I've seen/heard a few crazy characters this week, but nothing so notable to warrant more than this list:
1) I was in Evanston on Wednesday and about to put a quarter into a parking meter when a lady in her 40's rushed up to me asking for spare change. She seemed well-dressed, but was wearing shiny plastic mardi gras beads. All I could think was: is this a sociology graduate student at Northwestern University doing a project? What's up with the mardi gras beads? Would a real person that needs my change be wearing that?
2) I went out to a bar this week with a group of friends. It was pretty much just our group, and one other young dancing guy, and another older woman with a long jean skirt and BluBlocker sunglasses. Was this the mother of the dancing guy? A Mrs. Robinson-esque situation? She glommed onto our group and was dancing with us, told a man in our group that I was a "classy lady" (all true), and fed us a line about the old days in Las Vegas. Apparently, that was before women had to be 6'11" tall like nowadays. And, um, when showgirls wore BluBlockers? Uh-huh.
3) One of my aunts was in town last week and her and her family (husband, three kids, plus another cousin) stopped by my apartment unexpectedly. This aunt is of the extremely liberal variety: she lives on a commune (no flush toilets) and councils college women re: eating disorders and other gender issues. It's great! She definitely lives by her beliefs. However, I suspected that she was not too pleased when she saw a photo of me from Halloween - naughty nurse outfit, blond wig. Whoops! Not a liberal-leaning costume, really. And I thought, her opinion of this is probably similar to another aunt who is extremely conservative. Blood is blood, you know?
that reminds me of something cary tennis said recently... that you can't be expected to live your life as a social re-engineering project.
ReplyDeletepicking a few small battles, and otherwise simply treating people with dignity and grace should be quite enough, shouldn't it?
here's the actual quote... (for the whole context: http://www.salon.com/mwt/col/tenn/2006/07/31/single_in_pakistan/index.html)
ReplyDelete"Perhaps I should say this: I do not think that my general ideas about law and culture are conservative or backward; but I believe there is much peril in conducting one's private life as though it were a political demonstration project. People's well-being depends on fragile networks of family and culture; family and culture are not outside us but inside us; when we attempt to fight them -- because we judge their practices to be backward -- we are in some degree also fighting ourselves."