Not Anonymous

I still haven't gotten the hang of the fact that I am working full time.

All the time I once had for writing here, I now tweet, because I don't have access to DW/LJ at work.

However, because I now work in an office space, I actually have a funny anecdote to share!

As those of you who follow my twitter know, The Company is an Evil Corporation, but my Boss is a lovely person and we get along pretty well for people who only met a month and a half ago.

I work in metadata and content editing for online videos, I'm basically the drudge worker of the IT world. But it does make for very interesting conversation - because we're a team of six people and each of us works on different topics, we often ask each other for advice about how to tag a video.

Today a conversation went something like this:

Colleague: "Mel, what do you call auto-erotic asphyxiation when someone else does it you?"
Yours Truly: "Erotic asphyxiation"
Colleague: *frowning* "Are you sure?"
Yours Truly: "Yes, K, I'm sure."
Boss: "I don't even want to know how you know that"
Your Truly: *grin* "Better not ask then"

And that is some of the stuff we get up to in the office.

I'm very happy to tell you that the sexual harassment law hangs for all to see in the kitchen and that the uber-competent office manager is the ombudsman - that is, she's the one we go to should anyone feel therer is a need to report a case of inter-office sexual harassment.

I'm enjoying the job. Even if it sucks the life out of me!

My uterus is trying to claw its way out of my body and these past few weeks have been no good, bad, horrible.

I think I'm warranted chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate milk this evening before I go off to make myself a proper supper.

I'm not feeling overwhelmed like I did before. I paid my first utility bill and am feeling mighty grown up, although I think I passes a level when it comes to adulthood regarding what I had to do yesterday.

You'll need a bit of back story and a strong stomach for this story is about plumbing and how it can sometimes become your life.

I'm recounting this, because suffering should be shared and not wallowed.

Some of you may recall the drama of my apartment.

I mentioned two weeks ago, or thereabouts, that the toilets in my flat were leaking and that the washing machine broke by deciding to leak and be an electrical hazard and whatnot.

Well the plumber came and did what plumbers do to fix leaks of this kind... He stuck some silicone goo stuff around the pipes, bid me farewell and left. I, being a first time tenant and overall helpless young bachelor(ette) called my land lady and informed her of the goings on. She said "fine, I'm covering the plumbing issues" and we say goodbye.

The washing machine repair man came, gave me a very expensive diagnosis (we need our washing machine!) and I called the landlady again, to tell her about this and the cost.

The woman blew up on me and flaked on me, telling me that I was inconsiderate and that I and [Sexy!Roommate] have done nothing but complain and did she not put in bay window for us on her own dime and I was utterly flabbergasted.

She told me to get the machine fixed, but it was at our own expense.

I spoke to people afterwards, people being my roommate and my sister who is a lawyer... yeah.

The washing machine was fixed and the guy said to let it run empty to make sure it works.

By this point I was a little rattled and had ranted and wailed to people. It all came to a head when I heard some rustle come from the service balcony. The rustle, as you may have guessed, was a flood of water from the washing machine.

I very bravely didn't cry.

I called the guy again and he returned to fix something he should have tightened before hand. I hope I never have to call a repair man, but if I ever do, I am never calling him again.

The man left and you'll be happy to know I've used the washing machine since then without incident, it's quite nice to have something that was supposed to work... actually work

It was after that, that I thought I could relax and actually use a non-leaky toilet without having to squeegee the floor. Well, nature called and wouldn't you know, the toilet didn't leak, because it was blocked. The water wouldn't go down and the water actually burst through the drainage pipe that is situated, you guessed it, on the service balcony.

At this point, I just wanted my fucking floor to be dry!

Cue the plumber again and me being very harried indeed.

The plumber said I looked like I'd been traumatised. Well, when you've had things go very wrong, very badly, very quickly one tends to get harried.

Once the asshole was done and took what was left of my cash he said to me, in that patronising way men of a certain age speak to women my age, "You know there are bigger problems in the world."

To which I replied before shutting the door in his face: "Yes, but these are mine".

And so, my landlady calls me not long after to inform me that [Sexy!Roommate] and I are no longer allowed to throw toilet paper into the toilet. Because this is what caused the blockage.

My roommate and I were utterly disbelieving, because what? We can't use the toilet the way man and woman intended? Seriously? And so we said "okay" and continued to use the facilities like civilised human beings.

Yesterday morning, nature called as it want to do. The water wouldn't go down. "Motherfuck" is what I said, quite succinct if I do say so myself. Being much poorer than I was and greatly reluctant to call a plumber and/or the landlady, I put on my big girl pants, rubber gloves and said to myself "Mel, you've changed the nappies of toddlers with diarrhoea. This is a piece of cake."

And indeed, toilet paper was the culprit.

I fucking hate this fucking flat.

Being independent is grand, I'm happy to be living on my own with a roommate. I'd be happier if this apartment actually behaved the way it is supposed to and would stop being such a menace to my health. Mental or otherwise.

But hey, at least I have cooking gas! It's supper time!

An anecdote, regarding how one shouldn't have supper, if you please.

Last night, after a long day at Uni and Work, I came home, showered and was picked up by a friend in order to spend time with my, um, posse, I guess.

They'd been meeting the past few weeks to (re-)watch Battle Star Galactica and I'd decided to join them yesterday evening.

As is common when all of us meet up, we all decide to order take out. This time, we ordered from a burger place called Moses. I've been told it's a good place. I wouldn't know as the only things I eat that used to be alive are fish and sea food.
They have a veggiburger, called "Missouri" which on paper looked decent enough, though the only really good veggiburger I ever had was about three years ago from a burger place called Black - they call their veggiburger "Bridget Bardot". I like that.

Any way, the food was ordered.

I'd had no idea the burger I ordered was a "health" sandwich.

Woe was I.

The bun was not a nice fluffy white bread bun, oh no, it was a brown whole wheat (which can be nice, damnit!) bun. When I bit into the burger I couldn't tell the difference between the burger and the bread. They were the same colour and texture. Yes, really. I added some mayo and tomato sauce and took a bit sans bun (it was gross) and while there was a slight improvement, it was still not edible enough.

I grumbled. There was much bitterness.

One of my meat eating friends took a bite and said "I really can't taste any difference between this and the cardboard it came in".

I ate the chips and some of the mashed potatoes that someone else had ordered. There was also chocolate cake, which should have cheered me up, but merely mocked me. Yes, the chocolate mocked me, I kid you not.

I declared "we are no longer ordering from "Moses" or indeed any other burger place when I with you!"

They grumbled, but said "fine".

Thus my rights as a minority prevailed.

We also renamed that burger "Misery".
We are a punny bunch.

I had to get up obscenely early this morning, because I had a class at 8:30 (yay! no more waking up at 6 am in order to catch the train!).

Opposite me in the booth, a really pretty girl (as in young woman, my age-ish, probably a little younger) began to put on her face.
When I say "face", I mean it.

The art of putting on make up is one I'd never really mastered, I'm lucky if I remember to pluck and tidy up my curly eye brows. But watching her, I was so impressed by the whole process of it.

She started with blush. Compared to me, she had a dark completion, and from a pretty cocoa it suddenly became bronze. I had my sunglasses on, so she couldn't see me watch her, but I couldn't stop looking.

It was simply a gorgeous process to behold.

After she finished with the blush, she took out silvery-white eye-shadow, her big brown eyes suddenly looked huge and watery. As though they were shining from the inside. She took out her mascara and her lashes framed her eye, her eye lids looked like a flower petals.

She finished off by adding just a touch of red, cherry chap-stick, to her lips, creating a dark contra to the sparkle of her eyes.

She fluffed her hair and was about to pick up the news paper when I removed my glasses and looked straight at her;
"Before you start reading, I just wanted to say that you're really beautiful and the whole process you did was gorgeous as well. I know this sounds weird, but I just had to tell you" I said.

She looked shocked for a moment (well, strangers on a train aren't supposed to talk about your make-up!), but then she grinned at me, her mouth stretching, her eyes crinkled and she said though her huge smile: "Thank you so much".

Two people had a good start to the day.

I just thought I'd share and tell this, because it's so rare that we acknowledge all the hard work we put into being in public, showing a face to the world. Make-up or not, it's worth noting and talking about.

Due to Torchwood and the discussion regarding Homophobia that spread over fandom on-line, I've mentioned a few times the term "casual homophobia", I got a mentioning of the phenomenon as well.

Seeing as I had a brush with it yesterday and it being in the forefront of my mind, I thought I'd share the anecdote with you my dear readers and hear what y'all had to say about it.

Yesterday I went to visit my friend N, who has been ill lately and her Boyfriend was there, taking care of her, making lunch, etc.

He hung out in the living room and we hung out in her bedroom.

She'd been telling me about this guy for a month now and I was looking forward to meeting him as she hasn't sounded this enthusiastic about a boy in a while.

Anyway as we sat in her room she we chatted and she said that he's one of the most open minded people she'd ever met. Like myself, queer or not, the majority of my friends are what can be commonly called "Outsiders".
So him being an Outsider and open-minded (things that are not mutually exclusive mind you) sounded like a good deal to me.

He made chicken soup for N and himself, fried some rice for me, sans chicken to cater to my vegetarian self, the small talk was flowing and very comfortable, he asked me what I do (student of Lit and, Gender and Women' Studies, which he asked about and seemed to grasp very quickly and didn't make any jokes about "Men's Studies" which was refreshing as well) he didn't bat an eyelash when I mentioned [Southern!Girl].
All very charming and domestic.
It was fun.

Eventually due to her being quite sickly (poor thing!) N fell asleep and I was getting ready to go, seeing as she had fallen asleep and her boy needed to study.
As I was gathering my stuff, her boy asked, casually, "Are you a Lesbian?"

You know how you automatically stiffen and you feel your tummy drop a bit when you perceive a threat? My body did that, but just as quickly I relaxed again, because I'd been hanging out with his nice guy for over an hour and replied, just as casually, "No, I'm Bi, I just seem Gay" and we had a chuckle.

Now I cannot give you a word for word record of the conversation that went down, because it was quite long and eventually went in circles.

It turns out this boy has never met a gay man that he got along with. They are all aggressive, provocative and if they wouldn't be shoving their identity in his face if they were so Proud of it.

Oy oy oy.
I say again, oy oy oy.

So much to unpack and break down, so little time.

The discussion as to why what he said was homophobic and why I am using such a "strong term" like homophobia went on for a good 40 minutes.
It was civil.
I kept my cool despite wanting to tear my (his) hair out.

N eventually woke up and came out of her bedroom and was happy to hear us talking and getting along. Her boy sarcastically said, "We were just discussing the weather".
Which made us all chuckle.
N said she's always happy when her friends get along, to which a tsk and she replied: "Well you get along with everyone".
And I do, much to my dismay at times.

I'm not afraid of confrontation as 40 minutes of "civil discussion" should indicate. But unlike with my family (and very-very close chosen-family-type-friends) who I believe should know better than to say certain things, I find myself infinitely fucking patient with strangers when it comes to difference in opinion that have political ramifications in real life.

The thing is, nothing he was saying was hateful. He wasn't saying that gay men were perverted, disgusting, that they need to be "fixed" or have violence committed upon them for being who they are.
What he was saying that the queer was putting a cramp on his default identity, which fully admitted to having when I explained to him what I meant by "default identity".

It's casual and no real harm is meant by it, but it's endemic and it hurts and makes seemingly safe spaces appear unsafe.

He's a very charming nice guy and he treats N well and they seem very happy together which makes me very happy for her.
I think I'll just be asking him if he's managed to rise above his straightness and find any gays with whom he's gotten along with.

I'd like to add that this is not an invitation for people to bash the people I've (anonymously) mentioned in this post. As usual any comment in welcome, anonymous ones are always automatically screened.

Matzah and Humous... best. Combo. Ever.

Every year I forget how much fun it is to eat gooey things on the crunchiness of Matzah. Luckily, it's only for a week.

Tuesday night [Southern!Girl] arrived to spend the "Holy" days with me (and my entire family); thinking about it now, I'm not sure how she didn't explode/implode of the stress - well, she was tense, but we very happily worked on that...

The actual day of the Seder - Erev Pesach (Passover Eve, I guess) - Mummy sent [Southern!Girl] and I to buy some last minute things before all the stores closed early for the holiday and wouldn't actually open again until Friday. It was really fun just going for a walk, talking and spending quality time with her, as usual.

My sister and her family (the Jerusalem contingent) came down for the majority of the week and it was seriously fun to hang out with everyone despite the pre-Seder craziness.
( Cut for Length )

Tradition is a funny thing in my family, we're very irreligious on the whole, and I think it is beginning to slip away from us as I've never heard any of the kids mention "God" except in the mythological sense, so I think the older members of my family (i.e. everyone but me and my nevvies) have a great stake at keeping tradition as close to their own childhood memories.

For myself, I wouldn't mind to see some acknowledgement that things aren't the same and that they are dynamic and changing and that we really don't need to keep the Hagadah and whole Seder patriarchal parochial dated traditional.

[Southern!Girl] stayed until Friday morning and it was Good.

We will meet up again over the week.
So far, it's been a very good one.

A question for discussion if you please, what do you think of tradition?

I don't understand the concept of political correctness.

I understand the concept of non-prejudicial language.

I understand the concept of respecting other people.

I don't understand why people don't get either of those two concepts and accuse me of being "Politically Correct" as though I'm trying to censor what they say and what they think.

Is it seriously so difficult for people not to say something that is offensive to another person?

And in any event, why is it called Political Correctness when in reality it is basic politeness?

There seems to be this notion that people, as a general rule, do in fact spout whatever they like and are completely filter-less when it comes to language.

My mother, who is a teacher, threw a kid out of her class the other day because he said that there was an "Arab Smell" in the classroom.
I mean, for fuck's sake.
Would you say that my mother was wrong for punishing a child for saying something like that?
And if he had said there was a "Fucking Smell"? (which could happen, Mummy teaches English the language to 14-15 year old kids).
She's probably throw the kid out all the same.
Disrespectful language in a public forum.

Is what she did censorship?

Well you could say that in the hierarchical set-up of a school, the kids really do have no say when it comes to freedom of speech and all that.
So yeah, that's my mother's prerogative to discipline the class room.

But when you're talking with people in the aforementioned public forum.
How does that work then?
I don't really have the prerogative of discipline the masses.
I do think it is everyone's duty, as social people, to be aware of the effect and affect of language on other people's lives.

Is that difficult?

I know that in Israel it is, there is a culture of "telling it straight", "what you see is what you get" and very frank discussion on race (and in some circles sex of various kinds).
The other day I was at my regular falafel place which is run by a family of Mizrahi Jews (specifically of Yemeni heritage) and I was saying that I love the spices they've added to the falafel and [Proprietor] smiled at me and said "Thanks, most people from Africa like the hot stuff".
I laughed because he knows my family is South African and I said "Yeah, well you wouldn't know with the way my family eats... they don't all go for the hot stuff... You know us Europeans"
"Yeah, well you don't count you were born here"
"I guess so" I replied.
"Where's your family originally from?" he asked.
I said we were Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, generic Eastern-European.
And he said "Yeah, I though you guys were Russian when I first met you".

Only in Israel.

Oy my point drifted away.
Ah yes.
Language.
And how Political Correctness is a myth.
You're either respectful (which isn't synonymous with polite) or you're not.
As a general rule we don't say everything we think right at that moment, it goes through a filter and is arranged to make sense in our mouths, or on a page, or on a website.

As a result, if someone accuses you of "Political Correctness" ask them if they find it difficult to not say "You mouther-fucking bitch cunt!"?.
When you could have easily said "You fucking moron!".
If you're going to insult my intellect, don't make it about my "female brain".
Seems harsh, don't it?

Objectivism is the epistemological equivalent of "My eyes are closed you can't see me because I can't see you".
But I digress.

I went to the Randroid fan club on Wedensday night with the expectation that I'd be amused.
I wasn't.
I felt sorry for the guy (to be known from now on as [Ranroid!Boy]) who decided to open this "philosophical discussion club" and was didactidly lecturing (much like Rand did in her books) on the basics of Objectivist thought.
I found myself both bored and irritated when my attmpts at explaining the Linguistic Turn didn't go so well... or at all. [Randroid!Boy] was ignoring my terrible "relativist" ways.

The guy was insidiously benign. He told us he discovered Rand in his twenties! He must live a really sheltered life.
Nothing he was saying could actually be pin pointedly seen as bad.
He spoke about the "tennents of Objectivism", the whole man as a heroic figure and the not living for anyone else or asking anyone to live for me.
But rand didn't invent that, nor did she perfect anything, she merely made fascist aesthetics into uber-individualism and too the idea of Nietzsche's Übermensch and positioned it into her economic ideal of Capitalism.
Never mind that Randroids ignore the fact that there are life circumstances that create different life experiences and that you cannot remove them from your own identity.

[Randroid!Boy] didn't get into the supremacy idea, something that many Objectivists seem to forget. The belief that if I just do whatever is good for Me and that that is the best thing completley negates the liberty of other people.
It doesn't matter that you say "everyone else is free to do the same".
Because we are social animals, no matter how terribly we treat each other, there is a need for relationships and inter-relation.

The most ridiculous thing that was mentioned in this little fan club meeting: someone (not me) tried to make a point that not everyone is in a position to think about free will (which is imperative in Randian thought and probably the biggest hole in what is already a swiss cheese system of philosophy) and are able to only think about survival, like a starving child in Africa (actual example used, by the way... not say... a starving child in Gaza... we like to keep things academic). [Randroid!Boy] used that as an example to "prove" the argument as selfishness as an ideal, one does everything to save themselves first.
What?!
I was shocked.
I shouldn't have been.
But c'mon!
There are forces that create circumstances that lead to that child's starvation people!
What the hell is wrong with these people?!

Two actually funny things that kind of disproved [Randroid!Boy]'s entire standing of living an Objectivist life were these:
1) He asked peope not to be late.
Zing! You lose... how dare you impose your own time table on others! What, you expect them to do something for you!
2) He took into account people's abilities.
Zing! You lose again... what abilities are these? You are either a hero or you aren't. If you aren't you're not a human and are of no consequence, etc. etc. etc.
Logical Fallacy!
Error!
Error!
Arrrgh!

Anyway, I'll not be going back, of course. There were only 15 or so people and I know of one other person who will not be going back... hopefully this little club will wallow and die.

---

Oh artists and graphically astute people: would one of you be kind and generous enough to take the philosophical thought written below and icon-ise it with a an actual "Calvin and Hobbes" cartoon?

Calvinian-Hobbesianism: A relationship that is based on the knowledge that reality is a direct product of interaction with imagination.

Thank you in advance!

I come from a family of such weirdos.

A paranoid argument about Chinses economic domination, as though it would have any effect on our culture other than consumption.

The words "Occidental" and "Domination" came up a few times.

Double standard much.

To me it's just proof at the invidiousness of Capitalism and White-Supremacy.

And to think that just a few decades ago this same Occidental culture tried to exterminate us.

How fickle we are.