(no subject)
Oct. 16th, 2007 08:47 amIt's kind of turning into a slow, doleful descent into winter and I'm not entirely sure what to do about that to make it better. I'm buried under an unending slow avalanche of work, I have a story that depresses me with how much it needs to be fixed, I get absolutely no hugs at all in this city and that's making me ridiculously sad and there's this whole thing where I've never lived with Boys before.
They are referred to collectively as the Boys because they act all of about ten years old and - while I realise that they're just teasing and trying to get a rise out of me, often - I don't like them well enough and they don't know me well enough to get away with some of the things they come out with. I have learned also not to go drinking with them, after hearing the kind of discussion points they get into; I'd fight the corner of anyone-not-white-and-male-and-middle-class if I didn't have to live with them for a year - and I do, when I'm not drunk and likely to get a little too angry. Mostly my role seems to be poking them and letting them know that actually, yes, that's hugely offensive right there, which generally leads to them accusing me of not having a sense of humour. Which is kind of the worst thing an English person can hear about themselves, seriously, and makes me sad - partly because I do totally worry about being very dull and humourless, very frequently, and partly because the hiding behind jokes thing is so frequently used as an inadequate excuse. There's this whole argument from Post-Structuralists (I think) that language shapes reality, and they're not talking a reality that I can get behind. And genuine humour is not the same thing as just saying 'I was joking!' after you see the expression on someone's face.
They are referred to collectively as the Boys because they act all of about ten years old and - while I realise that they're just teasing and trying to get a rise out of me, often - I don't like them well enough and they don't know me well enough to get away with some of the things they come out with. I have learned also not to go drinking with them, after hearing the kind of discussion points they get into; I'd fight the corner of anyone-not-white-and-male-and-middle-class if I didn't have to live with them for a year - and I do, when I'm not drunk and likely to get a little too angry. Mostly my role seems to be poking them and letting them know that actually, yes, that's hugely offensive right there, which generally leads to them accusing me of not having a sense of humour. Which is kind of the worst thing an English person can hear about themselves, seriously, and makes me sad - partly because I do totally worry about being very dull and humourless, very frequently, and partly because the hiding behind jokes thing is so frequently used as an inadequate excuse. There's this whole argument from Post-Structuralists (I think) that language shapes reality, and they're not talking a reality that I can get behind. And genuine humour is not the same thing as just saying 'I was joking!' after you see the expression on someone's face.
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