Losing my grip? Just noticed I titled Friday’s post “Saturday Bag o’ Whatever.” Whatever. One thing I know for sure, it’s now Sunday (I checked twice), and my 48-hour house arrest has ended. I took Mister B out into the harsh daylight for a walk this morning, first slathering my face with moisturizer and sunblock, and in a while I’ll go to Walgreen’s to get more of the latter … the dermatologist gave me three little sample tubes, but they contained almost nothing and I used all three to coat my face today. I’m supposed to continue using the super-strong stuff for two weeks, but then plan to switch back to my regular sunblock. I hate putting any kind of ointment or cream on my face, though … which is probably why I’ve had so much trouble with minor skin cancers.
Mary Anne and I wound up watching Serenity, the Firefly movie … me for the second or third time, she for the first. Polly chaperoned us and we had a nice evening. After my date (!) went home, I started watching I Am Not Okay with This and Ragnarok on Netflix. The first consists of seven 20-minute episodes and I finished them all in two nights. Hope there’ll be a second season. I’m three episodes into the second now, afraid to check how many episodes are left because I don’t want it to end. There are other shows Donna and I watch together … I’m holding off on those until tonight, when she’ll be back from the ranch.
South Carolina primary is down; Super Tuesday is … well, Tuesday. Looking back a couple of entries, as always overthinking how others might interpret what I’ve written, I note that I mentioned black and Hispanic Democratic voting blocs in certain states, and how they might affect upcoming primary results.
Yeah, I worry about capitalization. Some Western writers and journalists have started capitalizing “black.” The idea is to give the black population equal footing with minority populations described with proper nouns: Hispanic, Latino, Asian, etc. I’m an old fart with regressive opinions and habits, and one of them is not giving in to trends that go against the traditional rules of American English. I won’t capitalize “black” because it’s not a proper noun. I’d get around the problem by using “African-American,” but many black people I respect have turned against the term, so that’s out.
In a perfect world we wouldn’t have to refer to race at all. Obviously there are differences in external appearance between populations, but the whole construct of race is meant to elevate whites over everyone else and we’d be so much better off without it. Maybe one of the reasons I love science fiction as much as I do is the presentation of worlds, especially on the screen, where people of all ethnicities, races, and genders live and work together and no one gives it even the slightest thought. That’s always seemed like something to shoot for, at least to me.
Time for a Walgreen’s run. See you soon!