Troublesome Strumpet

Movie night with the S.O. Revisiting a lot of 80s faves of late. Tonight it's "Young Sherlock Holmes". Seeing it now it dawns on me that is basically the GenX older sibling of Harry Potter.

Well, my feet are cold, heart rate still jittery, I'm soaked in flop sweat, but I finished the interview.

It went OK. I answered questions intelligently, but I talked too much.

& of course I didn't get the whole industry & all the ins & outs of it, somehow mom just was really really good at ELI5 when I was little. She could put stuff in simple terms like that.

She didn't put it in those words, but I remember watching TV with her on Saturday mornings when I was a kid, & watching ads, & her telling me about how the people who made the ad are trying to get me to buy something.

I was seriously like 5 years old or some shit. Really young.

Mom taught me about stuff like how image can be used to manipulate people, whether that's a personal image someone projects into the world (like how they dress, act, etc.), or whether it's a string of images put together to make an advertisement or marketing campaign - or propaganda.

Someone who seems beautiful, well put together, well-educated, clean in dress & manner, etc. - they might be a total shit.

Like Mike Johnson.

These days I treat it as a variation on "check your privilege", whether that's beauty, social class, education, manners, whatever. Someone rough around the edges, you can't assume they suck. Maybe they do, but find out first.

& it goes the other way, too - the Halo Effect.

At the time she meant that you can't assume that someone who "looks bad" is actually a bad person. She took that lesson from her own high school days, when she was socially ostracized for dating a really nice kid from "the wrong side of the tracks", so for her the context was social class.

Like, I just watched the swearing-in of Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D.-AZ) & Johnson was the picture of good manners & congeniality about it. Friendly smile & congrats & everything.

Reminds me of a lesson from my mom: you can't judge a book by its cover.

Y'know one thing that's shitty about Mike Johnson?

Yeah, I know there's WAY more than just one thing, but bear with me here...

When he's behaving himself, he seems benign. Very boy-next-door in speech, dress, mannerisms, looks. It's a highly deceptive image.

I would like anyone who suggests something like this to be classified into said high-risk pool permanently.

Ugh, I'm tearing up, I need to pause this for a few so I can prep for this job interview. No good going into it with streaky mascara...

I've been trying to get to know him a bit better since my mom died last year. He's 81, still truckin' along. It's been surprising & sad & really pretty great. He's a total nerdy weirdo.

I kind of knew that, at least to some degree. Without mom around he gets to be himself.

They only ever had one kid: my dad, born at the tail end of the Silent Generation, & boy he embodies that whole generational ethic.

He's probably also autistic, tho' we don't know that for sure.

& grandma, his wife, she was born & raised in a sod house on the Colorado prairie. Educated in a 1-room schoolhouse. Her family sold the farm & moved to the city in 1934 - & I bet good money it was a combo platter of a) the Depression & b) the Dust Bowl.

I learned so much from her.

I have photos of him from when he was in mechanic school & flight training; he's young & bright-eyed, barely 20 years old, optimistic & cheeky.

Photos from after he came home, he looks haunted & rarely smiles. & he lived with that his entire life, & never spoke of it.

He kept B-24s in the air while they were on bombing missions to cut supply lines to Japan. & he seriously saw some shit: was shot down several times, nearly captured once, saw his buddies killed in front of his eyes.

It explains a lot about why his photos changed.

I didn't even know about what my one gpa did in the War until after he was dead: he was a flight engineer with these guys. www.kensmen.com

I wish I could have an hour with each of my grandparents again. There's so much I'd ask them about that I didn't even know to ask when they were alive, when I was growing up. & not just when I was a kid: I had a LOT of growing up to do, well into my 30s & 40s.

The voices are fascinating. They're the voices of my grandparents & parents. I keep thinking of them & who they were & what they lived through, & the stories they told me about their lives. It fleshes out a lot of family tree work I've done off & on over the years.

I wish I'd read them all years ago. They're full of amazing stuff. Already learning a ton about boots-on-the-ground US history & daily life that I never knew at all.

I've been reading a number of Studs Terkel's oral histories lately: "Hard Times" on the Depression, "A Good War" on WW2, & "Working" on the experiences of working-class Americans through the late mid-ish 20th century.

Highly, highly worth it. It's like reading letters from survivors.

I have a job interview today in a bit over an hour from now.

Wish me luck.

Yuuuup.

Absolutely. Progressive men are the fucking worst about it.

I mean, at least the right-wing misogynists are right out there & open about it. Progressive dudes have to shroud themselves in layers of privilege, condescension, & plausible deniability.

I fucking can't even with that shit.

Misogyny was at the very heart of the 2016 & 2024 elections & you cannot tell me otherwise.

I knew before 2016 that men hate women, but it wasn't until 2016 that I really understood *just how much* men hate women.

It's one of the least reasonable assertions I've encountered. Because you can't fucking tell me that the last two women who ran for POTUS were SO MUCH WORSE than all the men who ever did, or all the men who were/are in politics - especially fucking Agent Orange. Like, seriously?? He's *better*??

THIS.

Good bog, I've said this a number of times, & the pushback I get (esp. from men) has been fucking ridiculous. "Of course it wasn't sexism, Clinton/Harris were just bad candidates/fucked up in some way/it's all their fault/etc. etc. etc." GOOD FUCKING GOD SHUT THE ENTIRE FUCK UP.

Y'know, the song "The Invisible Man" by Queen would work really well mashed up with the theme from Ghostbusters.

Bone-deep fatigue these days. I'm fecking tired & don't entirely know why.