Apartment cleaning.

Before the term started, I cleaned my apartment a ton, all of the bathroom and foyer and hallways and front room, including going through papers from last term and throwing them out, and dusting my apartment thoroughly for the first time since I moved in.

It was only like 65% of the cleaning - I still need to do my bedroom and the kitchen and the pantry, as well as "Mr. Clean Magic Eraser" all of the walls' smudges from the last tenant - but honestly, it feels so good.

I had been cleaning from like 1pm to 9:30pm with breaks, while I listened to all of Katy Perry's albums in order and then a Sunday night classical program I like that's on pretty much every week from like 8 to 10pm.

Then, I did a few word puzzles, and read a music memoir I was just starting in bed, and then crashed.

The next morning I woke up, and my kitchen table / desk area was so clean, and it felt so good.

Women's March (2 of 2): How I knew march turn-out would be high.

At one section of freshman writing, 2 of 6 participants said that they were going to be attending the march that weekend when I asked them to share something happy or interesting, and a 3rd said that she had already been thinking about it when I mentioned that some celebrities that she liked were going to be at the march in our city.

Of course, none of them lifted a finger during the election to help GOTV for Clinton.

That really pisses me off, that all of these people are spending time and energy *now* when the damage has already been done, though of course I'm not going to say that, I did my part in campaigning and can live with a clean conscience.

Women's March (1 of 2): My mother's response.

"You wouldn't believe the sign I saw, I'm almost embarrassed to say it."

"What, Mom?"

"Well, it said...  'Pussy power.'"

"That's a thing, Mom.  People actually say that a lot."

"See, I'm so naive, I couldn't go to a march like that, because I'd be so shocked."

My mother says what she thinks.

The other week when my mom and I were discussing the results of the presidential election, out of nowhere she started talking about how when she was working her way through college, she got paid a lot less than her brother.

"And then the pope says that women can't be priests," she was like.

Then, she was like, "I feel like we're going back to those days, it's everywhere."

Library banter: Window-replacing workmen.

The other day I was shelving books up on a library floor where they were replacing some windows, and at one point I found myself down on the floor shelving something on the lowest shelf right across through the books from where the workmen were.

"F*ck this!" and "F*ck that!" and "M*th*rf*ck*r!", they were like.

Then, next thing I know, I see a set of eyes embedded in a(n older) (white) (male) face peering at me from the other side of the shelf, and this older gruff voice being like, "Hey, sorry, we know this isn't really the place for that kind of language."

"Oh," I was like, "You don't have to worry about me, I use that language a lot myself."

At that, the guy chuckled, and then he was like, "We were glad you weren't a woman."

For a second, I was floored by the sexism, but didn't know quite how to respond, since it was kind of a nice-chivalrous sexism and it was meant well.

Then, I was like, "Oh, that doesn't necessarily mean anything.  Some of the filthiest mouths around that I know of belong to women."

Then, I was like, "Those are usually the fun ones."

The guy laughed at that but he was already back on his feet, and then I heard him on the other side of the shelf saying to his coworker, "I like this guy already."

. . .

Long-term, I wonder if he thought that I meant that those women were the fun ones sexually...  If so, did I accidentally affirm the sexism?  I didn't mean to.  Dang.  :/

A story from a (British) woman's childhood.

The refrigerator of my one (half Sudanese) (half British) friend broke and he had to get a new one, and he was telling his mother about it the other day (by skype, I'm guessing?).

Believe it or not, she's like mid-60s, and grew up in England without a fridge.

"What was it like?", he asked her.

She said not much different than normal, you just had a cool pantry for a few things, and otherwise you went to the butcher for meat if you needed some for that day.

Pretzel iconography.

If pretzels are supposed to be praying hands - with the tips of the fingers like the fingertips - why are pretzel symbols usually shown bumps up?

Wouldn't the bumps be the rounds of the arms, and they should be on the bottom?