(no subject)

[kittydesade]

Тускло светили звезды, пробившеся сквозь городской смог. На другом берегу реки зажигались крошечные окошки лишенных двора многоэтажек.
The stars were shining dimly through the city smog. On the far bank of the river, tiny lights were coming on in the multi-story blocks that had no yards.

[adverb] [verb past tense plural] [noun plural], [adjective] [prepositional phrase? (preposition, noun.. genitive?, noun accusative]. [prepositional phrase (preposition, adjective prep case? noun .. accusative case?)] [noun genitive] [verb past tense plural reflexive] [adjective plural] [noun plural] [adjective plural ??] [noun plural?] [adjective. I think]


I don't even. So, yesterday I get a couple of emails that basically amount to we might not be able to complete the appraisal because of the problems that need to be fixed. And the selling bank isn't going to fix it, and apparently there is an exception paper that could be written out but everyone has to talk to someone else and check and can't this just be fucking over with already? I'm not even sure what I can do about it, everyone has to talk to everyone else today and then get back to me. I put all my mortgage ladies in contact with my realty lady, so hopefully that can get untangled today. Right now ...

Fuck Everything, Half-Naked Sasha Roiz forever.

No, okay. Right now things are happening at an incredibly fast clip, but at the moment it looks like I can get an estimate of the repair in writing from the plumber I contacted and brought out to have a look, and there's a new contact person at the bank who isn't a fucking moron. He says he might be able to get them done. I'm hoping he can because this is about to drive me homicidal or something.

Right. Nothing more I can do unless I really want to make a pest of myself calling people every half hour or so. I hate it when there's essentially nothing I can do except beg, plead, and throw myself on the mercy of other people whose job it is to keep an eye on the bottom line. I really hate that bottom line shit. I mean, I understand it? I just don't like it. But I have other shit I could get done right now, so. Come on, Jag, let's do the other shit.

I did see some interesting survey about racial self-identification of hispanic peoples on US census things. It made me wonder a little, am I a second generation immigrant if only one of my parents immigrated? (And, for that matter, did my biodad immigrate or was he a second-generation immigrant himself? It's one or the other, I'm sure.) Does it count if he is only my biodad and my actual Dad who raised me was born and raised in the States, himself? It's funny because these aren't questions I ever think about, myself. I am an American. Whether I'm being patronized and treated as, for lack of a more accurate term, a fellow white person who can reach out to those "hard-working Mexicans" (and 6-7 years later I still remember that fuckhead) or whether I'm being looked down on as someone who belongs with the hired help, I am still an American. It's never occurred to me to define myself otherwise. If I have to self-identify as one race or another, I'd probably pick white maybe 40% of the time and hispanic the other 60%. Depending on whether or not I think it'll lead to me getting treated badly by police, shafted for a job or a place in a school, depending whether or not I can tell the person means I feel like a part of this group or that group... depending on a lot of things. Racial identification isn't something I think about a lot, either. Not until someone asks me. Which is more of a class and geographic luxury than anything, really, due to where I grew up and live now.

Anyway. I swear, my next entry will be kittens and bunnies and something fluffy to break from all these heavy thoughts. Pictures of hot men. Something. I am so tired and suddenly all the plans I had for the rest of ever are back in a state of tremendous flux. Okay, not all the plans, but a big chunk of them. At this point it's not even maybe losing the house of awesome that irritates me, it's the lack of certainty. I want to go home and curl up and sleep, and I can't.

Right. Shut up and soldier, soldier. I have filing I can do, writing, editing, I have German I can do if I get desperate for stuff to do, I have word gardens I can plant. There are other things I can do while I wait for word to come back, so let's get on and do them. (Also at some point I really should start writing my own Russian things. At some point.)

Comments

[kikibug13]

RRRRUSSIAN with all the descriptions. And very many adverbs and past participles. Ahem.

*snuggles tight*

[oldandnewfirm]

Racial identity has always been an interesting subject for me. My dad is US born and raised, but my mother is from the Caribbean, and my maternal relatives are the ones I grew up around and have had the most contact with in my life. Technically I suppose I'm "African American," but I've never classified myself that way; Caribbean thought and culture is so different to African American thought and culture that I've always had trouble identifying with the black community in the U.S. I didn't even have a lot of contact with black people--or any minority, for that matter-- outside of my family until eighth grade, when we moved to a predominantly black/Asian area of California and I switched from private school to public school. I became the resident oreo from that point on, but that's another story.

It's funny how our experiences shape our perception of our race.

[kittydesade]

That must have been a hit of culture shock. Yowza.

It really is. My experience till I was about 18 was almost entirely one of, every-day racial pressures either to treat people a certain way because of their race or being treated a certain way because of my race, those were much more abstract problems. With a couple of notably huge exceptions (including one riot) in my area, people just had different backgrounds and were different colors and that was the way things were. You still had to treat people politely and with respect. It still kind of boggles me on a personal, emotional level how people can treat each other differently because of clothes or symbols of worship or skin color.

(Also how people assume certain nationalities because of coloring. The boyfiend's a redhead, and yet there's so little Irish blood in him as to be non-existent. He's actually of German extraction, but around March you'd never hear anyone acknowledging that.)

[oldandnewfirm]

Trust me, it was. I had a very...interesting eight grade year. High school was better; there were a lot more like-minded kids for me to hang around with. My mother was still a bit leery, though. She'd have rather I chosen to enroll in the local private high school, but I was tired of private school by that point. Too much drama, at least in the one I attended.

Yup. It's easy to blame all of life's problems on "The Other," so when presented with the opportunity to do so, there are folks who will leap for it now matter how silly their logic is. I'm convinced that if there were two people left on the planet, they'd still find some incredibly superficial reason to hate each other. And clothes, ugh. Geraldo Rivera and the hoodie thing. So much head desking.

Does Ireland even have that many redheads these days? I always thought that was just a stereotype.

[kittydesade]

High school generally seems to be better than middle school, for some odd reason. My private school high school was very drama free, I loved it. Though maybe I just managed to stay oblivious of the drama. I'm very good at smiling and nodding and tuning such things out, apparently.

Pretty damn much. That was teethgrindingly stupid of Geraldo, on about five different levels. She said, pulling her hoodie around her because it's freezing in this damn building. It's a hooded sweatshirt. A fairly ubiquitous piece of clothing in this country.

You know, I actually don't know? Never having been to Ireland. Friends of mine could probably say, but I have no idea. I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a stereotype, really. I wonder where it comes from, though, now that I think about it.

[oldandnewfirm]

I think it's the incremental increase in freedom and responsibility that comes with high school. That, or everyone's too distracted by the drive to get into college to pay attention to anything else. And smiling and nodding has been my M.O. pretty much forever. And placating, because I've got some people with volatile tempers in my family and I was usually the one to scuttle up and try and keep the peace. That's at least one habit I'm trying to break these days.

I'd say I can't understand how Geraldo could have heard those words leaving his mouth and not realized what a dumbass he was being, but then I think of all the people who subscribe to the "Don't wear revealing clothing if you don't want to get raped" school of thought and I'm not that surprised.

Could be a back in the day thing. I'm sure red hair would've been pretty noteworthy in some parts of Europe.