So, not to MPSIMSify the Pit, but to update my last rant… I finally got a job after 10 months of searching, and the pay and benefits exceed my greatest hopes. I can’t believe that two weeks ago I was ready to throw my life away. I’m really glad I didn’t.
And, um, fucking traffic! I got stuck on the Turnpike on the way home. It was horrible. Horrible, I tell you.
It’s not just here, it’s everywhere. I’ve been trying to gather my thoughts on it and maybe write an article/ opinion piece on this whole shift in acceptability for racism in our society lately, but I’m still in the process. All I know is that this socially acceptable racism has been on a tremendous increase since the election of Barack Obama and hasn’t slowed since.
FWIW, I’ve been noticing a similar resurgence in sexism, both in legislation and just general dialog-- subtle and not so subtle things. For example, notice Mr. Orange Sign. Really, that’s the picture CNN chooses to use? I have trouble believing that was an innocent oversight either, seeing as it’s literally a BRIGHT ORANGE SIGN in the middle top of the picture. Oh, and that’s a picture of a demonstration 9 years ago. . . but they just so happened to choose that photo randomly.
So, I’ve been eating right. Watching my calories. And I’ve just started a new part-time job that I really, really like. And today, one of my co-workers comes in with candy for everyone. And it’s not just, you know, whatever was on sale. No–his family’s made candy for generations. It’s homemade marshmallow eggs.
I had one, and they’re delicious, and I have 11 more. That I can’t eat right now, because I’m trying to eat right. It fucking sucks!
I just got one of those too. The only reason I got it was because they gave me 18 months no interest on the iPad and accessories I bought. I expect I’ll pay it slowly, but still get it done in a year.
Diosa, I’d love to read it. I agree that it started with Obama’s candidacy, exploded with his election, and is only gaining momentum (both the racism and the sexism). I wish that I were a smarter, better person who could meet it with something other than creative profanity and the occasional throatpunch, but every time it happens I pretty much go all “flames… flames on the sides of my face.”
You’re sure it’s only a cold? Because last week I had a cold with a sore throat that just would not go away and in fact started getting worse (which was when I knew I needed to go to the doctor), and it turned out that I had both a cold and strep. Maybe you should go get a throat swab. I’m still just getting over the cold, but the antibiotics and prescription-strength ibuprofen dealt quite effectively with at least half the problem. Being able to swallow food without feeling like I was being stabbed with knives made me much more chipper about the cough and stuffy nose.
I’m sorry that you’ve ran out of sons to take care of you, but when my mother shows up to help out she isn’t a fuckn’ servant for your every whim. You’re making her sick. Don’t fuck with the social workers that are calling up and you telling them your fine and don’t need to be in a home. You haven’t left the house in a year, do you think that food in your house has just been magically appearing in your cupboards for the past two weeks via means of a magic fuckn’ portal ? You’re 91, we have lives and we have to work. You should of been in a home some time ago. But no, being proactive and thinking about the future is for dinks, or now my mothers job apparently.
Thank you SO much for updating us. I’ve been thinking about your “waiting for news” a couple of times a day since you mentioned it (now I can stop trying to work with my fingers crossed).
So glad you’re still with us, so you can… umm… get stuck in traffic. For many decades to come.
I have never heard of chigger bites before, but I think you might be onto something. Our grass is barely growing yet, but the symptoms fit. I didn’t even know we had chiggers in Calgary! So, are they in my house or something? How do I keep getting bites when I’m not doing stuff outside?
I really hurt my arm and I’m not sure how. It started hurting after a dog training session, but I didn’t do anything that should have caused it to hurt. I wasn’t wrestling with my dog or anything. I think, embarrassingly enough, it may be from work. I made a lot of stuff yesterday that involved stirring massive quantities of hard-to-stir stuff. Yes, I think I may have a stirring injury.
But it really fucking hurts. A lot. It seems to be getting worse and worse. I’ve been icing my elbow and that doesn’t seem to be helping much. Also taken some tylenol, which is also not helping. Here’s hoping it’s better by tomorrow. If it’s still this bad, it’s going to make working really, really difficult.
It isn’t only there, the last few years have seen a rise in things like political parties with a “oh, we’re not really racist, we just hate those foreigners who don’t wash, which happens to be all of them!” bent. Spain’s UPyD’s superpopulist mélange has a big dose of “any kind of diversity or variation is bad”, for example, which involves items such as going back to the worst times of Franco’s linguistic policies: not just a single official language (we have 4 now), but make it illegal to publish anything in another language or to use another language in public.
I’m lucky in that my most xenophobic/racist relatives have foreign lastnames, so I can shut them up fast by poking at the lastname. “Oh, does my finger in your eye hurt? So sorry!”