Mollie Sugden, famed for her portrayal as the daft Mrs. Slocombe in the Britcom Are You Being Served? has died at age 86.
Of course she starred in other things such as Cornation Street, but the only thing I remember her from is Are you Being Served. I loved her character as well as Mr. Humphries. That show made me laugh out loud.
nothing. It’s not raining so there’s no singing happening here. It is, however, murder and mayhem night on A&E so I’m watching The First 48 as I type.
The aquarium is now in it’s new home at Bran’s GF’s house. We’ve been keeping fish since 2001, but Bran found that he no longer had the energy for that activity. GF wanted it so it quickly found a new home. Next is to find a new home for the rattan hanging egg chair and its frame. It’s a lovely chair but we don’t have the space for it anymore. Even when we had it out in the living room I didn’t sit in it. No one really did so it’s time it had a new home.
I’m not at work today. It’s the first Tuesday I’ve had off for several weeks. This weekend is the first since the beginning of June that I’ve not had to work. On Saturday I’ll be dying Gf’s hair. She has 3 different colours, aqua, blue and purple, for me to play with. It’s going to be fun.
I’ve been beading again. I’m using green now. Then I have to find some yellow beads, and from the look of things, brown, unless Bran is happy with the colours I’ve used.
I spent last night and a good part of this morning hunting up new themes for my blog. Of the GAZILLION! I downloaded to my computer then unzipped and uploaded to my site, only three! 3! were tolerable/appropriate and/or fit what I wanted. Those were the ones that didn’t require a password to unzip parts of them. What’s up with that? Is it a way of blackmailing people into paying for what was advertised as free? Nertz!
I’m at work. There are two people in right now. I’m cooking lunch. The lunch food should feed 10 or more people. Needless to say there will be only me and one, maybe another person for lunch. Perhaps a couple of ex residents who will be coming here for a ride to a Summer Feast at an Elder’s place out of town.
I drove myself to work today (as some may have seen in the twitter feed if you follow Bran (and you should). He was up through the night on Thursday being unwell and wasn’t much better this morning with a headache added onto his tummy troubles. I did have some problem with the car key not wanting to turn, but apparently that’s an issue with the steering wheel. Once I got it turned a bit the car started with no problem and I torqued off to work. Of course, being an older Volvo the car doesn’t have cup holders so Bran and Boy are bringing me coffee shortly.
So, what do you think of the new template? I rather like the cool green colour and the dream catchers. Of course, it’s also one of the few that fit and worked, so beggars can’t be choosers.
That’s it for now. I don’t imagine much is going to happen this afternoon other than me doing building checks, Bodie (the Sun Conure ) squawking because there’s no one around and then me making supper for perhaps one or two people. Such excitement
Here’s the original Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack by Peggy McIntosh. Some more food for deep thought:
White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack
Peggy McIntosh
“I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group”
Through work to bring materials from women’s studies into the rest of the curriculum, I have often noticed men’s unwillingness to grant that they are overprivileged, even though they may grant that women are disadvantaged. They may say they will work to women’s statues, in the society, the university, or the curriculum, but they can’t or won’t support the idea of lessening men’s. Denials that amount to taboos surround the subject of advantages that men gain from women’s disadvantages. These denials protect male privilege from being fully acknowledged, lessened, or ended.
Thinking through unacknowledged male privilege as a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there are most likely a phenomenon, I realized that, since hierarchies in our society are interlocking, there was most likely a phenomenon of while privilege that was similarly denied and protected. As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
I think whites are carefully taught not to recognize white privilege, as males are taught not to recognize male privilege. So I have begun in an untutored way to ask what it is like to have white privilege. I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was “meant” to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools , and blank checks.
Describing white privilege makes one newly accountable. As we in women’s studies work to reveal male privilege and ask men to give up some of their power, so one who writes about having white privilege must ask, “having described it, what will I do to lessen or end it?”
After I realized the extent to which men work from a base of unacknowledged privilege, I understood that much of their oppressiveness was unconscious. Then I remembered the frequent charges from women of color that white women whom they encounter are oppressive. I began to understand why we are just seen as oppressive, even when we don’t see ourselves that way. I began to count the ways in which I enjoy unearned skin privilege and have been conditioned into oblivion about its existence.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person, or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed the pattern my colleague Elizabeth Minnich has pointed out: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow “them” to be more like “us.”
Daily effects of white privilege
I decided to try to work on myself at least by identifying some of the daily effects of white privilege in my life. I have chosen those conditions that I think in my case attach somewhat more to skin-color privilege than to class, religion, ethnic status, or geographic location, though of course all these other factors are intricately intertwined. As far as I can tell, my African American coworkers, friends, and acquaintances with whom I come into daily or frequent contact in this particular time, place and time of work cannot count on most of these conditions.
I can if I wish arrange to be in the company of people of my race most of the time.
I can avoid spending time with people whom I was trained to mistrust and who have learned to mistrust my kind or me.
If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing housing in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.
I can be pretty sure that my neighbors in such a location will be neutral or pleasant to me.
I can go shopping alone most of the time, pretty well assured that I will not be followed or harassed.
I can turn on the television or open to the front page of the paper and see people of my race widely represented.
When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization,” I am shown that people of my color made it what it is.
I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of their race.
If I want to, I can be pretty sure of finding a publisher for this piece on white privilege.
I can be pretty sure of having my voice heard in a group in which I am the only member of my race.
I can be casual about whether or not to listen to another person’s voice in a group in which s/he is the only member of his/her race.
I can go into a music shop and count on finding the music of my race represented, into a supermarket and find the staple foods which fit with my cultural traditions, into a hairdresser’s shop and find someone who can cut my hair.
Whether I use checks, credit cards or cash, I can count on my skin color not to work against the appearance of financial reliability.
I can arrange to protect my children most of the time from people who might not like them.
I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.
I can be pretty sure that my children’s teachers and employers will tolerate them if they fit school and workplace norms; my chief worries about them do not concern others’ attitudes toward their race.
I can talk with my mouth full and not have people put this down to my color.
I can swear, or dress in second hand clothes, or not answer letters, without having people attribute these choices to the bad morals, the poverty or the illiteracy of my race.
I can speak in public to a powerful male group without putting my race on trial.
I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.
I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.
I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
I can criticize our government and talk about how much I fear its policies and behavior without being seen as a cultural outsider.
I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.
If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.
I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.
I can go home from most meetings of organizations I belong to feeling somewhat tied in, rather than isolated, out-of-place, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance or feared.
I can be pretty sure that an argument with a colleague of another race is more likely to jeopardize her/his chances for advancement than to jeopardize mine.
I can be pretty sure that if I argue for the promotion of a person of another race, or a program centering on race, this is not likely to cost me heavily within my present setting, even if my colleagues disagree with me.
If I declare there is a racial issue at hand, or there isn’t a racial issue at hand, my race will lend me more credibility for either position than a person of color will have.
I can choose to ignore developments in minority writing and minority activist programs, or disparage them, or learn from them, but in any case, I can find ways to be more or less protected from negative consequences of any of these choices.
My culture gives me little fear about ignoring the perspectives and powers of people of other races.
I am not made acutely aware that my shape, bearing or body odor will be taken as a reflection on my race.
I can worry about racism without being seen as self-interested or self-seeking.
I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.
If my day, week or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it had racial overtones.
I can be pretty sure of finding people who would be willing to talk with me and advise me about my next steps, professionally.
I can think over many options, social, political, imaginative or professional, without asking whether a person of my race would be accepted or allowed to do what I want to do.
I can be late to a meeting without having the lateness reflect on my race.
I can choose public accommodation without fearing that people of my race cannot get in or will be mistreated in the places I have chosen.
I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help, my race will not work against me.
I can arrange my activities so that I will never have to experience feelings of rejection owing to my race.
If I have low credibility as a leader I can be sure that my race is not the problem.
I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.
I can expect figurative language and imagery in all of the arts to testify to experiences of my race.
I can chose blemish cover or bandages in “flesh” color and have them more or less match my skin.
I can travel alone or with my spouse without expecting embarrassment or hostility in those who deal with us.
I have no difficulty finding neighborhoods where people approve of our household.
My children are given texts and classes which implicitly support our kind of family unit and do not turn them against my choice of domestic partnership.
I will feel welcomed and “normal” in the usual walks of public life, institutional and social.
Elusive and fugitive
I repeatedly forgot each of the realizations on this list until I wrote it down. For me white privilege has turned out to be an elusive and fugitive subject. The pressure to avoid it is great, for in facing it I must give up the myth of meritocracy. If these things are true, this is not such a free country; one’s life is not what one makes it; many doors open for certain people through no virtues of their own.
In unpacking this invisible knapsack of white privilege, I have listed conditions of daily experience that I once took for granted. Nor did I think of any of these perquisites as bad for the holder. I now think that we need a more finely differentiated taxonomy of privilege, for some of these varieties are only what one would want for everyone in a just society, and others give license to be ignorant, oblivious, arrogant, and destructive.
I see a pattern running through the matrix of white privilege, a patter of assumptions that were passed on to me as a white person. There was one main piece of cultural turf; it was my own turn, and I was among those who could control the turf. My skin color was an asset for any move I was educated to want to make. I could think of myself as belonging in major ways and of making social systems work for me. I could freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside of the dominant cultural forms.
Being of the main culture, I could also criticize it fairly freely. In proportion as my racial group was being made confident, comfortable, and oblivious, other groups were likely being made unconfident, uncomfortable, and alienated. Whiteness protected me from many kinds of hostility, distress, and violence, which I was being subtly trained to visit, in turn, upon people of color.
For this reason, the word “privilege” now seems to me misleading. We usually think of privilege as being a favored state, whether earned or conferred by birth or luck. Yet some of the conditions I have described here work systematically to over empower certain groups. Such privilege simply confers dominance because of one’s race or sex.
Earned strength, unearned power
I want, then, to distinguish between earned strength and unearned power conferred privilege can look like strength when it is in fact permission to escape or to dominate. But not all of the privileges on my list are inevitably damaging. Some, like the expectation that neighbors will be decent to you, or that your race will not count against you in court, should be the norm in a just society. Others like the privilege to ignore less powerful people, distort the humanity of the holders as well as the ignored groups.
We might at least start by distinguishing between positive advantages, which we can work to spread, and negative types of advantage, which unless rejected will always reinforce our present hierarchies. For example, the feeling that one belongs within the human circle, as Native Americans say, should not be seen as privilege for a few. Ideally it is an unearned entitlement. At present, since only a few have it, it is an unearned advantage for them. This paper results from a process of coming to see that some of the power that I originally say as attendant on being a human being in the United States consisted in unearned advantage and conferred dominance.
I have met very few men who truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation.
Difficulties and angers surrounding the task of finding parallels are many. Since racism, sexism, and heterosexism are not the same, the advantages associated with them should not be seen as the same. In addition, it is hard to disentangle aspects of unearned advantage that rest more on social class, economic class, race, religion, sex, and ethnic identity that on other factors. Still, all of the oppressions are interlocking, as the members of the Combahee River Collective pointed out in their “Black Feminist Statement” of 1977.
One factor seems clear about all of the interlocking oppressions. They take both active forms, which we can see, and embedded forms, which as a member of the dominant groups one is taught not to see. In my class and place, I did not see myself as a racist because I was taught to recognize racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
Disapproving of the system won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a “white” skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.
To redesign social systems we need first to acknowledge their colossal unseen dimensions. The silences and denials surrounding privilege are the key political surrounding privilege are the key political tool here. They keep the thinking about equality or equity incomplete, protecting unearned advantage and conferred dominance by making these subjects taboo. Most talk by whites about equal opportunity seems to me now to be about equal opportunity to try to get into a position of dominance while denying that systems of dominance exist.
It seems to me that obliviousness about white advantage, like obliviousness about male advantage, is kept strongly inculturated in the United States so as to maintain the myth of meritocracy, the myth that democratic choice is equally available to all. Keeping most people unaware that freedom of confident action is there for just a small number of people props up those in power and serves to keep power in the hands of the same groups that have most of it already.
Although systemic change takes many decades, there are pressing questions for me and, I imagine, for some others like me if we raise our daily consciousness on the perquisites of being light-skinned. What will we do with such knowledge? As we know from watching men, it is an open question whether we will choose to use unearned advantage, and whether we will use any of our arbitrarily awarded power to try to reconstruct power systems on a broader base.
Peggy McIntosh is associate director of the Wellesley Collage Center for Research on Women. This essay is excerpted from Working Paper 189. “White Privilege and Male Privilege: A Personal Account of Coming To See Correspondences through Work in Women’s Studies” (1988), by Peggy McIntosh; available for $4.00 from the Wellesley College Center for Research on Women, Wellesley MA 02181
The working paper contains a longer list of privileges. This excerpted essay is reprinted from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School.
I know, I’m bad for not being more diligent in my daily entries. But there’s not a whole lot going on right now. I did thoroughly clean the kitchen. I moved the fridge (from behind which I swept many mini-flavour packets and some little black beans that at first had me thinking we had a rodent problem), the stove (found my mini-grater that I use to grate frozen ginger and garlic-not frozen- and some lemon pepper stuff). I moved the microwave to a different counter top and cleaned off where it was (ick!). The microwave has found a new home elsewhere in the kitchen. Lastly, I swept and washed the floor. It’s now all clean and stuff.
Work is going ok. Because of people taking time off and July 1st being in mid-week, I’m getting a lot of hours. That’s a nice thing.
I finally hemmed the scrubs I bought a few weeks back. They’re now capri length and I’m quite happy about them.
This article is based on Peggy McIntosh’s article on white privilege and was written by a number of straight-identified students at Earlham College who got together to look at some examples of straight privilege. These dynamics are but a few examples of the privilege which straight people have. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer-identified folk have a range of different experiences, but cannot count on most of these conditions in their lives.
On a daily basis as a straight person…
I can be pretty sure that my roomate, hallmates and classmates will be comfortable with my sexual orientation.
If I pick up a magazine, watch TV, or play music, I can be certain my sexual orientation will be represented.
When I talk about my heterosexuality (such as in a joke or talking about my relationships), I will not be accused of pushing my sexual orientation onto others.
I do not have to fear that if my family or friends find out about my sexual orientation there will be economic, emotional, physical or psychological consequences.
I did not grow up with games that attack my sexual orientation (IE fag tag or smear the queer).
I am not accused of being abused, warped or psychologically confused because of my sexual orientation.
I can go home from most meetings, classes, and conversations without feeling excluded, fearful, attacked, isolated, outnumbered, unheard, held at a distance, stereotyped or feared because of my sexual orientation.
I am never asked to speak for everyone who is heterosexual.
I can be sure that my classes will require curricular materials that testify to the existence of people with my sexual orientation.
People don’t ask why I made my choice of sexual orientation.
People don’t ask why I made my choice to be public about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to fear revealing my sexual orientation to friends or family. It’s assumed.
My sexual orientation was never associated with a closet.
People of my gender do not try to convince me to change my sexual orientation.
I don’t have to defend my heterosexuality.
I can easily find a religious community that will not exclude me for being heterosexual.
I can count on finding a therapist or doctor willing and able to talk about my sexuality.
I am guaranteed to find sex education literature for couples with my sexual orientation.
Because of my sexual orientation, I do not need to worry that people will harass me.
I have no need to qualify my straight identity.
My masculinity/femininity is not challenged because of my sexual orientation.
I am not identified by my sexual orientation.
I can be sure that if I need legal or medical help my sexual orientation will not work against me.
If my day, week, or year is going badly, I need not ask of each negative episode or situation whether it has sexual orientation overtones.
Whether I rent or I go to a theater, Blockbuster, an EFS or TOFS movie, I can be sure I will not have trouble finding my sexual orientation represented.
I am guaranteed to find people of my sexual orientation represented in the school curriculum, faculty, and administration.
I can walk in public with my significant other and not have people double-take or stare.
I can choose to not think politically about my sexual orientation.
I do not have to worry about telling my roommate about my sexuality. It is assumed I am a heterosexual.
I can remain oblivious of the language and culture of LGBTQ folk without feeling in my culture any penalty for such oblivion.
I can go for months without being called straight.
I’m not grouped because of my sexual orientation.
My individual behavior does not reflect on people who identity as heterosexual.
In everyday conversation, the language my friends and I use generally assumes my sexual orientation. For example, sex inappropriately referring to only heterosexual sex or family meaning heterosexual relationships with kids.
People do not assume I am experienced in sex (or that I even have it!) merely because of my sexual orientation.
I can kiss a person of the opposite gender on the heart or in the cafeteria without being watched and stared at.
Nobody calls me straight with maliciousness.
People can use terms that describe my sexual orientation and mean positive things (IE “straight as an arrow”, “standing up straight” or “straightened out”) instead of demeaning terms (IE “ewww, that’s gay” or being “queer”).
I am not asked to think about why I am straight.
I can be open about my sexual orientation without worrying about my job.
Please, give it some real thought. For those who would quote the Bible, remember that Jesus did say that we are to love one another…not just those who are heterosexual.
We’re in the middle of a spring heat wave. The past several days have been hot and muggy. We’ve had some thunder move through, but not a whole lot of rain. In fact, we’re having a record breaking dry spring. Happily Bran put the air conditioner in the dining room window, so with fans blowing air around, the house is nice and comfortable. Work is semi-so on the main floor. The upper floors aren’t air conditioned and are dreadfully hot. Happily I don’t have to spend much time there.
Bran got me the electric wok we looked at the other week. It was the only one in town…at least the only one we could find. The only store we didn’t go to was Wal-Mart and we refuse to shop there because of their sexist and unfair labour practises. Anyway, I haven’t tried it out yet. I haven’t even taken it out of the box. Working and sleeping have prevented that.
Dad called on Friday to ask about coming up to visit. If he’s going to come up it’ll be either tomorrow or Friday. Why if, you ask? The older male sibling is now living with Dad. He’s the one who molested me when I was a kid and he’s not been welcome in my life for several years now. Dad was going to come up with him. I told Dad that that brother wasn’t welcome in my home. I stood my ground. I’m sure there’s going to be further discussion about it with Dad not understanding (or more to the point, choosing to not understand because it’s not his point of view therefore I’m being petty and punitive). It will be short conversation though. This isn’t something that’s up for debate, nor is it an elastic boundary. If the brother wants to drive Dad up, that’s fine. He’ll have to find something else to do for the day until Dad is ready to go home. It might mean that Dad won’t come up and visit. I guess we’ll see.
My co-worker has started a Facebook movement to have Facebook – International Day of the Honey Bee declared. Right now he’s working on the city council of Saskatoon. He’ll be going to the next council meeting next Monday (I think it’s Monday night) with signatures on a petition he’s been getting people to pass around to have May 29, 2010 declared the first annual “Day of the Honey Bee”. This is to raise awareness of the decline of the honey bee populations around the world. Did you know that 1/3 of the food you eat is on your plate because of the actions of honey bees pollinating flowers? Well, it’s true. Anyway, if you live in Saskatoon, you can sign his petition on Saturday at the Farmers’ Market on 19th Street and Avenue A (I think he’ll be wearing his bee-keeper suit). You can also show your support by attending the council meeting and joining his Facebook group. You can contact him through that group if you can offer help, advise or other such things.
We’re doing more paring down of things in the house. I shall be selling my rattan egg chair with stand. I’ve been hanging on to it since before we got married. I don’t sit in it at all, I just look at it. Since that is the case then it’s time for it to go. Bran is giving the fish tank and stuff to his GF. He doesn’t have the energy needed to take care of it. That is going to clear out a fair bit of space in the dining room. That might even mean that we could put a table into that room and have sit down meals, a space for me to sew and the like…speaking of which. I have a couple of pairs of scrubs that I’m going to turn into Capri pants and a pair of Bran’s pants that need hemming. I should get them done soon. That way he’ll have something to wear to job interviews.
Speaking of jobs. I’m thinking of taking the place of one of my co-workers when he goes back to school. He’ll be out of town so can’t work his full time job. The nice thing about being in grad school is that my classes are complete and all I have to do is the research and writing. That I can do while working. The only snag would be student loans because of the increase in income. I’m sure that things will work out though. They always do, whether it’s the way I want them to or not is up for debate.
I saw a video last night that made me move even closer to becoming vegan. My co-worker was watching an oriental show (could’ve been Chinese, Korean or another country in Asia) where the animals being cooked were slaughtered just before being cooked or were cooked live. One was a snake that had its head cut off, was skinned and gutted and chopped up so quickly that the muscles were still in spasming on the plate. Another was a fish that was taken from a tank and deep fried (the head was being held by the cook above the boiling oil) and then plated with sauce. The fish was still alive as evidence by the gills attempting to get oxygen. Yeah. That makes tofu seem a whole lot less pale.
On that note, that’s about it from the great not-White North. It’s time to start thinking about having something to eat. Boy wants to go out to the Great Buffet. He is craving things like coconut buns. Whether we do that is up for debate right now.
Bran and I have been all over town and have found only one (1, une, ein, uno) electric wok. I want an electric wok because then I can do a semi-deep fry of my tofu with temperature controlled oil. I don’t want to use a stove-top wok for that because it’s too easy to create an oil fire. With Bran’s fear of fire (he’s had at least 1 suite burn up) I want to be as in control as possible. The one that we found was in London Drugs, cost $130 and was weirdly set up. It was detachable from the base, but the heating element was a part of what lifted off. That made the wok very heavy, at least 8 pounds of hot metal to try and control. Colour me unhappy. I’ll have to get a stove-top wok (I want a no stick easy to use & clean out variety rather than the ones we have that require seasoning each time they’re used). Sucks.
As I tweeted (twittered? twaddled?), I got the first three seasons – 39 episodes plus each disc set has a bonus episode – of What’s New Scooby Doo?. Scooby Doo is a relatively new phenomenon for me. More to the point, an adult thing. I never got to see them when I was a kid, having only CBC until I was nearly 8 years old and then only CBC and CTV until I was out of high school. I don’t collect Scooby Doo stuff except stickers and DVDs. I’m such a dork.
I went to school today, read and finished one of my reference books, cleaned out the papers from classes that I won’t be using and generally tidied up my space. I had a container of overly salty cream of broccoli soup and a chicken salad wrap. I would have had a veggie wrap but the deli was busy and I was extremely hungry. I also ate a couple of bananas and some of that Belsoy chocolate pudding. If you can get it, it’s actually quite good.
Boy’s drama final was tonight. There were 4 one act plays that the students had written, directed, dressed and did the lighting for. They were surprisingly good. I expected a lot more juvenile humour. The writing was fairly tight and the acting was pretty good for high school students. There were some expletives but they fit into the skits quite nicely.
Boy’s skit was about three people trying to get service in a restaurant where the waitress, in the four years she worked there, had never taken an order. It was a morality play advising that all wait-people in the audience not allow their clients to die trying to get service.
The next skit had to do with two men who were having “days”. One seemed unable to get anything in his day to go right. His friend told him that he was having a Philadelphia day. This meant that despite being in New York, he was in a warp that put him in Philly. This meant that nothing he wanted would be available to him. In order to get what he wanted he had to do the opposite. The friend was in a Los Angeles warp. He got fired, that was cool. His girlfriend dumped him, that was cool. However, the Philadelphia day was contagious and the Los Angeles warp was overturned.
The next skit was about a phone message for a guy from a girl and the guy’s girlfriend. The message was played over and over again, each time becoming more provocative. The message was said by an actress who became more skimpily dressed on each playing.
The final skit was about a perfect day. A guy and girl were out on a picnic. He waxed poetic of her perfection and she was very weirded out. Then along came a stranger who also waxed poetic about her perfection. She was even more weirded out. She turned to her boyfriend for help but he couldn’t. Afterall, nothing the other man said was, in the boyfriend’s opinion, wrong. Next a man fell from the sky. The sky diver waxed poetic about the perfection of the girl. She was too weirded out and left. That was the one imperfection in an otherwise perfect day.
Like I said, very original and sophisticated writing.
I got a few pictures of a lovely rainbow we got tonight. It was raining to the east of us and the sun was setting, shining brightly. I got one that has the CIBC (a bank) at the end of it. Of course it figures. CIBC doesn’t give money to anyone so they’d have lots of money in their pots. I got beeped and laughed at at I stood in the rain and took photos. I just laughed. The rain wasn’t really cold and the rainbow was beautiful.
Now we’re all home and watching Scooby Doo. I’m wanting to have something to eat. I had a veggie burger and fries for supper from A&W but it wasn’t satisfying. In fact, it didn’t really suit at all. We also found out the calorie, fat and carb loads of the burgers there are phenomenal. 500 calories just for the teen burger. Want a salad? Sure, but leave off the dressings. They add on over 100 calories per packet. Scary shit.
I’ve been doing not a whole lot the past while. Mostly I’ve been reading online comics and generally entertaining my mind in ways that are the least demanding. Yesterday, though was somewhat different. Yesterday was dim sum at the Genesis Family Restaurant. It’s the best place for dum sum in town. We got a lot more to take home as a sort of supper for all of us as well. If we’d been able to afford it I would have had each of us take home whatever we wanted for supper rather than having to divvy up and share (but only because I’m greedy and don’t like to share). Then it was off to the first of the Pride week festivities, the family day in the park. It’s the first time we were able to get there (whether because of my own issues or that of Bran).
We took Dutchess with us. She was the hit of the time we were there. She did very well in the car there and on the way home. We took a bit of a detour on the way home to look at a house. It was quite attractive, though the wood outside needed some work.
I decided to try out a soy pudding, chocolate. The brand is Belsoy and it’s actually pretty good. The texture is closer to a gelatin rather than a pudding, but the flavour is pretty nice.
I’m still not back at school yet. I was going to go in today, but I went to bed really early last night and then woke up at midnight. I was ready to be awake then and by the time I was to get ready for school I was ready to go back to bed. So that’s exactly what I did until I had to get up and get ready for work.
When I got up my hair was a horrid mess! I’d showered at about 4 am and my hair had gone all into ringlets. It was still somewhat damp when I went to bed and when I woke up I bore a strong resemblance to Medusa. I’m pretty sure that’s how she looked…just like I did this afternoon.
Bran got me an external DVD/CD drive for my computer. It’s a lovely Asus drive that has a nice little stand that helps it stay mostly out of the way. Now I can do any of the program loading that I might need to do and watch DVDs without having them ripped and copied to my computer. It’ll save an enormous amount of space.
I made a discovery today. For anyone who buys one of those lovely Camelbak bottles, don’t put carbonated drinks in them. You see, when the pressure builds up (and believe me, if the bottle moves at all, the pressure willbuild up), the beverage will squirt through the top and get lots of stuff wet. Just thought it would be nice for me to serve as an object lesson to the rest of you out there. Don’t do that. Only put carbonated beverages in containers that seal properly and don’t allow for an avenue of escape. Given the opportunity it will escape. The good thing for me was that my drink was sugar free, so nothing was sticky. Other than some quantity of my Coke Zero, I lost nothing other than my dignity.
That’s about it. I’ve not been doing a whole lot other than working and allowing my brain to atrophy and enjoying my new little precious computer that weighs only 3 pounds and can be carried in a teeny little back pack.
