Privilege?

That friend said: I appreciate your views and their foundation. I disagree respectfully. I'd rather endure a Trump now if my vote can build legitimacy for a third party to break the status quo so my children can vote for the best candidate rather than feel media shamed into voting for a lesser evil.  They need to live in the real world like all of us and sometimes that means big compromises. I believe that a "democratic election" is or at least was intended to be one of the few venues in life where one need never compromise their values. I want to play the long game on this one. Maybe a Trump presidency will lead to the NEXT Bernie or Nader (or whoever) being electable.

And I can't help but think: Whereas my long game means I have to vote now for the best way to keep my kid alive until he is old enough to vote.

Black Lives Matter

We were in Mexico when police officers killed Alton Sterling.  We were still in Mexico when they killed Philando Castile.
It's a funny thing, Interracial Couple While Traveling.  We've had some wildly different experiences in the last five years, which had a different taste before and after the ring on my left hand.  There were times we left, fast, before actually putting the gas we'd paid for into my car.  (Looking at you, Alabama.)  There were times strangers enthusiastically shook our hands and thanked us for "bringing color to their state."  (Wisconsin.)  And then there were times where nobody looked twice at a tall, strikingly handsome black man holding the hand of a frizzy-haired white chick with ugly shoes.
Mexico was that.
I mean, I didn't see a lot of black folks in San Miguel de Allende.  It's mostly locals with caramel skin and a just-noticeable minority of sunburned Texans on vacation. In that sense, it's not dissimilar from the demographics I noticed when I lived in Indian Country in New Mexico.
Nobody looked twice at us when he took me out for margaritas in Santa Fe either.  And as unobservant as I am, I have gotten some new kind of sense as to when Those Looks are being leveled, believe me.
No Looks in Mexico.  Even when the shootings happened one country to the north.

B doesn't much like the Black Lives Matter movement.  Stopping traffic on major roads, or when the fracas happened at the Bernie Sanders rally...  I want to continue that sentence.  I want to offer delving opinions as to his own internalization of Blackness and maybe collisions with the Blackness of his brother.  This is a blog after all, and when is she going to start delving, Rosencrantz would ask.
But if there's one thing I've learned from this crash course in the S-O-C-I-A-L S-T-U-D-I-E-S that has been my consciousness as a privileged-as-shit white American in the couple years since they spilled Trayvon Martin's skittles all over the pavement and it suddenly occurred to me that my hypothetical son would look an awful lot like that kid if he had my taste in sweatshirts and his father's in empty calories... it's that I shut the fuck up when it comes to analyzing somebody else's Blackness.  White folks can be supportive in 100,000 ways, but we do Not try to take the mic on this point.

So, I haven't.

Anyway, Alton Sterling and Philando Castile didn't make headlines that I saw in Mexico.  Just like we didn't get Looks in Mexico.  We also didn't get much cell service, so I didn't really know what all was going on in the U.S.  In Dallas.
Then we flew through Texas on our way back home.
The televisions were broadcasting updates from the sniper attack in Dallas that killed several officers, and the CNN commentators were discussing the various reactions they'd picked up from protesters on both all sides of the debate.  The 200 odd people waiting to board the plane to Denver all had necks craned to look at those screens where a carefully concerned anchor told us about the deaths of those officers and the palpable tension across the country, while that weird news ticker slipped by on the bottom of the screen talking about how Scotland wanted a Brexit revote and somebody in Mote Carlo had won a car race.
And when I walked back to B, who was conscientiously keeping watch over the luggage in a fashion that would make the FAA beam, I felt the Looks.  People watched me walk up to him to the soundtrack of that careful concern from CNN.  I didn't have heels on or anything, but I did have on some makeup and I'd straightened my hair for once.  I was, to the world, a competent-looking young white professional, approaching her Black partner as the full impact of racial tension crashed down on the civilization around us.
Ok, Houston Intercontinental Airport.  I am walking up and craning my neck with the rest of the gawkers to hear about what happens next.  And I am taking my husband's hand because we are in this mess together.  I feel your Looks, and you can all take from that what you will.

And B squeezed my hand and said, "hmph.  Scotland's population is like, half of the total number of exit votes anyway."

... and that's when I decided that if we are procreating at any point, he and I are going to have to talk about Black Lives Matter.

I can't wait to see you.  

I hope you can come out to be with us, to be with ME, for a little this summer or fall.  Or winter.  Whatever.  I'm not picky.

The trip to Great Sand Dunes was worth it.  Lots of tromping and sweat and hard liquor.  Most of the girls couldn't make it, but I had more fun before the ones who could showed up anyway.  So my quest to have girlfriends in Colorado is still kind of stalled.

I'm not invited to L's wedding, FYI.  Not a thing -- I didn't invite her to mine.  It's one of my few regrets for it actually. Somehow over the years I've collected so many more friends than B, and I was trying to keep numbers down.  But I think she would have come, and ultimately I want to keep her in at least the periphery of my life.  If the weekend I am in Boston allows for it, I'll try to see her then and bring her flowers and try to emphasize how happy I am for her.  

...Are we happy for her?  I guess I don't have a solid enough read on Whats-His-Name.  I hope he gets how fucking cool she is.

We're under contract for a house.  Inspection is tomorrow, so if that goes well, I'll go more public about it.  Facebook fucking galore.  Until then, I'm trying not to get my hopes up.  It's a real house with a yard and walls that don't touch a neighbor's.  It's in Boulder for [POTENTIAL] school district purposes.  It's more than I can afford, but not too bad.  It has personality.

I'm stressed.  There are so many things stressing me right now.  I won some big stuff at work.  I lost some not quite as big stuff, and somehow that keeps me up at night.  The concept of a mortgage tying me to a place is stressful.  The concept of going it more or less alone since B isn't making money and has a crap credit score is stressful.  But I still really, REALLY want this house to work.

I miss you.  You're so grounding.  

I can't wait to see you.

Oh well.

I'm trying to make a legal argument work in my head, so I went for a run at lunch. Spent the whole run thinking about that book I read. And about tacos.

I think I got stood up today.

She sounded really regretful on the phone.  The baby had fallen asleep in the car, and if she woke him now, he wouldn't go down again.  Husband was late getting home with the car, so she was late leaving.  "No, I totally get it."  (I don't get it because I don't have toddlers whose sleep schedules would prevent me from going out for coffee.)  (Coffee with a friend I haven't seen in 8 months.)  (A friend who biked all the way to Niwot for coffee and for me.)

Sixteen months ago, the gentle boss came into my office and closed the door behind him.  I always panic when they do that.  But this time, he said, "we're going to fire her tomorrow."  He probably said "let her go." That sounds more like him.  I don't remember what I said, but I remember having a lot of thoughts all at the same time.  But who's going to do all the calendaring?  and  But then I have this whole office to myself and nobody to keep me on task.  and  But I held the baby on my lap and played Poke The Nose while she finished the last of the pre-arbitration filings, even though I don't like babies, and we hi-fived on the way out because it turns out while one of us did the legal work, the other could entertain the toddler, and we'd still get 'er done.  and, of course, So what am I supposed to tell her?  
So I guess I do remember what I said.  I said "when tomorrow?"  And he said, "at 11:00 when ___ gets in." And I said I might not come in until the afternoon in that case.  (I'm not proud of that, but I think that's what I said.)
The next morning, she texted me to say she was so sorry I was feeling sick.  Ouch.

I saw her and the baby last summer.  I brought her chocolate because even before she was pregnant, she had a massive sweet tooth and I had used to bring her caramel truffles from the bookstore when I went there for my lunch break.  She was really late, and it was a little awkward, but she came.  The baby poked my nose.

I had tipped the barista a good amount when I bought my coffee and said something about getting food "when my friend gets here."  So there's that for awkwardness.  Maybe they overheard my Dear John cell phone call and my saying "Dude, if the baby needs to sleep, that's cool.  I promise not to think of this as a reflection on the level of our friendship."  Probably not, though.  I try not to talk on the phone in coffee shops, and if I have to, I keep it quiet.  I didn't want to disturb the typers on laptops or that guy reading "Demons."

I texted Micah.  "Would it be cheating to approach an attractive stranger because he's sitting in a coffee shop reading the one major Dostoyevsky I haven't read?"  It was flippant.  It made me feel better, mostly.  My phone didn't announce a return text until I was 3/4 of the way back to Boulder.  "Go home you harlot, you're married."

Three minutes later, "Wait, no, get his number for me.  You can tell me what happened in Brothers Karamazof, right?"

Thinking about Thinking

I feel like I recently underwent a 12 hour stint that was quietly emblematic of my life these days.

I put on heels and stuffed my pockets with business cards and went to a networking event and talked to other people in heels carrying business cards about reciprocity and judge appointments, and I did my best not to steer the conversation towards books and bicycles. Went to the bar and ducked into a bathroom to stuff my lawyer clothes into my backpack and to pull on my punk rock clothes. Found my friends and talked about bicycles and booze and tried not to steer the conversation towards business cards or what work meant about me these days. Went to a show and smashed into a bunch of strangers while dancing around like I was still 17, and I didn't think about work OR bicycles at all for several hours. Went home and drank a glass of milk because there is still a lot of Lent left to go and I was thinking about books again. Who knows which topic my brain was focusing on next, but in the insufficient amount of sleep that followed, I dreamed that I was unintentionally rude to the Pope and my friends were angry with me. When the alarm went off, I stumbled out in mismatched socks and went for a run with my moral sounding-board and we talked about the intersection of femininity and professionalism in modern-day romance. While the dog and I walked back, I encountered a new friend on the sidewalk. I was thinking about business cards and love and booze and music and I thought I might have looked like I'd been crying or something, so I just talked awkwardly to her dog. Got home and ate some things and stared at nothing. Shook it off, put heels in my backpack and dry shampoo in my hair and got back on my bicycle to go to work.

- I'm not usually very good at catching up with what I'm thinking about.

- Christ, I'm awkward before coffee.

- Whoever invented dry shampoo changed my life.