Tag Archives: English majors

controversies, history, language, lessons learned, social media, Virginia

If the old name means that much to you, shouldn’t you know how to spell it?

Happy Saturday morning, folks. Bill is home again from his latest business trip. He brought me flowers and candy, in part because I was in a noticeably bad mood on Thursday night during our nightly chat. In fact, I was in such a pissy mood that I went on YouTube and covered “Can’t You See” by the Marshall Tucker Band. The lyrics are for a man singing about a mean woman, but I changed them to a feminine perspective.

Sorry, no makeup… I wasn’t going to put it on for this occasion. And I don’t care if people don’t like it. It helped keep me from being self-destructive. As for the song choice, you can take a girl outta the South… 😉

Naturally, I was kind of kidding. Bill isn’t a mean man at all. Sometimes, he’s just a little clueless, as we all are at times. I was upset because I wasn’t feeling well, and I was stressing about the idea of seeking local medical care before it turns into an emergency situation. Being home alone in a foreign country, not knowing much about accessing the healthcare system, is stressful. Yes, I know how to call 112, but I’d like to avoid doing that if I can. He thought I was just upset because he was out of town. And instead of asking me what was wrong, he made small talk about a topic I didn’t care about at all. I realize I should have been more direct with him, but I was home alone and feeling kind of crappy and depressed. I just wanted him to ask me if I was okay… or even a simple “Why are you being so bitchy?” But he wanted to talk about some people from Kazakhstan he met who had moved to Germany. I couldn’t have cared less.

When he brought me the pretty red carnations and Lindor Truffles, I put the flowers in water and we cleared the air. I explained to him why I was so short tempered and ended our chat early. I just plain wasn’t feeling well and was upset about the prospect of doing something about it. The insistence on making small talk was pissing me off. Adding insult to injury was the fact that I had a cold this week that turned out to be very minor. It was over in a matter of three days, which is shocking to me. He kept harping on the cold, telling me he’d be making me chicken soup and hot toddies. I kept telling him the cold wasn’t a big deal, and still he went on about it. Meanwhile, I have this annoying dull cramping in my abdomen that doesn’t hurt, but really bugs. I had told him about it before, but he was still focused on my vanquished cold. The argument is over now. Maybe my next cover will be a Rick Astley number. Don’t be surprised if I try it.

So… what about today’s title?

I was thinking about writing a more serious post today about a topic that sort of relates to my current source of angst. But then I decided I’d rather not… simply because yesterday’s post was so gruesome. So I’m going to address something I noticed the other day on my alma mater’s Facebook page.

Seems innocuous enough, right?

Longwood University is a public institution in Farmville, Virginia, founded in 1839. The high rise buildings at the end of the double rainbow were recently renovated such that they really no longer resemble the buildings they were when I was a student at Longwood from 1990-94. Below is a photo from the era when I was a Longwood student. I lived in Frazer for my first week at Longwood, but then had to move because of the roommate from Hell. I’ve written about that in this blog, for those who care.

This photo was uploaded to Flickr by a user named tommy. Incidentally, tommy is another person guilty of the subject I will address today… He writes that he scanned this photo from a postcard.

Judging by the way this photo is positioned, I think the picture was taken facing campus. That would mean the building on the left is Frazer, and the building on the right is Curry. When I arrived at Longwood, they were considered the most “modern” of the dormitories, as they had air conditioning. None of the other residence halls had AC, which was no fun during Virginia summers. They were built in 1969-1970, I believe, so they were just slightly older than my age. 😉

In his description of this photo, tommy wrote this:

Curry and Frazier Residence Halls

Longwood College, Farmville, VA

These 10-story, high-rise residence halls are named for Dr. J.L.M. Curry, who drafted legislation for Longwood to become Virginia’s first Normal School for female teachers in 1884, and Dr. Robert Frazier, president of Longwood from 1897 to 1902.

Like a lot of people, tommy misspelled the name “Frazer”. But he uploaded his photo in 2006, when Curry and Frazer still existed. Today, those two buildings are very different looking. A few years ago, Longwood totally renovated them, right down to their skeletons. And now, they are known as Moss and Johns. Why? Because the men behind the names Curry and Frazer did things that are no longer considered honorable. And the people behind Moss and Johns are local civil rights heroes who have done a lot for the community. Three years ago, the buildings got their new names to go along with their brand new makeovers, but old habits die hard.

I’m going to be honest. It’s hard for me to think of those buildings as anything but Curry and Frazer. However, given that they no longer resemble the old Curry and Frazer, except for the fact that they’re ten stories high, I don’t think it’s wrong that the names were changed. They really aren’t the same buildings anymore. In fact, I read an article about the renovations and was SHOCKED by the photos of the interior, which show how beautiful they are now. I can tell you, having lived in Frazer for a week, the old buildings were very sterile and utilitarian. The new ones are absolutely gorgeous.

A view of the newly renovated and named digs… No more cinder block walls!

If you know anything about Longwood University, and Prince Edward County, Virginia, you know that the area was particularly problematic during the civil rights era. In 1951, local student Barbara Johns, whose name now graces one of the renovated residence halls, and had moved to Prince Edward County from New York, organized a student led walkout at Robert Russa Moton High School in Farmville to protest its overcrowded conditions and poor facilities for Black students. With legal help from the NAACP, students at the Moton School filed Davis v. Prince Edward County , which was the lone student initiated lawsuit that was later rolled into the historic Brown v. Board of Education case, a 1954 Supreme Court case that declared “separate but equal” public schools unconstitutional.

In 1959, locals in Prince Edward County closed public schools for several years to avoid integration. A private school named Prince Edward Academy was opened to educate white kids, and when I arrived at Longwood in 1990, it was still open… but on its last legs. In 1992, former resident and businessman J.B. Fuqua infused a large donation of cash into Prince Edward Academy so that it wouldn’t go under. It’s now called Fuqua School, and is no longer reserved for white kids. But, check out what Wikipedia has in its article about Fuqua School (when it was still known as Prince Edward Academy):

In a 1982 interview with the Los Angeles Times, headmaster Robert Woods said that the school had an open admissions policy, but that no blacks had been admitted since they were less intelligent than whites. Woods added that the school did not “teach segregation or integration” because that was “for the parents to do”.

1982 wasn’t really that long ago…

Nevertheless, I distinctly remember arriving at Longwood in 1990 and hearing about Barbara Johns and the Moton School. I sat in Jarman Auditorium with lots of other freshmen taking the then mandatory “Longwood Seminar” course (which I think is now defunct) and listened to several local Black leaders speak about the special civil rights history from Farmville, which I had not heard of in high school. I do remember learning about Brown v. Board of Education— I think it was in a high school sociology class, of all things. But no one ever educated me about what was going on in Farmville in the 1950s… not until I went to Longwood as a college freshman.

As for Dr. Gordon Moss, he was a faculty member at Longwood in the 1950s and 60s who was instrumental in supporting civil rights in Farmville and Prince Edward County. Dr. Moss taught history from 1944-1969. My late aunt was a student at Longwood in the 1940s, graduating in 1948, just before the name changed from State Teachers College to Longwood. I wonder if she knew Dr. Moss. Anyway, Dr. Moss was very outspoken in the 1950s and 6os about the need to reopen the schools in Prince Edward County and support justice and equality for everyone.

So yeah… Johns and Moss are certainly worthy of being honored. But who were Curry and Frazer? Well, they were both men who promoted education, which certainly makes them notable, especially at a college where so many great teachers are trained. Jabez Curry advocated for developing public education in Virginia and the rest of the South. But he was also a member of Confederate Congress. As for Dr. Robert Frazer, he was a former university president for a few years when Longwood was known as Female State Normal School, back in the late 19th century. And he was also a Confederate soldier when he was a young man.

Virginia has recently made a lot of progress toward moving beyond the Confederate era. That includes taking down lots of monuments that celebrated Confederates, changing some names, and promoting more progressive attitudes. Plenty of people are still mired in the past, though, and they stubbornly resist change, even when it makes them look ignorant on many levels. Such is what I noticed on Facebook, when that beautiful photo of Moss and Johns was posted. There were many comments from people arguing that those high rise buildings will ALWAYS be Curry and Frazer to them.

Below is a sample of the comments left by alums who refuse to evolve:

OHHHH you mean CURRY AND FRAZIER!>>>>>???????😠😢

soooooo Does RE writing History make folks TODAY actually feel better????? LIVE better????

I have so many thoughts but don’t want to be in FB jail.😡

I lived in Frazier. It will always be Frazier. When you keep changing names people have no attachment to them.

Yep. And if there’s nothing familiar, why would I ever visit? Or make an alumni donation?

I lived in Frazier, too.

Rainbows over Curry and Frazier

That would be Curry and Frazier 😉

Curry and Frazier…

It will always be Curry and Frazier !

And it goes on and on, with a couple of snarky comments directed at those who point out that so many people keep misspelling the defunct building name they seem to hold so dear. When you realize that the majority of these folks are college graduates, or at least former Longwood students, it seems especially ridiculous. I mean, do you WANT to look ignorant, or what? How hard is it to spell the name correctly? It’s one less letter. And if you’re arguing that the name shouldn’t have changed, it really seems like you should damned sure know the actual spelling of the so-called sacrosanct name. I wonder how many people who object to being educated about proper spelling would be annoyed if people kept misspelling their own names? Doesn’t it seem like a matter of basic respect, not just for the person behind the name, but for oneself?

Some of them are also pissed because the Ruffner building– which is where the famous Rotunda is– is now just called Rotunda. Again… hard to imagine that building as not being called “Ruffner” anymore, but in light of recent progress, the change was warranted. Below is a passage from a Farmville Herald news article about the history of Ruffner:

I don’t really have any strong attachments to the old names. Longwood has changed so much since I graduated in 1994. A lot of old buildings are now gone, with brand new ones to replace them. They really needed to be demolished and upgraded, to remain competitive with other universities, and for basic health and safety reasons.. Even the Rotunda is different now. On April 24, 2001, just before Longwood College became Longwood University, the original Rotunda burned down. But even though the place has dramatically changed cosmetically, it’s still a place I hold dear in my heart.

I still have so many warm memories from Longwood, and there are even a few people still working there who remember me. I left that school with an excellent education and so many friends. I will be forever grateful. So, I’m all for progress and change for the better at Longwood– a place that, even after 184 years, is still evolving, preparing great leaders, scholars, and professionals, and doing things that make for a better world for everyone— especially the students and alums.

I’m also all for proper spelling, because I was a Longwood English major, dammit. Spelling counts sometimes, especially if you’re trying to make a successful case for honoring long dead people who fought to continue the enslavement and oppression of Black people. Think about it. You should have learned how to do that when you were a Longwood student. Or, at least, improved your skills somewhat.

By the way… Longwood is also where I started singing. You can take that as a good thing or a bad thing. 😉 However, I can honestly state that learning to sing and embracing music changed my life significantly. I wouldn’t have had that opportunity at a big school. So, for that alone, Longwood will forever be a special place to me, regardless of any name changes, renovations, new buildings, or other progress…

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book reviews, politics, Trump

A review of The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal, by Mary Trump

In August 2020, when the world was still in the desperate throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Donald Trump was still the POTUS, I read and reviewed his niece, Mary Trump’s, book Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. I remember feeling vindicated as I read her words about her uncle, Donald Trump, whom I had correctly identified as a malignant narcissist or sociopath. Mary Trump wrote about what it was like to grow up in the Trump family, and how much she suffered, even though she was a member of a very wealthy, powerful, and celebrated clan. Unlike her uncle, Mary Trump is a basically normal person with an excellent intellect and a fully functioning id and superego. Mary’s first book was very interesting, but it was also terrifying. At the time I read it, I was genuinely frightened of what was going to happen if Trump won in 2020. Thankfully, that is not what came to pass, in spite of Trump’s relentless and nonsensical insistence that the presidential election was stolen from him.

I liked Mary Trump’s first book, so when she published her second book, The Reckoning: Our Nation’s Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal in August 2021, I was quick to download it. It’s taken me a year to finally read Mary Trump’s book, because it kept getting supplanted by other books. This morning, I finished it; it was a refreshingly short read, long on history and theories as to how the United States finds itself in the horribly polarized, angry, unhinged state it is in right now. Some of The Reckoning was uncomfortable to read, as Mary Trump unflinchingly writes of how Black people were treated before and during the Civil War era, as well as in the decades that followed it. She reminds her readers that slavery officially ended in 1865, but the persecution of Black people has continued since then, and only in very recent years have people of color had a chance to succeed in the country they helped build against their wills.

Mary Trump rightfully points out that American high schoolers are not taught enough about American history. What they are taught is the “white” perspective of American history, and now that people are insisting that more of the whole truth is taught, many white people are fighting to prevent it from happening. Trump explains that every white person is born with inherent privilege, simply for having white skin. However, she also mentions poor white people, who also suffer due to classism that also exists in our society, and the mistaken belief that sharing resources means having less for themselves. And she reminds readers that there are many people who, consciously or unconsciously, are doing all they can to maintain things the way they’ve always been. Her uncle, after all, won the highest election on his platform, “Make America Great Again”, having never before held public office. Lots of people in the United States are terrified of evolving into a nation that plays on more level ground for everyone. Below are a couple of key quotes from Mary Trump’s book that really summed up things nicely, in my view:

Yes… many people have been duped into thinking that if they share the vast resources in our country, it will automatically mean less for them and theirs…

I remember when I was an English major at Longwood University (then Longwood College), my advisor gave me a hard time because I didn’t want to take a Shakespeare class. Instead, I was interested in the Women’s Literature and African American Literature courses that were being offered. I thought I would be more interested in the subject matter, having already been exposed to Shakespeare in high school and college. Good ol’ Dr. Stinson, who also used to tease me about all the music classes I insisted on taking for fun, sighed and signed me up for both classes. I took both courses during the same semester, and got a huge dose of studying lesser known books by women and people of color.

I didn’t do particularly well in either of the lit courses; because to be honest, I was kind of a lazy English major. I wanted to write things, not read and analyze literature. But I learned new things in spite of myself. Both courses exposed me to works written by Black authors, Black women’s writings, as well as slave narratives, which were bits of history that had been withheld from me in the years leading up to college. I now believe that high school students should read at least one slave narrative. The subject matter is tough, but it definitely inspires empathy and a broadened perspective from writers who should get a lot more recognition.

I mention my college experience and the attitude surrounding the importance of Shakespeare, because Mary Trump repeatedly explains that most Americans have a poor understanding of history. And today, in high schools across the country, there are legislators, school boards, and parents who are lambasting against “Critical Race Theory” being taught in schools, and trying desperately to suppress the truth about America’s past. I never thought I’d see the day when so many school systems were being pressured to ban certain books, and teachers, already overworked and underpaid, were being forced to catalog their libraries and submit them to scrutiny by third parties. I was heartened to see the outraged response to one Tennessee school district’s decision to ban Art Spiegelman’s excellent graphic novel, Maus. I had not read that book myself, before it made the news. But because Maus was in the news, I decided to read the book. It was life changing. I now know that simply by writing a few blog posts about Maus, I helped inspire other people to read the book.

Mary Trump’s comments were unpleasant to read at times. She states outright that it’s “impossible” to be a white person who grew up in the United States and not be racist. She’s probably right, although I hesitate to use words like “all, every, or impossible”, because experience has shown me that there are almost always exceptions to every rule. And given the family that raised her and what her family spawned, I was caught between disbelief that she was making such a statement, and relief that she could acknowledge racism in a way that was surprisingly humble.

I also found this book a little bit depressing and hopeless. Yes, it’s important to acknowledge problems. That’s the first step in correcting them. It’s important to atone for wrongs committed. That’s the best way to promote healing. BUT… she makes the problem seem so entrenched and deep seated that fixing it seems extremely difficult. It won’t happen in my lifetime, although the more optimistic side of me acknowledges that in my 50 years, there’s already been some substantial progress made. I was born in an era when things were a lot more “black and white”, so to speak. It wasn’t uncommon to hear people casually toss around the “n word”, for instance, especially on television. But that progress is hindered, because of Trump’s uprising and the many emboldened racists who are desperately trying to stop progress, and resorting to cheating and violence to get what they want.

Anyway… The Reckoning offers a lot of food for thought. It’s a short book, and easy to read. Mary Trump’s writing is engaging and informative. Maybe some readers will be uncomfortable, or even offended, by her comments. Some people might have trouble believing that someone with her background can have true empathy for the downtrodden; she is a Trump, after all. But in spite of that, I found Mary Trump’s commentary steeped in truth, and eye-opening. I think this is a good book. But don’t come to it looking for dirt on Donald Trump. She wrote about him in her first book, and The Reckoning is about a different topic entirely. The Reckoning isn’t about Trump; it’s about what led us to Trump. And it offers an important warning to us all to open our eyes and our minds and vote accordingly… or else.

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rants

“I think it helps us not to know each other…”

Tl:dr– Please don’t try to read my mind. It isn’t nice, and probably isn’t as interesting a read as you assume it is.

Back in 1993, James Taylor came out with his wonderful Live album, which was recorded during his 1992 East Coast tour. I was in college at the time, and a devoted JT fan, so of course I bought it as soon as I could. Over the past 27 years, I have gotten many hours of enjoyment from that album. I’ve seen James Taylor play live several times. One thing I’ve always noticed about him is that he truly loves to perform, even if he’s probably a more introverted soul when he’s not on the stage. Of course, I don’t know him personally, so I really don’t know how he is off stage. The truth is, even though I’m familiar with almost everything he’s done, we don’t know each other at all. I’m just a fan of his work, like many thousands of other people around the world are. I may feel like his biggest fan, but I’m probably not. There are most likely a whole lot of people who love his music even more than I do.

James made a quick-witted quip on his Live album, when an enthusiastic female audience member shouted out, “Love you!” to him after he sang “Something In The Way She Moves”.

You can hear Taylor’s quip at about 3:30.

His response was a deadpan, “Good.” Then he added, “I think it helps us not to know each other.”

I’m no “James Taylor” by any stretch of the imagination, nor do I make any assumptions that someone is going to declare their “love” for me at a concert, on a video, or in the comment section of a blog post. If someone ever did do that, it would probably really freak me out. I’m not comfortable with people who express that kind of extreme emotion toward me unless they are someone I know personally. And even then, it kind of freaks me out. I’m sure James Taylor has gotten used to those kinds of extreme declarations of love or disgust, though. Lots of people have told him they love him or hate him. That’s what happens when you put yourself out there. People tend to love it or hate it, and many of them have no compunction about telling you what they think.

Taylor’s wry response to his adoring fan on the Live album comes to mind this morning as I reflect on some of the feedback I occasionally get on my writing. Sometimes, I think people who are exposed to other people’s writing, music, art, or whatever else get the idea that they actually know the person who is presenting it. Sometimes they forget that an artist– for lack of a better word– is often a total stranger to them. They wind up projecting things on the person who presents their creative pursuits to the world. They make assumptions about what the artist is thinking or feeling at the time they created their piece.

This phenomenon was one quarrel I had with being an English major. As an English major, I was required to read different works of literature and write an analysis. I don’t think that was necessarily a bad exercise in that it taught me to look beyond the obvious. However, it always bothered me that I was supposed to look for things like symbols and hidden meanings as I tried to analyze a piece of writing, even though I could never really know what the writer was thinking or feeling when he or she wrote it. I got reasonably good at writing analyses of other people’s writing. I had to in order to earn the degree in English. But I was never particularly comfortable with it.

In fact, my discomfort with analyzing other people’s writing was kind of vindicated a few years ago, when I stumbled across an article written about the American author, Flannery O’Connor. The piece was about how, back in 1961, an English lit professor and his students were having trouble analyzing a short story O’Connor had written called “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. The professor’s interpretation of the story was evidently pretty far off the mark of what O’Connor was trying to convey. He wrote this about O’Connor’s story:

We have debated at length several possible interpretations, none of which fully satisfies us. In general we believe that the appearance of the Misfit is not ‘real’ in the same sense that the incidents of the first half of the story are real. Bailey, we believe, imagines the appearance of the Misfit, whose activities have been called to his attention on the night before the trip and again during the stopover at the roadside restaurant. Bailey, we further believe, identifies himself with the Misfit and so plays two roles in the imaginary last half of the story. But we cannot, after great effort, determine the point at which reality fades into illusion or reverie. Does the accident literally occur, or is it part of Bailey’s dream? Please believe me when I say we are not seeking an easy way out of our difficulty. We admire your story and have examined it with great care, but we are not convinced that we are missing something important which you intended us to grasp. We will all be very grateful if you comment on the interpretation which I have outlined above and if you will give us further comments about your intention in writing ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find.’

Ms. O’Connor, flabbergasted by the professor’s interpretation, wrote back to him. Here’s a quote from her response that kind of speaks to me as I write today’s post:

“The meaning of a story should go on expanding for the reader the more he thinks about it, but meaning cannot be captured in an interpretation. If teachers are in the habit of approaching a story as if it were a research problem for which any answer is believable so long as it is not obvious, then I think students will never learn to enjoy fiction. Too much interpretation is certainly worse than too little, and where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it.“

As someone who likes to write and used to do a lot of fiction writing back in the day, I never felt all that comfortable with some nameless person reading my words and making assumptions about what I *really* meant.  How can a person really interpret a writer’s true meaning if they don’t know the writer?  Sure, you can learn about history.  You can even learn a writer’s life story. But unless you are inside the author’s head, you can’t really know how he or she meant their work to be “interpreted” or even if such interpretations would even be welcome.  And if the writer was writing many decades before a reviewer’s birth, I would think the lens would be even more skewed.

Sometimes this phenomenon even happens to nobodies like me. Yesterday, I wrote about an experience I had with my aunt’s brother a few years ago. When I wrote that post, I was mainly feeling kind of amused. But I guess amusement is not what came across in my writing, because someone left a comment that indicated they assumed I’m still “mad” about that incident three years later. The fact is, I’m really not “mad”. I wasn’t even that “mad” when it happened. I would say I was frustrated and annoyed, but not necessarily “mad”.

When I think of someone who’s mad, I picture a person who is irate and seething with rage. That’s not an accurate description of how I was feeling then, or now. How I was feeling in 2017 was a combination of irritated, disrespected, and exasperated. But once that incident was over, it was over, and I completely forgot about it until yesterday.

I wasn’t feeling any of those negative emotions in 2020, either, as I recounted the story about my aunt’s brother in yesterday’s post. What I felt yesterday was mostly levity, particularly when I found that picture of the yellow truck with the words “Fuckin’ Hick” on it. If I recall correctly, that picture was taken by a friend of mine who was annoyed that the truck driver had parked his truck in her neighborhood. She was worried about property values going down because of the profanity. I was thinking about Bill driving on the Authobahn, being annoyed by another driver who not only was driving her own car, but apparently wanted to drive Bill’s car, too. 😉

Yesterday, I didn’t feel like writing about COVID-19 or politics or any of the other issues of the day. Sometimes, I feel like writing about something that doesn’t have to do with current events. When I was writing yesterday’s post, I was thinking of people who might read it and get something useful from it– for instance, the part where I wrote that “at some point, it’s got to be okay to be who you are“. That was meant to be a supportive statement for those who have felt that others disapprove of them in some way, and it was more of the main idea I was going for, rather than venting about being disrespected. But obviously, some readers missed the point. Perhaps that is my fault for not being more clear. Yesterday’s post wasn’t necessarily supposed to be a funny story, but I didn’t really mean it as a vent, nor was it an indication of how I feel right now or a sign that I’m still fuming at my aunt’s brother. The fact is, I don’t even think about him very much these days.

I will freely admit that I often hold onto some emotions for longer than perhaps some people think I should. I definitely hold grudges when someone is egregiously shitty to me. I think it’s because I was forced to endure a lot of bad treatment when I was growing up and there was nothing I could do about it at the time. As an adult, I’ve been learning constructive ways of countering that kind of treatment. There are only so many times a person can turn the other cheek before they finally snap back.

I used to be a lot more aggressive when I “snapped back”, but lately I’ve been trying to be more assertive. Assertiveness is not an easy skill to master. If you’re aggressive, you might be able to bully someone into compliance with your wishes. Assertiveness is a better, more respectful, more mature communication skill, but you run the risk that the other person won’t appreciate the respect and will either not respond at all, or will respond with aggression. I had initially tried being assertive with my aunt’s brother by politely asking him not to be a language cop on my page. That didn’t work, so I resorted to what some would consider “aggression”. Dropping f-bombs to someone who clearly hates them is probably considered aggressive by some people. On the other hand, acting like a language cop on a middle aged woman’s Facebook page is disrespectful and patronizing, and yes, that can cause a person to get “mad”.

While a Buddhist would likely tell me I would have more peace if I just said “fuck it” and let it go, that’s just not the type of person I am. I am a deeply flawed human being, just like everyone else is (including James Taylor). But I think it’s important for most readers to realize that they don’t know me personally, and it’s not helpful to project your interpretations of how you think I’m feeling. If you’re really curious about how I feel, you can always ask me and I’ll probably tell you. But please don’t assume you know and assign specific emotions to me. I consider that disrespectful.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t like it when people try to mind read, particularly when they are people I’ve never met. It makes me uncomfortable. Or, if you do want to assign an emotion to me, kindly keep it to yourself. Assuming that I’m “mad” about something when you don’t even know me is more likely to make me mad at you. But then, maybe you don’t care if I get mad. Most people don’t, which is why I ended up in that situation with my aunt’s brother in the first place. 😉

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