sundries

[rm]

Patty and I had a lovely outside dinner last night, but then stayed up too late because work caught up with me. Boo.

Today my face hurts in a massive, horrible sinus way.

I posted my Dragon*Con schedule last night!

We're expecting a lovely fucking hurricane over the weekend that should make Dragon*Con related travel slightly annoying.

Dragon*Con people, there's a fake Irish pub near the hotels that has video trivia and tends to be Not Fucking Annoying on Thursday night. But I can only recall its location by sight in my head. This does not help me tell other people where it is or what it is called. Anyone?

Rather unexpectedly, won writerinadrawer Round 4. If you weren't following along, do go back and read the stories. Many, many people turned in at least one that was some of their best work, and I'm pretty sure we all embarrassed ourselves at least once (I feel like I can count at least four on that score (the embarrassment score) for me). In the end (and arguably through the whole thing, since exercises like this are weird), it certainly didn't come down to quality, but what happened to be to the tastes of whoever was voting in a given week. Also, while I could often tell who wrote what, I pegged something for cruentum that I still can't believe was misswinterhill a few rounds back, so that sort of wacky surprise was fun, but since everything is revealed now, a bit too late for you. Anyway, everyone, and most especially our host, thefannishwaldo, deserves a round of applause for Getting Through This Thing. I found this _much_ harder work than therealljidol.

30 mosques in 30 days.

Ad campaign to counteract anti-Muslim sentiment.

Extreme Dog Grooming.

Plato's pop-culture problem and ours.

The politics of "ma'am" I about fell over laughing at "Because it amuses me."

The Advocate has a point. As more conservative Republicans call for same-sex marriage, what does Obama achieve by opposing it? The people that wouldn't vote for him over this issue, already wouldn't vote for him. Right?

Interesting-and-a-half that pressure for marriage equality in Australia is now coming from a Tasmanian independent.

Are you fucking kidding me? Emergency message about crashing into the sea played to passengers by mistake. Mercury retrograde, we are done!

Comments

[billijean.livejournal.com]

Also. Funny Ma'am story.

Once, when I was about nine, i was getting royal shit from mom. In my face, finger wagging and everything. I forget what it was about, but she was seriously pissed. I kept my eyes on the floor and my mouth shut. Then she asked (yelled) if I understood.

I knew from hours I spent reading every day and from watching 'Little House on the Prairie' that the correct response was "Yes, Ma'am", so that's what I said.

WHAT did you say?
Still looking at the floor, I replied, I said, 'Yes, Ma'am".

She hit me so hard I skidded across the floor and up against my bed. My face, where she'd hit me, hurt for days. And I was SO confused. I really didn't get it. By the time I looked up, she was gone.

It was never mentioned again. I think now that it wasn't that "Ma'am" was essentially a bad thing, but that, given her background, it could only be assumed to be said in sarcasm, that I was mocking her, which of course, she wasn't going to stand for lol

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Wow. I'm sorry you had such a violent encounter with the use of "ma'am".

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

Honestly? That story is not funny, it's kinda horrible.

[billijean.livejournal.com]

Nah. After 35 years and lots things in my life that were way more horrible, my perspective is different now. The event has near zero significance for me in the range of 'horrible'. The absurdity of it and how we saw the same situation in profoundly different ways is what stands out now. None of us is perfect, not even good mothers, and in spite of efforts to be reasonable always, we all have buttons. I inadvertently pushed one of her big ones.

There were two important lessons in there for me. The first was that words have different meaning for different people. Ma'am and Sir were not used at home in our culture, and just popping it in there was too weird. And the second was an underscoring of one of the biggest lessons my mom had taught me from when I was young: don't carry other people's baggage. And specifically, when someone is mean to you, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them. Here was the perfect example.

So, no. It isn't horrible to me. It was then, for about three hours. But that's all. But it is one of those huge wtf moments in my life and, now, in retrospect, it *is* funny. Life is hard. Sometimes it's really hard. And relationships are the same. But life and relationships are funny too. And often, to me, the hard parts mellow with time and become funny. I refuse to carry around the more minor uncomfortable parts of my past like a torch of pain or outrage. There is enough of the big stuff for that. The whole experience was over for me in less than a day. My mom, however, carries the guilt of shame of this to this day. It has definitely been a more difficult experience for her. But we both laugh about it. Because we are all fallible and we all screw up, sometimes big time. But it was all okay in the end.