Category: Life

Okay, I’m leaving in half an hour to go home, since I waited so long for the plumber to show up yesterday, so this one will be short and sweet. As a side note, the woman they’re hiring for the Office Manager position is perfect, so far as I can tell. And she’s been using Quickbooks for years, so hopefully she can go back and fix all my fuckups. Okay, I’m going home. Yes, this is a lame, short entry, but since y’all love me, you’ll be back. Right? Uh…right? Oh, I almost forgot! If anyone wanted to see or tape the Ally McBeal from Monday night, they’ll be running it again due to popular demand on April 10th at 9 pm ET. I’m sure I’ll be there, sobbing hysterically again. —–]]>

The Sixth Sense last night, and it was as excellent as I had remembered. I was deathly afraid that Fred would figure out the ending halfway through the movie, but – like me – he didn’t. There’s this interesting drain hole in the floor of the bathroom nearest my office. Sometimes it doesn’t drain the way it should, and it gets stinky in there, and we have to call the maintenance man to come flush it out. Today, the smell of fresh feces wafted through the entire office, leading Fred to ask one of the employees what he was eating for lunch (the employee, might I add, who always eats the crappy frozen dinners at lunch). Now imagine Fred and Mr. Frozen Dinner wandering around the office following their noses. Guess what they found? No, not the drain lookin’ stinky. No, this time they found actual feces rising out of the drain. Which they (being men) decided to cover by spraying most of a large can of Lysol all over the place. Our maintenance man came and looked, proclaimed the toilet backed up, and called the plumber. Who, three hours later, has yet to show up. Who wants to bet it’s me who’ll be waiting for him to show up? I think I’ll go do some surfing (and not think about the fact that I haven’t peed since 9 am and have had three Cokes and a cup of water) while waiting for the evil plumber show his ass up. I can only hope he’ll flash me some butt cleavage. —–]]>

Ally McBeal last night? My god, that last half hour was brutal. I cried and cried and cried – and I’m not talking just getting teary-eyed, I’m talking tears dripping down my face for the entire second half. I cried hardest, I think, when Ally told Georgia that the last thing Billy said was "Tell Georgia I love her", because that’s what I was hoping she’d do. That’s what I would have done. Then of course, I read Melissa’s entry, and just the memory of the show made me cry again. I think I’m unendingly an optimist, because even when Billy was talking about how much he loved Ally, I thought he’d collapse and they’d rush him to the hospital and operate and he’d be okay, except I thought maybe they’d have hit something during the surgery that erased his memories of Ally, or his memories of his entire marriage to Georgia, and it’d end up being another wacky plot device, you know? It was heartbreaking. And I’m in for more crying tonight, because The Sixth Sense finally came out on video, and Fred stopped and bought the DVD on the way home, because he hasn’t seen it yet. When I saw it in the theater, the ending so disturbed me that I sobbed all the way home from the movie theater. My only fear is that we’ll watch it tonight, and I’ll wonder what I loved so about it. Speaking of movies, I watched Random Hearts yesterday, finally, because I’ve been trying to rent it for weeks now, and Hollywood Videos always has them all rented out. Sadly, I wasn’t terribly impressed by the movie, much as I like both Harrison Ford and Kristin Scott Thomas. My biggest problem, basically, was that once "Dutch" found that his wife and "Kay"’s husband had been having an affair, he went to Kay. Why would he do that? What’s the point? It was needlessly cruel, and the whole "affair" that resulted was ridiculous. My other problem was with the fact that "Kay", who was supposedly a Congresswoman from New Hampshire, was so accessible to "Dutch." Excuse my ignorance, but do Congresspeople really go wandering around all over the place like that, without any security people or anything? ‘Cause, y’know, in that case, I’ve always wanted to meet me a Kennedy. I’ll just go to Washington, sit in the park, and wait ’til Teddy comes by during his daily jog. I was a movie-watching fool yesterday; I also watched Joan of Arc: The Miniseries last night. It was pretty good; that Leelee Sobieski is something, ain’t she? Though it was humorous that in a movie about a French icon (uh…saint?) everyone sounded 100% American except for the times Leelee broke out with the "mon Dauphin". (Upon looking for info about Joan, I find that she is in fact a saint, though she didn’t become one until 1920.) Okay, it’s almost time to go home and plant my daffodil bulblings, so I shall bid adieu. Adieu, adieu!
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Once upon a time, some months ago, the spud and Fred were watching a movie wherein some characters were smoking pot, and she asked Fred what they were doing, and he told her "Smoking weed." Which she misunderstood as "Smoking wheat." Since then, Fred and I, predictably, have referred to smoking pot – when seen in movies – as "Smoking the wheat." Here’s a picture of Tubby, after he spent some time sniffing the kitty wheat contained in that sock he’s laying on.

He looks pretty wasted, doesn’t he? That’s our Tubby, the drug kingpin of BitchyLand.

So it’s Spring Break for the spud, and since she threw such a huge temper tantrum about not wanting to go to camp this summer (I don’t recall if I ever told y’all about that), I also didn’t sign her up for the Spring Break session they have, and as a result, she’s bored, bored, bored. When you were a kid and you were bored, did you expect your parents to entertain you? No, I didn’t think so. I avoided telling my Mom I was bored, because she’d either find something for me to do (never anything fun, trust me), or she’d make the ever-popular suggestion "Why don’t you go out and run around the block?"

One summer, Debbie and I were home alone most of the day for at least part of the week, and lordy, didn’t we manage to have fun. We had a decrepit old riding lawnmower we enjoyed riding around the lawn, and I somehow lost control of the lawnmower one day and went into my Mom’s garden (the one by the steps, Deb, remember?) and since the blade was going, a handful of plants got chopped to bits. Debbie helped me pick up the bricks around the outside of the garden, and helped me pick up the chopped bits of flowers, and if Mom ever noticed, she never said anything.

Speaking of the riding lawnmower, we sometimes used it to haul wood from one side of the yard to the other (no, we’re not talking any great distance, but it kept us entertained, so hush up), and one brisk Fall day we were hauling wood – or maybe something else, I don’t really recall – and the end of the scarf I was wearing got caught in the engine and instead of the engine stopping, it continued to pull the scarf in, and naturally I had the scarf knotted tightly around my neck, and instead of doing the normal thing, like turning off the lawnmower I just sat there and let the engine yank my head closer and closer, and just as my nose touched the engine casing, the engine ground to a halt. Have I mentioned that I’m useless in an emergency?

So my Dad came and helped me escape from the evil lawnmower engine, and Debbie expressed her concern (even then she was a nice gal), and I went inside to recover from the shakes which had overcome me, and I showed my Mom the mangled scarf which my Dad had pulled from the engine, and her exact words were "Oh, JESUS CHRIST, Robyn!"

Oh, and then of course there was the time I was hauling wood by myself, and as I went down the hill I was afraid the little trailer would come forward and, well, I’m not sure why I didn’t want the little trailer to come forward, but I didn’t, so I put my right hand back to hold it back, and it came forward as I reached back and smooshed my right index finger between the trailer and the back of the lawnmower, and it was smooshed so badly I could see bone (well, almost), so I sat on the front steps waiting for my mother to get home from work, and when she did, I held up my bloody, nasty-looking, extremely painful finger, and through tears told her I’d hurt my finger, and what was her loving motherly response?

"Oh, JESUS CHRIST, ROBYN!"

What else sort of trouble did we get into, Deb? Oh, there’s the time when I was 15 and had my permit, and we wanted to take Tracy’s car – which Mom and Dad were storing for him – joyriding, and I started it up, but couldn’t figure out how to get it in gear (I found out later that Dad took the top of the gearshift, the part with the little map on it, off and hid it somewhere, isn’t that mean?), and I had the clutch in, and the car went forward about five feet, and then we couldn’t get it back where it was, so you called Dennis and Ricky, and they ran up the street and pushed it back into place for us, thankyajesus.

And of course, let’s not forget the time Mom and Dad went out to eat, and (I still only had my permit) we took the car out joyriding, and we were cruising by some guy (was it Tony whatshisface, Kerry’s boyfriend?) and I wasn’t paying attention, didn’t stop at the stop sign where 196 veers off to the right from School Street, and someone almost hit us, and I kept driving, and they came right up on our ass, and I kept saying "I think it’s a cop! I think it’s a cop!" and you peered out the back window and said "It’s not! It’s not a cop!" and we gave up and went home, where Randy and Sandy were watching TV and eating miniature Reese’s peanut butter cups from the freezer. Then y’all were downstairs watching TV or something, and I was upstairs alone, and the cops came and I met them at the door, and they pointed at the car and said someone had reported it as running a stop sign, and I smiled calmly at them and LIED to them, I LIED to the cops, I flat-out LIED TO THEM and said "No, it’s been in the driveway all night" and they shrugged and left.

Then when Mom and Dad got home, I told them the cops had stopped by and said someone reported the car as having run a stop sign, and Mom immediately thought it was a someone trying to set Randy up, and Dad shook his head, but after that he always locked the keys to the car in their room when they went out. And Mom told Randy what had happened, and he came in my room and said "The cops were really here?" And I nodded, and he said "Did you run a stop sign?" And I smiled and nodded, and he said "What did you tell the cops?" and I said "I told them it was in the driveway the whole evening" and he looked kind of impressed, even as he pointed out that "They could have just touched the car, and felt that it was still warm." But they didn’t, because – let’s be honest – I’m sure they didn’t much give a flying fuck.

Oh, and the time you asked me to forge an excuse for you for a day when you’d skipped school, and I did only after you swore you’d never give me up if you got caught, and you DID get caught, and you never said a word, because you were so much more honorable than I, and I would probably have rolled over on you in half a second if the situations were reversed.

What other interesting childhood experiences am I forgetting, Deb?

Today’s ride down Memory Lane is now concluded. Please put your tray tables up and make sure your seat backs are in an upright position. Remain seated until the Captain has turned off the seatbelt light. Thank you for flying Bitchypoo Airlines, and please take a complimentary Coke on your way out. Buh-bye, now!

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I dreamed, early this morning, that I put myself in a large box and shipped myself via UPS to an unknown location. At some point, riding along in a UPS truck, the UPS man figured out there was a person in there, and stopped his truck, hauled the box off his truck, and opened it, then took off, leaving me there. I was in Austin, so I tried to find Pamie, but woke before I was successful. I went back to sleep and dreamed that the spud and I were hitchhiking from Alabama to Maine, and then the guys from Party of Five were with us, neither of whom had money, and we were living off my emergency credit card. I must’ve eaten something really weird last night. So a couple of months ago, Fred put me on his American Express account, and they sent me a shiny new card to put in my wallet and only use in case of emergency. The problem is that it was so shiny and green, smiling at me from my wallet, and the devil on my shoulder whispered "Just use it; it’s not like using a REAL credit card, ’cause you can pay it off at the end of the month!" So I used it for gas, I used it for garden stuff, I used it for birthday presents, and I used it ’til it was smoking and no longer smiling. I charged up $400 and some change, to be exact. (Yes, I’m aware that that’s an incredible amount. Please don’t lecture. Thank you.) To give you some background, I – from time to time – am in the habit of lecturing Fred on his American Express usage, because the balance can really get up there, and since we’re paying off the Amex from last month, we have less cash to use on this month’s purchases, and it’s a vicious, vicious cycle. Therefore, Fred is thrilled that I charged the hell out of the Amex this month, because, according to him, "You can no longer lecture me about my Amex usage!" Sigh. Fred and the spud went swimming yesterday. Yes, that’s correct, they went SWIMMING. The water was somewhere between 62 and 64, and not only did they GO in the water, they STAYED in the water for something like an hour. An hour and a half after they came inside, Fred was still cold to the touch, so he made me take my clothes off and spoon with him so he could leach heat from me. Yes, it led to sex. Don’t tell anyone, or they’ll take away our marriage license. Married people! Having sex in the middle of the day! What IS this world coming to? Y’all enjoy the rest of your weekend. See you tomorrow! —–]]>

I think I’m going to fall into a deep depression and take to my bed for a few weeks. Paul McCartney has found a "new love." Damn, aren’t there any good men who lose the woman they love to some horrid disease and spend the rest of their life in mourning? Paul and Linda never spent a night apart (at least, that’s what I recall reading), and here he is two short years later finding a "new love", as People terms it. What the hell’s up with that? Since I intend to die before Fred (you think I want to be around for his funeral, watching his mother throw herself on his coffin and his sister accusing me of killing him, then having to go on with my life as the crazy cat lady widow? I think not, thank you), chances are good he’ll go on to fall in love again. I mean, personally I’d prefer that he mourn me like the protagonist in Bag of Bones, but I don’t think the boy is set up to feel so down for so long. Hell, he’ll probably bring a date to the wake. Yes, I’m kidding. Mostly. I’m sure he’ll miss me a little. Let’s move on before I get in trouble. Did you hear that a US judge has declared Iran owes Terry Anderson $341 million for "savage and cruel treatment"? Who thinks he’s actually going to get one thin dime? Though, here’s the interesting question: If you knew you’d get $341 million for being treated savagely and cruelly for 7 years, would you do it? According to the judge, "Anderson was chained and blindfolded, fed only bread, cheese and water, moved from cell to cell numerous times, and feared many times he would be executed." I don’t know, I think I could deal with that. Keep your eye on the prize, and soldier through. Yeah, right. I’d be screaming for mercy and sobbing hysterically from day one. So I was talking to my sister on IRC and listening to FoxNews (yes, that’s my source for daily news, that and Fred’s online sources, and you fine people), and I heard that Kate Moss is in the hospital again, this time with liver trouble. Of course, the first thing that popped into my mind – I don’t know about y’all – was "I’ve always heard that once your body uses up it’s stores of fat, it starts cannibalizing itself." Mrowr!

The kitty is doing well – I know y’all were wondering – except we had a bit of a scare earlier today. We left the back door open, and the kitten and Fancypants were outside. We were out there for a little while with them, and then we came inside, Fred to take a nap and I to do laundry. I put clothes in the dryer, more in the washer, and sat down for a while to read my email. After half an hour or so, I went back upstairs and saw that all the cats except for the kitten were laying around the living room. I went outside and looked for the kitten, and she was nowhere to be seen. I went back inside and looked in all of her usual spots, and she was in none of them. In desperation, I grabbed the package of kitty treats and shook it, hoping to lure her out. It brought all the other cats on the run, but not her. I was starting to get really nervous, and walked around the house calling "Little kitty! Kitty kitty!" Finally, I went downstairs and woke Fred, telling him I couldn’t find her. He joined me in the search, looking outside, in the upstairs closet and under the bed, and then out of nowhere she appeared at the top of the stairs. She’d been napping in the laundry basket, apparently. Naturally, the one place I didn’t look. Y’all have a nice rest of the weekend. I will be planting gladiolus bulbs and doing various other things to prettify the outside of our house. See you Monday! —–]]>

is rather annoying. And next time they do a bit about the "Dumbing-down of America" on Dateline or 20/20, she could be point number one. Well, looky there, I guess I did have an opinion. Who else needs to be smacked? Oh, Joan Rivers and hellspawn Melissa "riding mommy’s coat-tails" Rivers. My blood pressure is rising at the very thought of them. They both need to be smacked, hard and repeatedly. Madonna needs to be smacked. She used to be so cute, way back in the ’80s. Now she’s become just scary-looking, and I don’t think I need to bring up the fakey British accent. I didn’t intend for this entry to become a rant about who needs to be smacked, believe it or not. Tell me who you think has a smack-me face. A woman who used to work for our main customer died Monday. She’d been battling leukemia for a long time, and I’d occasionally get forwarded emails from Fred, with instructions to send a card or flowers from the company. The funeral is later today, and Fred came into my office this morning to make sure I’d sent flowers. I had, and he said "Did you send a wreath with a banner that said Jesus called and she answered?" I grinned at him and said "That’s so mean!" He tilted his head to the side and smiled at me "Haven’t you ever seen those?" he asked. He went on to describe a funeral wreath he’d seen once, while wandering around a Florist shop (note to self: find out what Fred was doing in such a place). He said it was a big, circular wreath on a stand, and the banner had glittered letters spelling out Jesus called and he answered. In the bottom curve of the wreath (he swears this is true) there was a child’s toy telephone. I spent five minutes gasping about how awful it sounded, and another five insisting I want one at my own funeral. So, I’m peeved. Well, I’ve been peeved, but just thinking about it gets me peevish all over again. As is my way, I didn’t get into watching Once and Again until about halfway through the season – or rather, taping it Monday night and watching it during the weekend – and I like it a lot. Last Monday, I taped it as usual, but there was apparently some sort of power surge which made the cable go out, and so I only got the first 15 minutes of the show. The rest of the show is nothing but static. I really want to know what Lily decided to do about Jake and the restaurant. So, I got a card in the mail a few weeks ago telling me that my census form was on the way. A week later, I received the census, filled it out and sent it in the next day. A week after that, I got another card in the mail informing me that they’d sent my census form previously, and I really should fill it out. Now I’m being subjected left and right to fucking census commercials all over my TV. You know, if I’d realized how ANNOYING they were going to be, I’d have lined the litter box with it for a few months before filling it out. That’s what I get for being conscientious – harangued to do something I’ve already done. Where are my kudos, census people? The commercial that pisses me off the most is the one where the single mother has to take her kid to work with her at the restaurant, because she couldn’t get anyone to watch him – I haven’t memorized the story, either her babysitter crapped out on her, or the kid couldn’t go to daycare, something like that – and the implication is that things will IMPROVE for her once everyone fills out their census form and mails it back. Come closer, y’all, because I’m going to share a well-kept secret with you. Ready? Can ya stand the excitement? Here it is: your government doesn’t give a flying fuck about daycare for your kids. Not a single, solitary flying fuck. Things aren’t going to change for that single mother once her census form is filled out and mailed back, and she’ll probably be waitressing her fingers to the bone for the rest of her days, or until she finshes school in eight years – because surely she can only afford to attend school part-time, if that – and gets a halfway decent job in an office with a lecherous old asshole who subjects her to his ham-handed advances and talks about his "weenie" all the time. Of course, by then her kid will be old enough to be in school, so she’ll only have to put him in daycare for a few hours after school, and if she’s lucky his school will run an after-school program. Unfortunately, working with some asshole will horrify her so that surely she’ll have to turn to shots and then full glasses of bourbon to numb the horror, and she’ll die in a tragic car accident on her way home because she’s been nipping at the booze all day so she won’t have to think about the abhorrence that is her life. And her asshole boss at the restaurant who gave her such a hard time for bringing her kid in to work will shake his head and mutter something lame about how she was always such a hard worker. Just so you know. Did y’all see the new millionaire last night? I didn’t think for one minute that guy was going to go all the way. I thought he might, if he was lucky, get to $16,000, but all the way to a million? No way. It was kind of nice seeing a winner get that emotional about winning – I didn’t see the second winner, but the first one looked like he didn’t much care about winning. The guy last night was crying, though. It was cool. Almost made me glad Fred forced me to watch with him. Almost. So, my sister emailed me last night and made some corrections to my clothes-whitening formula. According to her, you can actually put your detergent in with the bleach and dishwasher soap. It doesn’t sound like she lets hers soak for an hour, either, since she said "Damn, it must take you hours to wash your whites!" A couple of people asked whether it has to be Cascade, or if another type of soap will do, and the answer is: I dunno. I emailed Deb and asked her, but she decided to be all selfish and GO TO WORK (where she has no internet access)(that bitch), so it’ll be this afternoon or tonight before I get an answer. Heather is going to try Electrasol and let me know how it goes, and I’ll pass it on to y’all. Anyone else got interesting cleaning/ housekeeping tips? Let me know! I’m all about the interesting tips. Okay, I’m done rambling. Y’all have a good weekend. I’ll see you Monday, if not before. —–]]>

bullets from Rita Moreno, I ducked out of work early yesterday and rescued the kitten. She was sleepy and in pain and couldn’t quite seem to get comfortable, but it appears she still loves me, since she followed me around all day and spent a great deal of time laying on me while she slept. She also spent the entire night stretched out next to me, and first thing this morning she came looking for her dose of love. It’s nice to have my baby back. I’ll shut up about her for a few days, now, since y’all have got to be sick of my yammering about her. Oh, except to mention that the boys were extremely freaked out and kept coming around to sniff her, except for Spot, who would hiss at her and run away. It was nice having half a day off yesterday; very relaxing. I was in a good mood all evening, until I had to yell at the spud to clean her bathroom and bedroom. I’ll have to take a picture of her room sometime when it’s at the height of messiness. The biggest problem is that she has so damn much stuff. I took her to Wal-Mart last weekend and bought a bunch of shorts, since it’s been warming up nicely (although it was cold and rainy both Saturday and Sunday), and she’s mostly grown out of her shorts from last summer. She also needed new socks and underwear, since she has a habit of getting dirt in her shoes on a regular basis, and since it’s red clay dirt, it never ever comes out. Not even with the extra-special clothes-whitening formula I learned from my sister. Listen up, ’cause it works like a dream (Deb, tell me if I’ve got any part of this wrong). You put your clothes in the washer, and then dump in a cup of bleach and a cup of cascade dishwasher soap, and fill the washer up with hot water and let it soak. I usually let everything soak for about an hour, ’cause I’m afraid that if I let it sit any longer, the bleach and soap will start eating holes in the clothes. Then you let it go through the rest of the cycle, and run everything through on a regular cycle again, with Tide (or whatever soap you use, obviously). It’s incredible how white everything gets – but it doesn’t work on red clay dirt. Well, didn’t I get off-track, there. So when we got back from Wal-Mart, I told the spud to get all her clothes out of her dresser and closet, and put them on her bed, and we’d go through them. It took a good hour to go through everything, and when we were done, we had TWO garbage bags full of clothes that were too small for her, or which she didn’t care for. Two BIG garbage bags, can you believe that? And there’s tons left over. Speaking of Wal-Mart, while the spud and I were wandering around searching for the magic spot where they might have stashed the plain cotton shorts, we happened upon the "White Trash" section. My god, people, it was all horrid little babydoll dresses and ribbed halter tops and really short-shorts – I’m talking shorts so short you could wear them to the gynecologist’s and not need to take them off. I was horrified, and so was the spud. She picked a short, filmy, see-through halter dress off the rack and held it up, made a face, and put it back. I mean, I’m no, uh, person who dresses all classy – Audrey Hepburn! – and t-shirts and cotton pants make up the bulk of my wardrobe, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in any of that stuff, even if I had the body for it. On the other hand, I was shopping in Wal-Mart, wasn’t I? What’d I expect, diamonds and furs? —–]]>

really missed my morning cuddles. I know she’ll probably sleep all day, but I’ll be glad to have her back home again. I’ve watched the last three episodes of The Sopranos (god, I love that James Gandolfini!), and I’m finding that I really like it. Yes, I know that everyone has been raving about it for the last year and a half. This is not the first show I’ve stumbled across after everyone else has raved about it for ages, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.

So Sunday night I was waiting for it to come on, and Fred said "Does someone die in this show every week?" Naturally, my response was, "It’s the mafia, babe, what do you expect?" "Oh, yeah." As we were watching the show, Fred – who was only partly paying attention – said "He (Tony Soprano) has a girlfriend?" So what did I say? You got it: "He’s in the mafia, babe. All those mafia guys have girlfriends!" I’m sure if Fred had said "They use Quilted Northern?" my response would have been "Of course they do, they like soft toilet paper. It’s the mafia, babe!" (Personally, we use Scott Tissue. It’s not the softest, but it lasts forever) (Interesting note: I found this link while was searching for a Quilted Northern link.) Okay, I’m outta here. I get to go get my baby in less than half an hour! Y’all take care. Side note #2: Rita Moreno just walked past our front door, stopped, turned around, stared at our front door, and then walked back in the direction from whence she came, all the while staring at our front door. What’s up with that? Are the dopplegangers for all B-list Hollywood stars converging on Huntsville today? There she goes again, all trying to be subtle in her visor, long black velour top, black leggings, and 30 gold chains. Maybe she’s a contract killer for the mafia, and she thinks I know too much about the inner workings of the mob! She’s here to kill me! I’m going to go duck out while the coast is clear. Everyone else can fend for themselves. —–]]>

away from her, you little bastard!") and then she hopped off to watch the birds flying by the window. This isn’t the first time one of the boys has tried to get some hot kitty love – one night a few weeks ago, I heard a bitchy meow from Spanky and turned to see him nipping at the back of the kitten’s neck, trying to get her to stay in one place while he straddled her. I didn’t think cats did such things once they were fixed. Did y’all see Dateline NBC last night? They were talking about "hidden prejudices", and a "Race Implicit Association Test" developed by researchers at Yale and the University of Michigan. Fred took the test last night, and was informed that his data suggest a strong automatic preference for white. This morning I took the same test, and to my surprise got the same result. I was unhappy, I was confused, and then I stopped and thought about it for a minute. Of course I’m going to have a strong automatic preference for whites. I’m white. To put it bluntly, how am I supposed to identify with a black man when I’m a white woman? It’s a given, isn’t it? I told Fred in bed last night that the more interesting question is, Which of your attributes is more important in your self-identification – male, or white? His knee-jerk reaction was male, but when I asked him who he identified with more, Jane Pauley or Bryant Gumbel, he discovered otherwise. On the other hand, when I asked myself whether I identified more with Stone Phillips or Oprah Winfrey, the answer was Oprah Winfrey. But I identify even more with Jane Pauley. What can you expect? I grew up in a solidly middle-class, very white, neighborhood in Maine. I’m going to show a preference for women; I am a woman first and foremost. I’m going to show a preference for white women, because I am a white woman. I am going to show a very, very big preference for white middle-class women in their late twenties and early thirties. Of course I am; it’s what I know; it’s what I understand and identify with. That is where my comfort level is, and why do I need to feel bad about it? I’m having a hard time writing this. I’m afraid y’all will read this and see it as a very lame attempt to justify racism in this country and in my family. Your opinions do matter to me, and I don’t want to offend anyone. But that said, I have to be honest. Strange black men scare me. I would be terrified to be walking down the street at night and have a black man begin to follow me. On the other hand, I would be just as terrified to have a white man following me. I’ve heard, read, and experienced too much about the random violence of men to feel safe with men I do not know. It’s the unknown, I guess, that makes me uncomfortable. I’ve never been around a lot of black people, and thus I’m not at ease when I am. The spud, however, has three best friends; one is black, one is white, and one is guatamalan. And the spud is far more comfortable around people of diverse nationalities than I could ever hope to be. I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how to change my attitude, how to make it so that I’m as comfortable around people of other races and nationalities as I am around whites. I don’t know if that’s a possibility, and I don’t know that I want to change my attitude. At least part of my fear of men, black, white or other, is simple self-preservation. Isn’t it? Or am I trying to justify my actions? I can say that I don’t avoid black men or women in situations where I feel safe – in stores or restaurants. But neither do I seek them out. I would never be rude to someone due to their race, nor would I deny someone a chance at a job or housing based on the color of their skin. I feel like this whole entry is a mishmash of senseless yammering, and I don’t feel I made the points I meant to, but I’m giving up for the time being. Y’all have a nice evening. —–]]>