~Sunday~ I was up ridiculously early for a Sunday morning, but since I’d slept well over eight hours over the course of the last ten, it felt good, as evidenced by this Facebook status update:
This was probably the most compelling PostSecret to me this week, as it highlights just how powerful the message is, and obsessed people are, about body image in this country:
And a little later in the morning this Facebook status update highlighted my excitement about lunch:
I went into the office early afternoon, where I stayed until 4:00, and got a good amount of work caught up.
I made two stops on the way home, the first being at Great Clips, where not Latoya, who cuts my hair most often, but a lady whose name I don’t know, but is the one who cuts it the next most often, made the most surprising admission.
She asked me if I’d had a good weekend, and I told her about going to Jacksonville for my dad’s 80th birthday. That conversation led to how he ended up there, which led to my telling her that he was in the Marines for 30 years.
“Did you ever consider joining yourself?” she asked.
“Actually, no,” I said and continued, “I missed the mandatory draft years, and I’m glad I did, as I’m pretty sure I would have defected to Canada, which I’m also quite sure would have broken my dad’s heart, or at least disappointed him greatly. So, I’m glad to not have had to deal with it.”
“You wouldn’t have wanted to serve?” she asked, not accusingly, but just interested, at least that’s how it came across to me.
“Well, there’s that little thing about being gay in the military…” I said, to which she exclaimed, “You’re gay???”
I thought, “Girl! How long have I been coming here? How many times have you cut my hair? Are you paying attention at all? Have you heard me talk?”
But I said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No, really,” she said. “I didn’t realize that.”
“Then, I should have made the comment I was going to make when I sat down,” I said indicating a poster on the wall advertising different haircuts and styles, “Use the clippers that will make me look as hot as the guy in that poster.” She knew as well as I did that she was just a stylist and not a miracle worker, as what was mostly hot about the guy in that poster had little to do with his hair.
My second stop was at the grocery store, where I loaded up on fresh vegetables to make a huge bowl of salad to eat throughout the week, including mixing in some teriyaki chicken at times.
After showering and tearing up some leafy green lettuce and slicing some hothouse tomatoes to take to Salon along with some kalamata olives, I set out to Anna’s for Salon XXI.
Tonight’s agenda, with my responses embedded, was as follows:
May 1, 2011
6:30 PM, Anna’s Home
1) Leftover Salon XX items
a) John’s 675 project surprise when reviewing: Anna was in my “deliverables!”
b) John’s drawing representing the pivotal points of his life
2) London Update [Sarah]
3) 2011 675 capstone projects review [All]
My blog entry of Tuesday, April 26th, 2011: http://dailyafirmation.livejournal.com/2011/04/26#675defenses
4) The higher form of language: pun vs. inference [John]
a) Is the pun the highest form of humor or the highest form of language?
i) This led to a discussion about the difference between inference and deduction.
ii) Some had heard that puns are the lowest form of humor.
b) Criteria to decide which is a higher form of language? Interestingly, for me, one of them is IBM’s “Watson.” (i.e., If I had to program a computer to “understand” a pun or an inference, which would be more complicated?)
c) As an example, trying to program a computer to “get” this pun: Two cannibals were eating a clown and one says to the other: “Does this taste funny to you?” would be easier than programming one to get this bumper sticker: “Hungry? Out of work? Eat your import.”
5) Lies (Reference: http://www.dailytarheel.com/index.php/article/2011/04/unc_freshman_matney_hate_crime_self_inflicted) [Sarah]
a) I can see the snowballing thing happening, which I articulated with an example of a case in which I started a lie that was then very difficult to stop.
b) My issue with it was with the gay community condemning him because he cried wolf and now no one will believe gay people when they report something, because the reaction when a straight person does something like that is not, “Oh, thanks for ruining it for all straight people going forward,” but more commonly, “What a nutjob.”
c) I would be interested in hearing the issues the kid who did this is dealing with that made him self-inflict the wound to begin with. Is it like “cutting,” which is also something I don’t understand?
6) People’s thoughts on a requirement to teach gay history in schools (Reference: http://theweek.com/article/index/214323/should-schools-be-required-to-teach-gay-history) [John]
a) I guess I’m ambivalent about this. On the one hand, had I read in a text book in school about the gay struggle in terms of a non-judgmental, just a factual chronological history of how and when it took place, it might have made a huge difference in my life.
b) On the hand, I guess I don’t like it being singled out to teach. I’d rather see a movement in which all under-represented people in American history are integrated into the narrative that has been created pretty much by white men.
c) And if we were aliens and had yet a third hand, on that one I would think that any teaching of a city or state history of California (thinking, for example, about Harvey Milk) and New York City (thinking, for example, about Stonewall) should include this aspect in their narratives.
7) Nail polish and boys. Crazy Media (Reference: http://www.businessinsider.com/j-crew-pink-nail-polish-jon-stewart-video-2011-4) [Sarah]
I just have one thing to say about this: “I played a lot of little league baseball, I fished, and I played with trucks and guns, and it sure as hell didn’t turn me straight.”
8) Brief update on the Westboro clan (Reference: http://www.ihatethemedia.com/a-simple-way-to-stop-westboro-baptist-church-funeral-protesters) [John]
a) Did anyone watch that interview with the son who left the family? Just curious.
b) I am so opposed to the tactics used in Missouri that are being so widely lauded by my community and by many military family members.
9) Closing on Salon-A-Thon 2011 [All]
It turned out that the September 30 – October 2 weekend is not going to work as Brad will be in Pisa for the International SIGDOC Conference. I’m going to follow-up with Kim on how important it is to her that we be at the beach, as opposed to in the mountains, for example.