(no subject)

Well, who would knock on my door at 9:12 Am but Unique Restoration. They did apologize when they saw that I actually hadn't really started my day much when I opened the door, and again when I mentioned that they had been scheduled to appear the two days prior and I had had no advance notice they would appear today. The main guy said he had been on holiday and hadn't gotten his messages until today, an excuse that actually makes the internal communication sound worse than I thought it was.

Anyway, the plan would be to drill holes in the drywall and put fans in front so the inside could dry out. This would only take two days of fans since it had been so long that a lot had probably already dried. Based on what they found, they would replace the insulation as needed. So I asked, if we start now and you guys come in Friday, could you be finished before any weekend showings of the house? A phone call to the office and the answer was no, the patching and painting would require drying of a day and a half. Well, I said, then you will have to start next Monday, because I want this place showable on weekends. That seemed to be fine, but they did want to leave a dehumidifier to keep running. I asked what it would do since I always had windows open and there would be no holes in the wall that is now dry on the outside, but they said it would help.

Ok, so I have a big box whirring in my bed area in front of a wall, with a long plastic tube that ends in my sink. A little water trickles out of the tube. The comment about only needing two days of holes and fans because the situation might have dried so much already makes me wonder just how much of this work is ncessary at all -- if I wait another week, might we cut drying time even by one day more? What if I wait a month? Well, I do not want the disclosure issue, so I signed the work order, and left a messagw at 502's insurance agent that I did.

(no subject)

Oh, and by the way, fuck that privilege meme. Seriously. Doesn't resonate with me at all. Once you get abused by your 'peers' for years first because you are blond in a country in northern South America and thus perceived off the bat as rich, spoiled, and useless, and then for years in Europe because of a quirk in your accent makes people think you come from the upper class and thus are rich, spoiled, and useless, you get a different view on privilege. Yes, I was so privileged I was a target for getting kidnapped -- awesome! I was so privileged we had a maid just like everyone else where we were, and accordingly at 9 years of age I did not know how to make my bed: obviously when we were back in Europe this made me a worthless human being! Fuck someone thinking I need to be 'aware' of my 'privilege' while growing up: I have been made aware all my life how awful people richer than you are, thank you very much.

The list is also hugely US-centric, and to me not so much a list of markers of privilege but more of how badly the US has allowed its public institutions become tools of greed. Yes my parents payed for all my higher education at a fine university, but that only cost some thousand bucks a year, because the Netherlands thinks a highly educated population is a common good that brings health and prosperity like, say, a working sewer system, and a place like Harvard should not be in charge of those for everyone because they will only sell them to the highest bidders. The list is an indictment of a society that has inflated its diplomas so bad that college degrees have become a necessity for everyone, saddling young people with massive debts, and getting vocational schools ignored. The list is an indictment of how bad public services are that teenagers needing cars becomes a given instead of an alarming glossing over of the question why a country with such a large population in urban centers can't make do far more with buses, bikes, and mopeds. The list is a question whatever the fuck happened to kids having library cards so they can access thousands and thousands of books instead of needing to have them at home.

Hand-me-downs? How old is this list? Clothes strong to be hand-me-downs actually are a privilege. Hand-me-downs do not exist anymore because Wal*Mart crap won't survive the first wearer long enough to be handed down. Meanwhile I, who could bold over half that list as if it says something about the economic status of my family while we were travelling and wearing hand-me-downs, was walking around in them, pre-worn at one point by two or three people before me, in some cases even from neighbors, because my Mom and some of her friends believed in buying Lacoste / Izod polo shirts in kids sizes because they were indestructible and could be thus, well, handed down, if she didn't choose the colors too girly. Which of course meant that I got crap at school and my after-school activities, because, you know, I was wearing Lacoste polos (some a decade old) like those rich kids and thus I must be one (in hand-me-downs). The rich kids gave me crap because they thought I was a fag.

My first and longest transatlantic trip was when I was 6 weeks old: my mother took me from Buenos Aires to Amsterdam to go to her father's funeral. Ooooh, I am so privileged, I saw the world! Fuck yeah! Well, actually, I did see large chunks of the world because my father actually took a risk and took his family for a stint somewhere else than where he lived. He did the work, but the impression I got when we got back was that me having been somewhere else made me really gauche. I can tell you why rich people shouldn't and don't talk about their experiences unless they really know they are in equal company: it's because people with less money teach themselves and their children to be such shitheads about it, judging only by almost ludicrous outward markers instead of the people in them, pretty much like that meme list, and teaching their kids to take it out on the kids they think are 'rich'. Oooooh, I had holidays abroad every year -- yeah, because I lived in a country the size of a postage stamp, and where everyone went to Spain in summer. Bold another line.

I spit on privilege being defined by commercial markers. It means shit to actually growing up into a functional or happy being, like so many people think it does. Privilege is being safe at night. Privilege is getting honest and useful sex, drugs, and alcohol education, both about emotional and physical consequences, so you can make informed choices. Privilege is loving parents who set great examples of being together. Privilege is being taught early how to handle money and plan for a future. Privilege is everyone having a good education so that you do not have to retreat in fortified camps and cars in suburbia. Privilege is not having to systemically live in fear of your future whether today or a decade from now, not whether you got new clothes for Christmas or not. (God. Socks for chistmas. No, serious. I can't stand clothes for Christmas: always me unwrapping another scratchy sweater and hearing my mother say how difficult it was to shop for me -- look lady, if you just had the label say Yamamoto instead of Hema you'd have a far easier time. At least then I actually would have a reason to have been mean to.)

I know too many people who can bold 75% of that list and still need to, or should, shell out massive dollars for therapy so they can shovel out the landfill that is their inner life and be able to function. Or deal with the guilt that they are not "living up to their potential, look at what a great start they had". I look at that list that is supposed to make me 'aware' and am only able to think it was written by someone pretty internationally myopic and jealous, and go over memories of taunts and being spit on.