the_rck

I talked to my stepfather on the 11th (his birthday). He told me that my mother is scheduled for surgery the first week of March and that they don't yet know what will come after. I suspect a lot will depend on whether or not her lymph nodes are clear. Mom's apparently very adamant that she doesn't want to do radiation. I didn't ask about other treatment modalities.

My stepfather confirmed that they're not heading up here when they usually would. They're still not sure when they'll be up to making the trip as they have to drive (because of having two large dogs).

Mom has had both doses of the vaccine. My stepfather has had the first and is scheduled for the second. He told me that my brother has had both doses and got sick for about three days after the second dose. (My brother is a social worker who works with people who have some intersection of developmental disabilities, substance abuse issues, and mental health issues. It requires a lot of in person interactions with his clients.)

My right hand isn't quite as bad as it was on Monday. Both hands and wrists are worse than they were at the beginning of the month, though. This may be, at least partly, because I pushed to get back to being able to prepare things like instant oatmeal for myself. I feel like this injury is going to happen again. Probably not often but still inevitably.

It's like how walking on ice over and over and over leads inevitably to an occasional fall. I can minimize some of the risks, I can try to be careful, but it only takes a moment of inattention to cause injury. There's no guarantee that any such injury will be minor, either.

I've been doing more than the usual amount of typing as I try to finish my long term disability review paperwork. That typing doesn't help, and the need to get this stuff done is also leading to migraines. I'm glad I'm not committed to writing for any exchanges right now.

Maybe next year I'll remember and leave February as a deliberate gap. This year was accidental.

We got delivery from Totoro for dinner on Wednesday. I didn't get what I usually would because that involves a lot of stuff that I can't reasonably eat without utensils. I got edamame, a vegetable tempura side, and some very tame sushi. I shouldn't have gone with the tempura because the batter gives me reflux; I just keep forgetting because I like it. I ended up with enough leftovers for a couple of small meals that got me through Thursday.

( Cordelia college stuff, including discussion of racism )

Anyway, we're in a holding pattern while some of Cordelia's friends decide where they're going. There's one member of the group who hasn't been accepted anywhere yet, and I think that the others are waiting to see what happens with her.

(I've been trying to write this for several days and haven't managed to express what I want/need to say. I also feel like I should attach a big 'My feelings, my reactions' disclaimer to the whole thing.)

I read a book of poetry the other night that made me wish for a less neutral term than 'cultural appropriation' because that sounds like it's trivial or harmless, maybe the equivalent of farting in a crowded elevator when it's not.

Or not necessarily.

Sometimes, it's the equivalent of attending an orchestra concert by kids who've been learning for a year. It's not pleasant, but maybe they'll improve and maybe they'll appreciate other people's music more. Other times... Well, 'cultural appropriation' sounds like no one gets hurt, like no one ever could get hurt.

Like anyone who says they have been or are must be exaggerating.

I understand wanting a neutral term because people in a position to punch down tend to do exactly that when they feel threatened or like someone's telling them they're wrong. Neutral language potentially decreases the violence (physical, emotional, economic, legal, etc.) of the response. That's generally desirable, especially if there's a risk of splashing bystanders, but it also leaves a lot of wiggle-room for 'good intentions' as excusing everything.

The neutral term can serve as a useful shorthand for people who share a vocabulary, but it also obscures a lot of ugly details and assumes that the repercussions and problems are the same for every culture experiencing appropriation and the same for each individual in a particular culture.

As a white woman from the US, I hesitate to label things as cultural appropriation because my entire context is from the appropriative side. This particular book had beautiful illustrations and some turns of phrase that I liked a lot, but I was also uncomfortable with it.

The author anchored the poems, in a preface, to the traditions of a particular Native American community where she'd been a guest many times over a period of decades. She says that she's white and that it's not possibly for white people to fully understand the things that Native Americans just know because of who/what they are. I was okay with the not understanding because people from different cultures never quite understand everything about each other, but the phrasing exoticized the people she claimed as friends.

It was creepy.

The illustrations were done by a well known artist who specialized in stylized portraits of Native Americans, edging into 'the spiritual' and what I'd call fantastical. As far as I can tell from Google, the guy was white (I found no definitive statements about it anywhere, and I really strongly suspect that, if he had been Native American, one of the sites I looked at would have said so. No one says he was white, either, but that's generally the unmarked state, so...).

The illustrations are beautiful, but they made me uncomfortable.

I don't feel right in delivering a judgment about the poems and illustrations being appropriative, but I certainly reacted to the book, emotionally, as if it was.