(no subject)

It's good to be home after a ten hour work day today. Looks like more of the same next week, but if I get paid overtime it's not such a bad thing I suppose. I am actively working to save up some money for my eventual change of living location. In fact, I am now making a little more cash by sitting at my computer with my nice new adjustable lamp (free from Glenmark) over my lap filing miniatures as I listen to music and chat with boixboi, who appears to be having as exciting a Friday night as I am. On the other hand, maybe he's surfing through an interesting website or something right now, which would give him the edge. This really is a pretty unexciting night...

I managed to overuse my left wrist and it's been giving me nasty pains where I broke it last summer. Fortunately it's feeling mostly better and I should be able to play in the softball game that I'm looking forward to attending tomorrow. Whee, I get to do something social on a day off. Quite the concept, that.

I picked up a set of three green wicker nesting boxes that I am using for my shinies! The little one is for rings and things, the middle one for necklaces and anklets, and the big one is for all the stuff I need to remember to take with me every day. This is helpful in preventing me from having to spend 15 minutes hunting down my wallet in the morning. Organization is a good thing.

I've been giving thought to a comment made by one of the people who came with to the Kenzer and Company building with my dad to help move some of the stuff from Glenmark last week. There was a really nice drafting table and some other stuff that the high school whose theatre program my dad has been doing some work with wanted. They don't really have an official staff member who deals with theatrical stuff, so the person who has, in an unofficail manner, taken on most of those responsibilities was there with a group of high school students. He was working at the school in another capacity but had some interest and experience in theatre and was in the right place...

Anyway, at one point, while the students who were with were out looking around the warehouse we were going through, he told them, in a very friendly manner, to 'stop running around like a bunch of fairies' and come grab this file cabinet. This struck me as kind of inappropriate. Even when I didn't consider myself a member of the GLBT community, I would have found that phrasing questionable. I talked to my dad about this later on. He basically said that, while he wouldn't use such a desrciptive, that it's use in this context wasn't necessarily something that should be addressed. It had concerned my dad too, but he found upon asking some of the students he works with there (including an openly gay one) about it that they didn't object to the word and understood it to be meant in a purely friendly way. This troubles me on several levels.

I don't like that a word which, at the heart of it, is a slur, would be used in friendly speech that way. Despite what is meant or understood from the context, it's still, on some level a slur. Perhaps it's akin to black men (I don't think I've ever heard it from women) calling each other 'nigger'. It's ok for them since they know how the word is meant, but just watch a white guy try and do that... Still, that situation differs in that the person who used the word is not, in this case, gay. Apart from that, I have a problem with anyone in a position of authority, especially authority over younger people who are below the age of majority, using any kind of slur like that. I know what my school experience was like, and I think having authority figures seeming to condone what could easily be made into verbal attacks and ostracism by many of same sort of kids that I had to deal with can only make things tougher on the bullied. It seems to indicate and promote an acceptance of that sort of thing which I believe should not be tolerated. Even if 'friendly' usage was ok, a person in authority should probably be held to a higher standard, at least while they are 'on the job' so to speak.

So that's my two cents. Any comments?

Woof, I'm exhausted. I need to get to bed. I'm getting up early tomorrow to go down to Chicago to pick up boixboi (dropping off foreignlegion in Waukegan on the way), and then going back to Waukegan for the LAFF softball game I mentioned. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the game!