The Last 12 Hours

Groggy from a long chat that ended after 2:00 a.m. A chat that started with Big A awake and frustrated at being awake since he has to work till at least midnight today.

A rendition of "Big Dogs Don't Cry" didn't help, so I started talking about Virginia Woolf and Martha Nussbaum. (What? It puts students to sleep?)

Meanwhile:

Trying not to think of how it was the anniversary of him smashing his wrist while skiing. 

Skirting the topic of why on earth does he have to start work at 7:00 a.m. doing stuff as part of an additional job he interviewed for in Feb and isn't being compensated for in any way. 

Finding out that fake yawns can't make your companions sleepy.

Thinking about Nu saying "people look at me weird"--which is worrying whether it's real or imagined. 

Finding out we were talking too loudly for Scout who sighed at us loudly and went to At's room for the rest of the night.

Then I woke up a little later because At was riffling through all his things because he couldn't remember where he put his inhaler and he had been reading about the 12-year-old in Canada who died at school without his inhaler before bed.

And students in and out all day, jittery with finals panic and juggling everything from cancer to toddlers.

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Schooled

I was just browsing Shakespeare's Sister on a break and literally had my life interpreted for me.

In an article about high-heels, Melissa McEwan explains that for fat women, heels (which have been criticized by some feminists as a form of self harm) may seem a necessary defense:

Fat women have all kinds of narratives about sloppiness, laziness, dirtiness to overcome. Sometimes heels are a crucial part of looking "put together" in a way that sufficiently convinces people that we care about ourselves, that manages to counteract pervasive cultural narratives that fat people don't care about ourselves… I get treated completely differently at a $20 hair salon if I'm dressed up or dressed down. Two totally different experiences. I get treated differently at the doctor's office, and at the emergency room. I can't go to the ER in sweatpants, because I'll get shittier treatment. In an emergency, I have to worry if I am dressed up enough to prove that I deserve respect and care.

All round horrible. Points I completely empathize with without having experienced them myself. (Or so I think.)

And then the part that changes the way I count my life. Melissa McEwan continues:
I am speaking to my own experience here, but many women with other marginalized bodies have the same experience. Women of color, trans* women, women with disabilities, and other marginalized classes of women may strongly relate to the idea of having to be "put together" in order to be treated as human beings.
That would totally explain why after years of dressing in jeans and homespun tunics and putting a lot of thought into looking like I didn't care how I looked in India, I've become--after years of living in the West--consumed by fashion. Because looking like a vagabond* is cute only if people know that you're playing and know you're not really one.

*(as the nuns at my private school may have said)

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Ain't it Grand(parents)!

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The Kids Are Documenting My Lapses...

Turns out that when I promise 

to watch movies with them,

I end up falling asleep instead.

They have the pictures to prove it.

Realizing she'll have no one to boss around...

When big brother takes off for college.

(Big A assumes that the kids will be doctors. 

So far At--design; Nu--Art/Art teacher.

Even if Big A were really an Asian dad

--and not merely an Asian dad by proxy--

he couldn't be more disappointed.)

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On the road together (5:00 a.m.)

It's always good to have a chubby-cheeked companion.


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What she made for her teacher...

 Go and play!

(or--presumably--I'll spank you with a spatula?)