rambling – Page 5 – Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0

The main thing I can think of when I encounter “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over Tonight” is when a family acquaintance died in a car wreck in the late ‘80s. (When he was younger than I am now.)

He had apparently very specifically stated in the past that he wanted that song played at his funeral. So, his family decided it was Wholly Inappropriate, and ignored the request after a lot of arguing back and forth.

It maybe didn’t help that he had managed to wrap his car around a tree, coming back from a girlfriend’s house while he was half sloshed. (Also married at the time.)

But yeah, that musical choice was just sooo Curtis, and I still think they should have done what he said he wanted. That’s really not my taste either, but it sure did fit better than generic hymns.

Unfortunately reminded again of when a friend’s otherwise pretty abusive mother was trying to push her into breast reduction surgery. Her clothes would fit so much better! Etc.

We were maybe 20, and the friend wore a C cup 🤔 But Mom apparently thought it was pressing enough to keep offering to pay for it and everything. The situation made my friend uncomfortable enough that she needed to talk about it, which was how I even knew.

The whole thing was just very very weird, and I really hope Mom didn’t manage to wear her down after we lost touch. (Mostly thanks to her mother, but yeah.)

Just as a sidenote on that discussion around no-fault divorce (and UK legal space).

A marriage is where you stand up in front of your family, friends, and (often) God to promise that you’re going to stick with this person for the rest of your life. Where I come from, adults keep their fucking promises.

Actually, I never promised any such thing, and wouldn’t have been willing to if it had been required. (Same with the “forsaking all others”, for that matter.)

Precisely because I do take oaths very seriously, and cannot in good conscience promise that. Shit happens, and it’s impossible to know how the situation may develop over time. I’m not going to promise things that may be impossible to deliver even if I wanted to. That’s a ridiculous thing to promise in advance, without qualification.

(Not even starting into the very different ideas about what all gets lumped together as “marriage” across societies. Which may or may not look much like what that commenter wants to consider universal. But, not everybody attaches the same stigma to divorce. At all. And the lifelong thing comes bundled along with some very specific religious/cultural ideas about marriage.)

The only specific statements actually required in a civil marriage ceremony in England and Wales?

I do solemnly declare that I know not of any lawful impediment why I [name] may not be joined in matrimony to [name].

and

I call upon these persons here present, to witness that I [name] do take thee [name] to be my lawful wedded wife / wife-husband / husband.

That’s it. You want to make other vows to one another that are personally meaningful? Go right ahead. But, it’s not required in any way. Two statements affirming that you intend to marry the other person, and hey presto! You’re legally married.

(As usual, it’s a little different in Scotland, but the requirements sound pretty similar. I couldn’t easily find the actual legal declarations there.)

We actually went with our local register office’s default ceremony, because there was nothing anybody objected to. Which was a bit of a pleasant surprise, tbh. They did a pretty good job at keeping it secular.

Anyway, it’s totally possible to have a wedding without the rest of your life even coming up. Thank goodness.

(An expanded version of the somewhat personal tangent mentioned here: http://clatterbane.tumblr.com/post/176226535033/greyshadowquestionsbeing-translesbiantheo-all )

Just have to add, with changes to British immigration law? See also: how too many of the Windrush families have been done.

Not to go off on too much of a tangent here, but I came when there was literally no way to update an EEA family member visa after the initial 5 years. After that 5 years, it was automatic indefinite leave to remain with no further need for a visa at all. They were simply not issuing any documentation beyond the initial 5 year leave to remain.

(Coming from outside the EU as an EEA family member did simplify things a lot, but that was also before the ID cards were instituted at all.)

It made me uncomfortable at the time, being unable to get some sort of valid documentation to wave around if necessary.

Having your immigration status totally dependent on your partner’s felt precarious enough already, but I had my own reasons not to apply for UK citizenship after the 5 years were up. (Also before the Tories instituted their ludicrous testing, and hiked the fees so much. And the DVLA lost my valid passport with travel documentation, to complicate things more even before the system got the current overload.)

So, of course, come back almost 10 years later–and what a bloody “hostile environment” mess. With loads of people on the way to becoming undocumented because of changes to the system, if they’re not already getting treated accordingly. With trying to access already austerity-gutted services, if not directly by the Home Office.

And of course the system totally overloaded by the push to cause problems for existing immigrants who have done everything they were supposed to do.

I had more to say, not too surprisingly, but started out pretty low on wording spoons even before getting worked up.

Anyway, there are plenty of human rights issues to stay busy with right here. People certainly can care about multiple things at once, and hopefully do. I just get frustrated at the number who apparently would rather put energy into more scapegoating and finger-pointing to bolster that sense of superiority, as a substitute for doing anything productive to help much of anybody else anywhere.

With that ridiculous scar story, also reminded again of the time I got this huge infected mosquito bite right over one cheekbone when I was probably 3. I don’t remember that one, but from some others I do? It must have been pretty miserable. You move your face at all, that’s going to hurt. I was apparently also acting sick from the infection.

Anyway, my mother thought it looked bad enough that she took me to the pediatrician–who refused to lance the thing, because it might scar! Prescribed antibiotics and sent us home.

The thing ended up rupturing on its own a couple of days later, in a much less clean way that was probably more likely to leave a scar than if the dude had gone ahead and just lanced it then and there. (No obvious scarring at all, BTW. Not that anyone but him was very concerned about that.)

But yeah, if it had been AMAB, something tells me that the potential for a small scar probably would not have outweighed a little kid going around miserable with a big infected lump on their face. Some pretty amazing logic there, regardless.

I would go further with this one.

If kids are limited to “simple plots, with clearly defined teachable morals, uncomplicated characters, explicit statements on what you should take away from the story, etc. etc.”…how/when are they going to learn to deal with more complexity or ambiguity?

That seems like an excellent way to get adults who do continue to have trouble with this. And who too often do want to restrict everyone else’s access For Their Own Good. It’s kinda self-perpetuating, no matter the ideological details that behavior comes wrapped up in.

I mean, I have written a little before about how disconcerting some common base assumptions can be, to a former hyperlexic kid with some weird special interests raised by a librarian. (With a decent grounding in critical thinking, very much including “anybody sufficiently motivated can write any type of horseshit they want, and likely get it published”.) Not going to repeat half of that now.

But, I am personally not so sure that “[a]lso, children should not be reading material dealing with that stuff anyway” is a safe starting assumption.

For that matter, I’m pretty sure I was regularly committing some of that Dread Food Stamp Fraud, back when they were way more obtrusive Monopoly money-looking physical coupons.

I would usually just give my mom the huge roughly $25/month worth that I became eligible for once I got on SSI. Largely because of anxiety.

I was having a rough enough time without also devoting spoons I didn’t have to dealing with the high likelihood of shittiness out of cashiers and/or other customers as soon as you pulled them out. She was more up to it. (And probably didn’t face the exact same types of judgy bullshit, not being an apparently healthy-looking person in their 20s.)

Anyway, I had other problems getting out shopping. And shopping assistance is allowed for disabled adults. What likely pushed it over into technical “fraud” was that I just handed that big $25 over for her to use as she saw fit. That food was not bought/prepared separately from the rest of the household supplies.

Just reminded of that, as another example of (fairly common) “fraud” that’s really not hurting anybody. And is not what most people will think of, at all.

clatterbane:

Come to think of it, maybe my favorite slur combo was one I got to hear when I was probably 17 or 18. And this random middle-aged businessman type started frothing at the mouth about a friend and me being (expletives deleted) “Lesbo Dyke Bitches”. With that exact phrase repeated multiple times, presumably so nobody would get confused about the type of dyke bitches he meant? Maybe to designate us as next level dyke bitches? Who knows.

I’d had all of that thrown at me separately more than enough, but never before or again as a Special Compound Slur.

That was random enough that it was even darkly funny at the time. He didn’t much like my response, but oh well. My friend was scared until she had basically dragged me several blocks away from the dude, but then she eventually busted out laughing too.

Bit of a shame we never did start a band. But, of course that got to be a running joke for several years, with other people we knew welcome as fellow Lesbo Dyke Bitches.

At any rate, I have gotten to hear just about every even vaguely relevant slur possible over the past 30 years or so–including a number misapplied badly enough that you had to wonder if they knew what that term was even supposed to mean. If usually not as part of such crap amusing combo deals. And I love being told what is supposed to be blanket offensive enough for everyone to stop reclaiming now. Maybe especially by people with sufficiently different experiences there.

Reminded of this one again, with still more on this topic coming across my dash today.

(Relevant: When I first started figuring out that I’m not straight, in 2004, I was MUCH more comfortable calling myself queer and calling myself a dyke than with any other terms. If someone had dared to call me a homosexual to my face I would have decked them.

That Lesbo Dyke Bitches episode happened ca. 1992. At that point, I was personally much more OK with queer and dyke than pretty much anything else that had been leveled at me/the other options on offer. I did end up decking a couple of people over persistent aggressive lesboing back then. As that person was also stressing, people’s experiences and associations can vary so much.

And I did become more politically aware–and started coming to terms with the fact that I was definitely not straight, whatever the details might be–precisely during the late ‘80s-early ’90s. Which I know influenced how I approach some things.)

Though, reminded again with that last link on the (rather recent) history of US immigration law? I do get tired of the idea that colonialism suddenly ended in what’s now the US, in 1776/1783/whatever.

It’s very convenient. And requires an amazing amount of cognitive dissonance.