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There is freedom in being misled
1. I went in and added half-a-dozen backdated entries from the arts journal I was keeping for class a year ago, because I was thinking about a few of the same things--must be the time of year. If you care to look them up, they're titled "writer's house journal:" and go from the very end of January to the very end of February, before I apparently completely petered out on it, as is my wont with a paper journal. Still, it was interesting to compare my journalling style when I wasn't expecting to be writing for an audience: they're probably a bit more honest in some ways than my normal lj persona.
On a totally unrelated note, the excessively long entry about race and identity which I spent way too long writing up last night is getting consigned to the same hard-drive folder as the previous excessively long posts about boys and sexuality, perception and faith, and ambition and time q: But I think I will go ahead and excerpt the bit about tribe and party, because it's pretty coherent and I think says something interesting about me and the way I've formed identity:
2. Also, I can apparently type over 60 wpm when I'm in a groove. Wow. I used to be lucky to make twenty-five. And I seem to have picked up the skill of two-fingered touch-typing -- a couple months ago I'd have said it was impossible, and yet I seem to be doing it anyway.
On a dvorak keyboard, of course-- I'm probably still stuck around twenty wpm on Qwerty-- but who cares about Qwerty anyway?
3. I wore sandals out this morning! Not because it was a particularly warm day, but because I'm the the throes of an acute laundry situation and have no clean, matching socks (or clean shirts. Or pants/skirts except the one pair of jeans that are really too tight to sit down in.) But thanks to said laundry situation, the room is now clean. And also, spring!
4. The song in my current music is one of a bunch of new songs I've randomly downloaded into the laptop from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
audiography for a background noise. It has somehow become, forever and always, the Donna Troy song to me, despite the fact that all I know about Donna Troy is what I've seen on scans_daily and lurking comics people's ljs. It's been made all the more odd because none of the other songs I grabbed are pinging me as fannish at *all*. (Well, except "The Only Living Boy In New York", which is Connor/Oz post-Apocalypse, but I knew that before I downloaded it.)
EDIT: And so I spent most of last night, when I should have been doing laundry, ranting to myself about how poor white folks are in much the same situation re: societal privilege as any other underclass in America, and I *come* from poor white folks, and I'm *proud* of that. So guess what the only outfit I managed to cobble together to wear today was? Uncle's ratty Air Force jacket, worn-out wifebeater, cowgirl jeans so tight you can see which pocket I keep my ID card in, and since all my hats are stinky too, american flag print bandanna. q: Somebody out there is laughing at me. I felt *hella* conspicuous, especially since everybody else in the dining hall was either Asian, Hispanic, or Jewish. And I definitely got different reactions than I do in my normal blend of hipster punk/bag lady chic/geek girl.
On a totally unrelated note, the excessively long entry about race and identity which I spent way too long writing up last night is getting consigned to the same hard-drive folder as the previous excessively long posts about boys and sexuality, perception and faith, and ambition and time q: But I think I will go ahead and excerpt the bit about tribe and party, because it's pretty coherent and I think says something interesting about me and the way I've formed identity:
....In fact, the main difference between [an Indian character I was using as an example] and me is that I would never, for obvious reasons, put a White Pride bumper sticker up. . . except that actually I do have a pride bumper sticker on my door, "Proud to be a Maryland Democrat", which is actually about as close to a tribal affiliation as I'm likely to get. q: And it's garnered me more comments, positive and negative, than the rainbow pride one we had up last year. Maryland because that is a large part of what I've made my identity around; I know this state down to the bedrock and oyster-shells and pleasantly corrupt politicians. And Democrat too-- I don't think I'd ever quit being a Democrat, even though I probably have no more in common with them ideologically than any other party. Because it's my *tribe*. The Eastern Shore has always been solidly Democrat in local politics, no matter who they actually *vote* for in state elections, and in my Dad's generation switching your registration to Republican was the symbolic equivalent of leaving the Res. (Dad switched his back after a few years. My uncle's still Republican. He's also a lot less Eastern Shore.) And my Mom's family-- well, I don't *know* what they'd do if you told them you'd switched, but one of my cousins *married* a flaming Republican, and they're still the last to get invited to family gatherings (although they're pretty much okay with it if you make an effort to pass as apolitical.) They take quiet pride in being just about the only pure-blood, old-family Democrats in the Miami Valley. *g* I honestly don't know if it really gets that tribal for Republicans, having not experienced it, you understand-- the closest I've seen is in certain military families, but there it's been more about being Military than being Republican, really. And besides, the Republican party's an upstart Johnny-come-lately. But it really does get to me when people stereotype Democrats as being certain types of people from certain social classes with certain beliefs, when most of the lifelong ones I know *aren't*, aren't even necessarily anything near liberal and may not have voted for a Democrat for President since Johnson, but they're still *Democrats*, because it's an affiliation, a family, not a platform--or at least it used to be, in some places...
2. Also, I can apparently type over 60 wpm when I'm in a groove. Wow. I used to be lucky to make twenty-five. And I seem to have picked up the skill of two-fingered touch-typing -- a couple months ago I'd have said it was impossible, and yet I seem to be doing it anyway.
On a dvorak keyboard, of course-- I'm probably still stuck around twenty wpm on Qwerty-- but who cares about Qwerty anyway?
3. I wore sandals out this morning! Not because it was a particularly warm day, but because I'm the the throes of an acute laundry situation and have no clean, matching socks (or clean shirts. Or pants/skirts except the one pair of jeans that are really too tight to sit down in.) But thanks to said laundry situation, the room is now clean. And also, spring!
4. The song in my current music is one of a bunch of new songs I've randomly downloaded into the laptop from
audiography for a background noise. It has somehow become, forever and always, the Donna Troy song to me, despite the fact that all I know about Donna Troy is what I've seen on scans_daily and lurking comics people's ljs. It's been made all the more odd because none of the other songs I grabbed are pinging me as fannish at *all*. (Well, except "The Only Living Boy In New York", which is Connor/Oz post-Apocalypse, but I knew that before I downloaded it.)EDIT: And so I spent most of last night, when I should have been doing laundry, ranting to myself about how poor white folks are in much the same situation re: societal privilege as any other underclass in America, and I *come* from poor white folks, and I'm *proud* of that. So guess what the only outfit I managed to cobble together to wear today was? Uncle's ratty Air Force jacket, worn-out wifebeater, cowgirl jeans so tight you can see which pocket I keep my ID card in, and since all my hats are stinky too, american flag print bandanna. q: Somebody out there is laughing at me. I felt *hella* conspicuous, especially since everybody else in the dining hall was either Asian, Hispanic, or Jewish. And I definitely got different reactions than I do in my normal blend of hipster punk/bag lady chic/geek girl.