So I have been out of touch, but not out of action. Saturday I was wakened early by the TV that was left on all night and the patter of kiddie feet, and was persuaded after some nappery to go and take Fegsling and Fegsling-friend bike riding toward breakfast, which was fun except for the paranoia. We rode down to Milburn and bought some bagels and juice and sat in the park, and ate, and told about biology and animals and tigers, which I maintained can turn blue when angry and travel backwards in time (which is why no one has ever seen a blue tiger...). So suburban life need not be so bad, even if Miss Fegs was tearing up everything cleaning. It's a pretty house for the effort, though. AFter the exertion, though, I simply had to pass out. And that meant afterwards I went to the library with the kids again, and Fegsling passed out reading about sharks, but Fegsling-friend was still awake: I read Harry Potter, adn they read nonfiction about animals I myself was not aware of. It was fascinating. And Mr Potter continues to have a few Marxist sensibilities buried in some sort of half-assed Great Man/Chosen One theory that I am skeptical of, even if Mr Potter is in his own fictional world the victim of pooh-poohing. So that was great, and in addition I managed to find a used copy of the Corrections, hardcover, for $1, though the girl at the desk insisted that it was softcover (helpfully pointing out some hardcover books for my future reference) and charged me 50 cents for it. The book has been a good read, but exactly the sort of bujii-nonsense that I inveigh against, with purple conceits I could not get away with--at one point the sister lectures a brother "like the World Bank lecturing a Latin debtor."

I don't know what to make of all that. Pleasant dinner with Miss Fegs at a diner, and then off to home again, and while waiting for the train a mini-convention of well-fed, white, middle/upper-middles waiting for the train were laughing at the desperation of bums desperate enough to fight each other for $20. The explanations were thoroughly unsatisfying, "They are willing to do it for a living"; "They are so desperate they'll do anything for a dollar" etc etc... No sympathy, no uncomfortable looks. My students last year also enjoyed this shit, but they are uneducated in some fundamental way. And don't live in the sort of comfort one is able to read from this group of junior whitey. What can I say? Fucking whitey....

Ah, well. so I got home eventually, did the shower and freshen up thing, and did a flying meet-up with Joephet on the 7 line, and we proceeded to the village for dinner, which was rather pleasant, despite my persnicketiness. I really should be more appreciative and less demanding of him: he really does deserve better, and I can't get away with treating him the way I do Alric.

Alric, incidentally, I did see today, though I was ruder than I should have been, and just generally annoying, as we strolled Fifth Avenue Book Country and I was cynically appraising Target, DC Comics, the Asian American Writer's Workshop, and so on and on. Sigh. Stupid whitey.

Ummmm... I guess I'm on a tear because I've been seeing way too much miscegenation. Maybe that sounds a bit extremist, but the fact remains that the reality of life in this country is that there is if not a racial hierarchy, then a certain set of relations between races, and roles which cannot be easily escaped. And this is why the closest we have to an Asian-American superhero in the comics is Jubilee, who has a crush on Wolvie, who is Canadian and white. Were there ever to be an AA superhero, his power would probably be invisibility.

And I saw D today, downing a too-big chocolate shake and two jalapeno burgers at White Castle. He is doing OK, though beginning a divorce. Which is a brave thing. And his school is apparently worse than our last, which I wouldn't say of mine.

So I approach tomorrow with a bit of anxiety, but a new file-rack and hope.