Two things that frustrate me...
Sep. 27th, 2008 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragojustineSo the toilet here has been in only questionably working order for awhile now, and I have been walking one row over to use the public toilet. Which is actually just fine- it's spacious and clean and well lit and the walk is only two minutes and pleasant and gives me time to get up and stretch my legs and think.
Except there is a man who lives halfway down that walk, who is ALWAYS (at EVERY hour of the day or night- it's completely unpredictable, or I would avoid him) sitting out on his lawn char/porch swing thing. And he insists on waving and trying to talk to me every time, and if I don't immediately grin and say hi to him and how nice it is to see him, he says, "Look over here, girl!" or, "It's okay to say hi, you know!" or "Be neighborly, pretty lady!" or- and this one is the MOST COMMON- "Go ahead, smile!"
I think next time I walk by I will gouge his heart out with a rusty ice cream scoop.
You know, I've often talked to people from the South who have moved away and talk wistfully about how nice and friendly and polite and neighborly everyone is there, and how rude everyone is on the coasts. And since I have moved to Texas, one thing has become abundantly clear, in a thousand (some much less sexism-oriented) ways: I HATE the construction of Southern politeness and niceness and neighborliness. Hate it with the blazing fire of a thousand suns.
I would so much rather not feel obligated to be over-demonstrative, not have to feel bad for not automatically wanting much to do with my neighbors, not feel a little guilty whenever I'm not nice enough. I would much rather live somewhere where I could cheerfully tell Smile Guy to fuck right the hell off, and this would be a little abrasive but sort of expected and he would shut up. Instead, because of all these cultural constructions, it would be the Neighborhood Fight of the Century, and I would be pretty much the biggest bitch in all of history, and he would probably make some kind of huge deal of it and make my life unpleasant.
I am expected to like the fact that random people I don't know knock on my door or stop me in the street to chat. I don't. I hate it. I am supposed to like the fact that the aunt I barely know coos over me and gushes and talks on and on about how much she wants to see me and loves having me living close... even though she doesn't actually like me much. I would so much rather know exactly where I stand with everybody, and be as rude as I feel like and know that it's no particularly big deal, and have people tell me exactly what they think without censoring. I would much rather know that I am nice to people and they are nice to me because we like each other and are actual friends, not because of this crippling, stifling social construction of polite. I HATE the way this social construction is all tied into gender and sexism and femininity and "nice" and GOD. I HATE the way southern women can say something sweet-sounding and actually mean "Eat shit and die, bitch."
Hello, I am an INTJ, and I just want people to do three things: make rational sense, say what they mean, and leave me alone.
Oh God, I'm a horrible person.
Uh, the other thing was going to be a little essay on McCain's "Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between strategy and tactics," and what the difference is between strategy and tactics, and how McCain doesn't actually seem to be able to tell them apart, and how Obama's calm insistence on the Surge as a tactic in service of strategic priorities he thinks need to be re-examined in the face of McCain's repeated squawking of "The Surge is a strategy and it worked!" is basically everything I need to know about their relative critical-thinking capacities and which one I want as president.
Except I think everyone on my flist both 1. understands the concepts involved and 2. agrees with me. So, hell with that. Instead, have linkage:
A fascinating description of the bailout negotiations, if you like the sausage-making perspective (Washington Post)
A good article on "strategy and tactics" as it relates to campaign style (The Atlantic)
Except there is a man who lives halfway down that walk, who is ALWAYS (at EVERY hour of the day or night- it's completely unpredictable, or I would avoid him) sitting out on his lawn char/porch swing thing. And he insists on waving and trying to talk to me every time, and if I don't immediately grin and say hi to him and how nice it is to see him, he says, "Look over here, girl!" or, "It's okay to say hi, you know!" or "Be neighborly, pretty lady!" or- and this one is the MOST COMMON- "Go ahead, smile!"
I think next time I walk by I will gouge his heart out with a rusty ice cream scoop.
You know, I've often talked to people from the South who have moved away and talk wistfully about how nice and friendly and polite and neighborly everyone is there, and how rude everyone is on the coasts. And since I have moved to Texas, one thing has become abundantly clear, in a thousand (some much less sexism-oriented) ways: I HATE the construction of Southern politeness and niceness and neighborliness. Hate it with the blazing fire of a thousand suns.
I would so much rather not feel obligated to be over-demonstrative, not have to feel bad for not automatically wanting much to do with my neighbors, not feel a little guilty whenever I'm not nice enough. I would much rather live somewhere where I could cheerfully tell Smile Guy to fuck right the hell off, and this would be a little abrasive but sort of expected and he would shut up. Instead, because of all these cultural constructions, it would be the Neighborhood Fight of the Century, and I would be pretty much the biggest bitch in all of history, and he would probably make some kind of huge deal of it and make my life unpleasant.
I am expected to like the fact that random people I don't know knock on my door or stop me in the street to chat. I don't. I hate it. I am supposed to like the fact that the aunt I barely know coos over me and gushes and talks on and on about how much she wants to see me and loves having me living close... even though she doesn't actually like me much. I would so much rather know exactly where I stand with everybody, and be as rude as I feel like and know that it's no particularly big deal, and have people tell me exactly what they think without censoring. I would much rather know that I am nice to people and they are nice to me because we like each other and are actual friends, not because of this crippling, stifling social construction of polite. I HATE the way this social construction is all tied into gender and sexism and femininity and "nice" and GOD. I HATE the way southern women can say something sweet-sounding and actually mean "Eat shit and die, bitch."
Hello, I am an INTJ, and I just want people to do three things: make rational sense, say what they mean, and leave me alone.
Oh God, I'm a horrible person.
Uh, the other thing was going to be a little essay on McCain's "Senator Obama doesn't understand the difference between strategy and tactics," and what the difference is between strategy and tactics, and how McCain doesn't actually seem to be able to tell them apart, and how Obama's calm insistence on the Surge as a tactic in service of strategic priorities he thinks need to be re-examined in the face of McCain's repeated squawking of "The Surge is a strategy and it worked!" is basically everything I need to know about their relative critical-thinking capacities and which one I want as president.
Except I think everyone on my flist both 1. understands the concepts involved and 2. agrees with me. So, hell with that. Instead, have linkage:
A fascinating description of the bailout negotiations, if you like the sausage-making perspective (Washington Post)
A good article on "strategy and tactics" as it relates to campaign style (The Atlantic)