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2001-12-07 / 6:09 p.m. ~In Which I Name Them, and Realize Again that Nothing Will Ever Change~ Nothing will ever change. They'll always think of me as the white person. She won't think twice about telling me my skin is too white, I need a tan, and when K. starts to dance her crazy K. dance, she'll point me out, single me out, and let me know "We don't all dance like that", as if I don't have a clue about black people, as if I'm newly forming opinions based on what I see here. And I'll stew, I'll want to say something, I'll sit and imagine the confrontation, imagine what I would say if I had the chance, but I won't have the chance, I won't say a thing because she won't understand, she sees nothing wrong. I can never be just me to her, nor to any of them, I'm white first. I've never been exposed to so much prejudice in my life. I try to forget about it, put it behind me, chalk it up to ignorance, to insensitivity, but I grow tired of it happening again and again. I'm tired of being surrounded by them, long to be with people who would see me as a human being first, a woman second, and white third, or see me as me, "Joleen", and only that. Nothing will ever change. Whites may have come a long way, embraced everyone as we've been taught, learned to love regardless, but blacks are filled with hate, with prejudice, with segregation, with desires to be only amongst themselves, to despise that which is different. We've gone back in time, not forward. Technology moves ahead at lightning speed, far beyond us, while we go backwards, stunted in our growth, as if evolution had been for nothing. I want to be somewhere else, almost anywhere but here, with this. Well, it's much later now, I'm home, but if not for major "system" problems at work I would be there now. Someone at the large corporation, the one which has our company under contract as an outsourcing company, really needs to see how crappy our IS department is, see that we are fucked up more times than not, put us out of our misery, lay us all off. Not that I want to have to find another job, but if I'm not let go nor laid off I'll stay there forever. It's great diary fodder. We were down since 10:00 this morning, and I don't know how we spent the day really, I hardly remember. I had my monthly review, I told D. about L., and really I need to come up with nicknames for these people - it must get confusing to read about three different L.s�Anyway, I had my talk with V., she and the Manager (M) had a talk with both L. and the supervisor, D. So, the devil and the exorcist met with the supervisor and manager, and I don't know the outcome. I asked V. if the system was still down, after lunch, "Has anything changed?", and she thought I wanted to know what went down, "You know I can't talk about that or I might get�fired.", but no, no, I want to know if the computer program is up yet. "Oh�" L. had clocked out, printed out her time sheet, said to tell the receptionist she was gone for the day, not to me, but I heard her, and then she came back. Damn, I thought they'd fired her, finally. So, we started processing documents manually, for auditing, and in a hurry, rush, rush, we can do this, and I finished, started to help Lulu, when the manager (M), comes and says, "They'll audit you on Monday, don't worry about today", and I tell Lulu, "Damn! I went to all that trouble, man, I rushed!!", and, no shit, she stands up, looks away from me and says, "Karen, how long did it take for you to get your new cell phone?". It's like she either cannot hold her attention on any one thing, or she has a problem with ME, personally, and can't wait to get away from me, or I don't know what the fuck else. It's so irritating I want to scream! And I'm tired of saying, "Jesusfuckingchrist, Lulu, you have the attention span of a flea in search of blood!", wait, is that a good example? "Jesusfuckingchrist, Lulu, you have the attention span of a 3 year old spoiled brat at her birthday party!" Or something. Then, it's the little confabs, with Lulu, the other L., oh, let's call her Laverne, okay? Yeah, Lulu and Laverne, and Rasta, the temp. Maybe we can call the evil L. Listerine. Listerine is foul, and its purpose is to wash away supposed evil, when it is evil itself, so sure. So, yeah, the confabs start, the hushed tones, the leaning in on cubicle walls, the one who wants me the white person, to know that K. (can we call her Kukla?), wait, Kukla's goofy dance style is not representative of all black people, leans in to talk to Rasta, and Lulu can only think cell phones, and they've all shut me out, and I get so tired of trying to join in. I hate cliques. I'm offered the chance to leave early, and with one last sick day burning a whole in my 2001 file, I say sure, let's use 2.5 hours out of the remaining 8 for "personal" or "sick" time, and I shall volunteer to vacate. Then, another 75 degree day, another obscenely beautiful and wholly abnormal day, in every way, and I don't know what to do. I deposit my paycheck, get a huge Italian sub with everything on it from Publix and buy a couple Big Game tickets, then come home. N & G naturally associate my arrival with feeding time, but it is my feeding time, not theirs, so I eat and watch some of "GL" on tape. Now, here, to read some diaries, maybe see if I can download some WebShots photos before they relocate from Excite, then some TV, I guess. Speaking of TV�last night's "Temptation Island 2" was interesting (I watched Charlie Brown's Christmas special and the making of documentary, and "TI2" in the bedroom while I taped "Survivor" and "CSI" in the living room, watched them after) - one of the couples has decided to leave the show, they know they want to get married. I felt ripped off. I mean, I'm glad they want to get married, but I think it's a copout. Don't they sign a contract or something? You can't just sign up, go to the island, then have a couple of dates, get felt up, drink a lot, and decide you want to be with your boyfriend instead of the hunky guy massaging your feet! That's not fair to the viewers. We want to see you debauch yourself! Besides, the boyfriend in question was learning things about himself with other women, learning he needed to be with a different type of woman than his girlfriend, or so, we, the viewers, were led to believe. Ripoff. Next week they bring in another couple to replace them. Hmmm� Then, "Survivor", well, Ethan is hot, I really think so. I just love his curly hair, and his soccer legs, and the fact that they showed him rush off to the outhouse because he had the runs. Poor guy. Yes, he is cute indeed. And Lex has beautiful eyes, but he's a dick and needs to go next. Charlie Brown was excellent, as always, and I watched the Grinch too, "He's a mean one�Mr. Grinch!". Ah, 75 degrees and I'm watching Christmas specials. I reminded Lulu yesterday that the Earth has left its orbit, told her (quickly, due to the fact that she can't look at me, turns away after approximately 15 seconds of me talking to her) of the "Twilight Zone" episode in which everyone is so hot, the Earth is hurtling towards the sun, they're all going to die, then the main character wakes up, out of an intensely high fever, from a feverish dream, to realize that it's the exact opposite, it's SO cold, the Earth has left its orbit and they are hurtling AWAY from the sun, they are all going to die of cold!!! On that note, I am going to end this. It's been a rough week, too, too much, too much of Listerine, Lulu, Laverne, Kukla, even Rasta, too young, hypocritical, wannabe Rasta, I can't take too much of any of these people, I need to get away from them for these next two days, try to forget they exist. Cost of the War in Iraq
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