I have a fair amount of racists, or, well shadists or ethnocentrists in my extended family. Not so much with the immediate. There's no chance of me changing it, because they're entirely self-aware, and it's a conscious decision they're perfectly happy with. I mean, when someone says "I hate the Nigerians. They're the only black people that sincerely believe they're better than Jamaicans." what the hell can I do?

I do try and point out the hypocrisy and possible irony at every turn, but get told to fuck off in response pretty much all the time.

Ah, well, so be it.

What we had thought was sexism on my father's part turned out to be a demonstration of him believing he was better than everyone. He wasn't better than women because he was a man, just because he was him. He's also better than all men minus one.

Oh, okay. It's pretty hard to argue someone out of that point of view.

Do you have my new address?

Nope! That was going to be my next question.

You know what's a really good way to feel like a failure as a home owner? Trying to turn back on the sprinklers and failing because you can't get the #%*^ box that houses the controls open. I even went out there with tools and took it off the wall of the house, and it's still stuck shut.

The day we moved into our house, we locked ourselves out in the first 15 minutes. mr. flea had to jimmy open a back window and climb in. Then we lost the cat. Shit happens.

My family does ok on race (well, except Great-grandpa, but he's a) 90 and b) an asshole anyway.) Class, on the other hand, is our downfall. I am sure my mother would have been chuffed if I'd married the young Barack Obama, but she was a bit suspicious about my (then) boyfriend who was a graduate student in engineering and had merely middle-middle class accountants for parents.

I saw this article and thought of Hecubus: [link] At least he hasn't taken it to this extreme... yet.

I don't think my parents would make any excuses or be particularly polite if I got involved with someone who wasn't intellectually capable of an undergrad degree. I don't think, after all this time, they'd judge if someone didn't have one, but they'd have to be bright enough and "together" enough to be able to, if they'd wanted to.

Oh, they'd judge.

I'm pretty sure the only reason they don't judge me for just having one degree is because I patently understand a bunch of shit they will never wrap their heads around, like, say, hard sciences, and some mathematical fundamentals.

Shit happens.

Yep. I still need to figure out how to get the fricking box open though.

It used to open, so I know it can.

Is the box plugged in?

(It's all I got.)

I don't know what my Mom's address was in 1940, but I know my current house was on the census, so I looked up the people living there . I shall have to tell my roommate Rosemary they were Irish! (Not a big surprise in the Boston area.)

OMG, I feel like I have done everything. Choir, walked home, sat a bit, then went and returned a dress, went to the bank, went to Marshall's and bought a mini cupcake pan, and bought a blouse (in the millionth store I went to). Also walked through everyone from the anime convention -- it must have been break time exactly when I walked into the mall. I started to feel like I was the odd one, with my brown hair, beige skin, jeans, and no weapons of any kind! Good times.

My home town was a "sundown town" in the 60s (residents were proud that no black person had ever been in the city limits past sundown). My dad was in charge of handlng dorm assignments for the local college. African Americans' dorm applications somehow never made it to the top before all the rooms were assigned--Dad called "bullshit." He assigned a dorm room to a couple of black men who were veterans because he figured there might be crap they'd have to deal with that he couldn't intercept. I don't know if there were problems, but the men stayed through the semester at least, and after that it wasn't a sundown town any more.

I'm sure the students did the heavy lifting that year, but Dad played a part, too. And I'm kinda proud of him for that.