she's
actual
size

Well. Let's see what gems today has given me.

I was in pain when I woke this morning. That fall I took yesterday did more damage that I thought. There's a nice swelling on my shin, my left wrist was wrenched, and I think I pulled something in my right side. The day after a fall is when the worst pain comes out, after you'd had time to sleep on it and get everything all nice and stiff.

After assessing the extent of my injuries, I started downstairs. I walked halfway down, and fell the other half. My foot slipped out from the stair, and I skidded down on my ass. Add that to the list of injuries.

The bottom of the bread that I've been eating for the past two days has two day's worth of mold growing on it.

I had to take $90 out of savings to pay some bills. True, I had set that money aside for the very reason, but it still made me sad. I hate taking money out of savings.

I was informed - again - that I haven't returned the RSVP card for the Maintenance Manager's wedding, which is in less than two weeks. "But I told you that I was coming," I said.

"How can you not return the card?" he asked. "It's a post card. You don't even have to lick anything. It's already stamped. It's already addressed. It even already has your name on it! All you had to do was check "yes" or "no!" And you didn't even have to mail it! You work with me! You live 300 feet away from me! You have to drive past my apartment to get in and out of your place! How can you not return the card?"

So I went home during lunch, got the card, made my checkmark on the card, and gave it to him. grin

The workers (which workers? I can't tell you: see below.) were just awful tonight. I kept telling them to move back from the driver's area, because otherwise I couldn't see my right mirror. They would move back for about five minutes, and then slowly creep over the line again until they were practically sitting in my lap. I was just waiting to get pulled over, and having to explain to the cop why I had a passenger sitting in my lap.

To top this all off, a reader accused me of making racist comments in my journal. (See below).

But you know what? It doesn't matter. That cloud that's been hanging over me has started to lift. In fact, it started to do so around twelve noon today. That's when my dad bought me plane tickets to Winnipeg.

I'll be up there for a week. A whole week! Time to really survey my new digs, meet some folks, and spend some serious cuddle time with Dave. I am sooooo looking forward to this.

And I'll even see him before I go! He's coming down here again in early September.

happy sigh

Below

(Hee hee! I told you to see below, so now you're seeing... Oh, never mind.)

I have been accused of making racist comments.

(Incidentally, the particular comment that raised this issue was made twice. Once in context and once in reference to the previous instance.)

Which comment? "Polish fuckers."

(Of course, by the logic presented in the complaint, I should get pissed off every time someone from another country makes comments about "those damn Americans." But I don't.)

Now, before I go any further, let me ask you this. If instead of being Polish, these people were from Alaska, would "Alaskan fuckers" be racist? What if they were from Chicago? "Chicagoan fuckers" isn't racist. What makes a national boundary sacrosanct?

I called them "Polish fuckers" for several reasons. First of all, they had totally pissed me off that day, and I tend to use the word "fuckers" in reference to people who have recently made me mad. Secondly, they are Polish. That's the descriptive term we use to describe the group at work. They are called the "Polish workers," "Polish kids," or "Polish students." Therefore, they are the Polish passengers, rather than the Alzheimer passengers or the dialysis passengers I normally drive around.

Actually, as I mentioned to the reader who brought this issue to my attention, they aren't all Polish, nor are they kids, nor are they students. Out of sixty-some passengers, about fifty of them are Polish, so we call them by the nationality of their majority: Polish. I guess I could refer to them in my journal as multi-national itinerant seasonal workers...

There is an important distinction to make here. They pissed me off, and became "fuckers" in my head for that day. They were not fuckers because they were Polish... They were fuckers in addition to, not because of being Polish.

Now, let's take the "racist comment" in context.

I'm at work, and I have to leave in a few minutes to go pick up those Polish fuckers.

Remove the word "Polish," and...

I'm at work, and I have to leave in a few minutes to go pick up those fuckers.

Which fuckers am I talking about? Could be any number of the fuckers I deal with on a regular basis, but you would have no way of knowing which ones.

If I had said, "Argh! These Polish fuckers have convinced me that every single Polish person in the world is a complete asshole! Nuke 'em all!" ... I could understand people getting upset. But I didn't do that. I would never do that. That's insane. You cannot pigeonhole an entire nation by the actions of fifty individuals.

Anyway...

If you are offended by my language, I apologize - and suggest you look elsewhere for your entertainment. That's the wonderful thing about the Net that some right-wing pigeons in the US Congress (you know, those anti-porn, anti-sex religious freaks oops! I mean theologically oriented people of Southern descent) don't seem to realize. If you see something you don't like, there is nothing forcing you to keep reading. I'm not doing this journal to win popularity contests; I'm doing it for me.