all I wanna do

[tielan]

...is write Maria/Steve fic.

Nobody's asking for it (which is why I haven't signed up for any exchanges), a handful are reading it, I am writing it nevertheless because my brain won't let it go.

--

How TF did Boris Johnston become PM of Britain? In the immortal words of HRC: What Happened?

Seriously. We are so fucked.

--

I did work out why the vampires are meeting my heroine under the circumstances they are. It's a bloody work contract, brain, of course they set out the damned conditions before she takes the job.

Also, I'm doing a lot of worldbuilding of this thing as I go along. And I might have to go out into the Sydney nightlife at some point.

--

I'm a little bit calmer about the permabee happening on Saturday - not much calmer, just a little. I'd prefer if I had twice the number of people and am thinking about posting something that might encourage a few more local friends to get involved. There's the moving of a giant water tank involved, and while I think the number of people we have could do it all working together, I'd like more.

I do need to check for pipes in the area - there is a sewerage line that runs parallel to the street, a water line that provides to a garden tap, and possibly a gas line into the house? I should probably do that TODAY...

And having submitted the inquiry, now I'm being inundated by a morass of emails "from" various utility providers (they're automatic "YOU HAVE THIS RESPONSIBILITY" emails) and now I'm worried that if they find any evidence of work in the area, they'll be assholes about anything that I do, even if it doesn't disturb the utilities.

*facepalm*

--

A bunch of friends in the US are having a meetup next year. I was thinking of going, but given activity in the US regarding non-whites and their treatment, I'm doubtful about the wisdom of this. Yes, I'm an Australian citizen (at this point irrevocably since I was born here to parents who were also Australian citizens, but who knows - skin colour is increasingly becoming the indicator of whether or not you have rights, no matter your citizenship) but frankly, I don't trust ICE officers to believe that.

As it is, I'm going to Indonesia next year and am slightly nervous about that, too. The Chinese aren't well regarded in Indonesia, and people around the world will always see me as Chinese before they'll get it in their heads that I'm Australian. And this is even more difficult in non-white countries than it is in white ones. To them, 'Australian' means 'a white person'.

--

I saw a post on FB that said a community in Nashville, TN locked arms to keep ICE officers out so the vulnerable in their community could get away.

A small lamp of hope in the darkness.

Comments

[wpadmirer]

I actually think Johnston is worse than Trump (just a bit) because he's actually political. Trump is just a failed businessman who happened to be racist enough to appeal to all the wrong people.

I was very pleased to see the thing in Nashville.

I know that being Chinese can be an issue. My friend Meifang has run into that. I never think of it until she mentions something, and then I think, Fuck! That's right. She's Chinese! Sometimes my brain gets oblivious to the most obvious shit.

[tielan]

I have heard nothing but bad things about Boris. That's not encouraging.

See, I think of myself as Australian but I know that a lot of people who look at me see 'Chinese'. It doesn't help that the term for race is the same as the term for nationality in some cases, and has become synonymous with a skin colour/racial type in many cases.

[wpadmirer]

Exactly! It's stupid.

I'm very fortunate that I was raised by a woman who pointedly worked on making me see people and not race. She had roomed with a Japanese American woman right after WWII when she was in college. She really was amazing when she was young.

She was also very liberal and taught me to be a rebel.

[rmc28]

He's awful. No-one who's worked with him or for him likes him. He's cultivated this buffoonish persona / personal brand which people like - I used to quite like him - but which cracks under scrutiny. He was a terrible Mayor of London, wasted enormous amounts of public money, and went from an apparent remainer to supporting Brexit late in the day. (There's a bunch of people in that party who seem to have regarded EU membership or not as a game for advancement within the party/the government rather than something that has meaningful consequences for the world.)

I'd say he's someone who just wants to be In Power without much idea of what to do with it, but I rather suspect he does know what to do with it, which is to suck up to nastier richer people with more power by screwing over the rest of us.

[wpadmirer]

Yeah, it's going to be a rough ride.