Hospitalidad

When I came home for dinner this evening, I was pleasantly surprised to find some additional dinner guests in the kitchen. I had already invited one friend, and now two more were at the table, meaning we had to pull our table away from the wall and squeeze 8 chairs around it (basically, every chair we have in the house). We ate green bean, tomato, and mushroom egg casserole, fruit salad, and fresh homemade bread, and there was enough for everyone. I don't want to lose this casual, last minute sense of hospitality college has fostered for me. Just ran into a friend that you haven't seen in awhile? Bring them home for dinner. There will be enough places at the table and enough food for all. Don't clean, don't bother with fancy dishes (or even more than one utensil per person), it's the fellowship and the people that are important. I love that I can pretty much count on someone dropping by each evening during the week, a steady source of entertainment based on the fact that friends know it's ok (bordering on required) for them to drop by when they want to, without calling ahead. Don't get me wrong, fancy dinners are nice, and have their place, since I love to cook, but impromptu large group meals are my favorite. Just because I am coming to the end of my time of living with/near college students doesn't mean that I need to change my methods of hosting people in my home. Come for dinner. There will always be enough.

Kimberly: "Milk has fat and orange has lemon."
Matthew: "You are science."

Thursday Thoughts

An older Spanish-speaking gentleman came into the co-op to buy eggs today. He handed me two dollars when I told him the price in English ($3.39), so I started talking in Spanish. He told me he'd be back with more money and left me with the eggs and the 2 bucks. Later he came back and told me he didn't have the money, I gave him his $2, and he left. And after he walked out, I thought, Why didn't I just tell him that it was ok, take his 2 dollars, give him the eggs, and then pay the remainder myself? or give him my discount?
I say that I'm for social activism, but what do I actually do? How do I actually serve people each day? And why did I only think of helping out that man after he left? Sigh.

A pretty awful day today. I never quite woke up, things seemed stressful at work. The promise of sweet coffee bliss and time with James at the Brew somehow helped me make it through. Conquering the crossword puzzle and keeping Alzheimer's at bay never hurts either. Things are feeling a little better now. I was able to deal with the strawberry juices spilled all over my messenger bag without any cursing. That's pretty impressive for a person like me. :) Here's to the weekend, and tomorrow being Friday. I will now leave you to snuggle up and read Everything is Illuminated until the new episode of The Office this evening!

Huh?

If any of you know me at all, you understand that I am rarely (if ever) struck speechless. However, in certain interactions with other members of my species, no other response is possible in that moment. (Luckily, I am often able to blog about it afterwards.)

After ringing up the purchases of a middle aged male customer today in a baseball hat and a jacket with some saccharine-sweet saying about Jesus Christ, the following interaction occurred:

Customer: "You have really nice hair. You should grow it out."
Me: "Oh, actually I really like it short."
Customer: [laughs] "We'll see if your husband likes short hair."

This rendered me completely speechless. First of all, I am confident in who I am, short hair and all. I was walking on the mill race yesterday and realized I was walking tall and proud, confident about who I was. I occasionally think back to pre-college me, and realize that she would have been totally uncomfortable with the short hair, large earrings, pleated goodwill skirt over tights me, and I am so glad to be here. I am a woman, and I feel good about who I am, the unconventionally beautiful me who truly enjoys being unconventional. I'm also just not really sure what his intention was...it was sort of a compliment wrapped up in telling me to change my appearance, given to a person he didn't even know. Interesting.

Upon further reflection, I realized the number of vast assumptions he made in that one statement. First, he assumed that I am a heterosexual (because all truly "normal" people are, you see). Second, he assumed that I want to get married (oh right, don't all women my age want to get married, too?). Third, he assumed that women should have long hair (no smarmy comment to put in parenthesis, sorry). Fourth, he assumed that my future husband's opinion about my hair would trump my own. Well, I reject all of his assumptions. I am heterosexual, I do want to get married (to a man who will honour my own opinions about my appearance), but I sure don't need long hair. However, I could have easily been a happily single homosexual, which would have made his comment even more outrageous. The amazing thing is that I'm sure he thought nothing of it. The beauty of having heterosexual white male privilege is that you don't think about these things because you don't have to. Since you are the default, the privileged one, you don't realize that not everyone is like you.

So I will continue to wear my hair short, to reject wedding mania, and to be proud of the woman I am, unwilling to fall into (some) conventional norms. Thus ends my social analysis moment du jour (SAMDJ for short).