pay much attention to me, while I was there.

One day's library antics (2 of 3): Missing book.

That same day, me and another coworker were shifting books upstairs, taking them from one section to another because of some massive reshelving plan that our supervisor was putting into effect for some reason.

As I turned into the aisle to go and put books onto my cart, this one (Asian) guy was standing right there inside the entrance of the aisle and was seeming kind of lost, looking at the empty book section where we had just taken stuff from.

"Hello sir," I was like, "Do you need help?".

As it turned out, he needed a call number that we had probably just shifted, so I went out into the major aisle and directed him down to where my coworker was unloading books.

Like five minutes later, I went out pushing my cart down there, and I met my coworker coming the opposite direction.

"Hey, did you meet that one guy who was looking for a book?", I was like.

"Yeah," he was like, "He found it."

"Sweet," I was like.  "Where was it, was it on the shelf already, or on your cart?".

"On my cart!!", my coworker was like.

. . .

...of all the books that that guy was looking for in all of the library system, he was looking for one particular one that in that ten minute window we were in the middle of shifting, what's the chances of that...

One day's library antics (1 of 3): Fire alarm.

So, the other day I was working in the library, and the fire alarm goes off, and everyone floods outside.

Amongst the crowd, I saw several people I knew, and I made the same joke to each:

"I almost expected we'd come out into machine gun fire or get herded into cattle cars or paddy wagons!".

Then, I'd add, in a low, sort of conspiratorial tone-of-voice, "You know, it's Trump's America now, and that'd be a good way to purge the intellectuals, just send people around to pull the fire alarms in all the university libraries, then do that stuff to them..."

Comment of one (elite university) student to another after Trump's election...

At the school where I go and teach, a (white) (undergraduate) (female) coworker was saying that one of her (white) (female) friends had been putting post-Trump activism plans up on Facebook, and then some (non-white) (undergraduate) (female) acquaintance of hers was like, "That's your privilege, to be active at a time like this, I can't do anything most mornings because I'm so worried about my family."

And, my coworker told me this like that statement was something profound.

I mean, do these kids even know what they sound like?

Something is *way* the frick off with mainstream activism culture at elite universities (or at least *most* mainstream activism culture, barring certain exceptions like with sexual assault activists).