2002-01-12 - 11:07 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Tumbling Dice", Rolling Stones

Well, I'm all in a tizzy today. It looks like we might be taking a vacation in our old beloved hometown, San Jose.

Back when Poindexter was figuring he would get laid off, but before it actually happened, I kept saying, "When you do that, I'm going to take a MONTH off! Just for us!"

So he's been laid off, and first his parents were visiting, and then it was Thanksgiving, then Christmas. Now that the holidays are over and it's the new year and the companies are getting back into hiring, our little idyll is probably coming to an end soon. I realized that if we didn't plan it soon, that "month off" might never happen.

Originally we were going to go to Florida again, for some sunlight, but his parents are booked through mid-February already, and we didn't want to wait that long. So we started talking about going west.

Whether I can take a whole month off work, I don't know. We are definitely taking a full week in San Jose. He's also going to take a long weekend to visit an old friend in San Diego, during which time I will probably telecommute.

In the meantime, my motivation to be more productive at work -- which has been going extremely well to begin with -- has basically been quadrupled because the more I get done between now and the end of the month, the more likely it is I can take some unpaid leave when we get back and we can "vacation" for another 5 days or so here at home.

That's going to be my goal. I want some time alone with my husband so much. We're going to need it in reserve, once the big job-and-move crap starts and we get all stressed out. Which we will, 'cause we have a love-hate relationship with change.

In other news, I'm a bit under the weather. I feel run-down and achy. I feel a little like I have the flu, except I don't. The only symptom I seem to have is an occasional feeling of pressure in my throat -- swollen glands maybe. I think I got something like this last year.

Today I was supposed to go to Megan's baby shower, and I actually got all dressed and went to the mall to pick up some overalls for her kid, but once I got there I started feeling weak and dizzy so I just went home. So much for that. :(

A few days ago, I put up a post on Livejournal related to an article in the Washington Post. The comments in response were amusing, to say the least, and I got to thinking about this. I hope I can keep from getting too bogged down in cultural relativism and don't deconstruct my own argument.

In school, I was taught that people originally came to this country so that they could have religious freedom. That's what the Pilgrims were all about. Wanted to get away from the whole Church of England crap and do their own thing.

So, I still think this is a great idea. Come to this country, practice whatever religion you want, or don't practice one at all. Whatever you want, that's fine. We have no state church, which is also good. Aside from a few hopeless narrow-minded individuals, people are surprisingly tolerant of religious differences here. One group might think another is weird, but for the most part nobody tries to keep anybody else from practicing as they wish. Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Wiccan, whatever. Personally I think all the little cultural aspects of the different religions are cool -- from seeing a woman in a burqa in the grocery store to having Renee point out a mezuzah in someone's doorway.

OK, so, obviously it's generally just fine when someone practices Islam here. I like the idea that people can come here from a Muslim country and continue to practice Islam, with all that it entails. Praying five times a day, wearing a hijab, whatever.

Where, though, do you draw the line? Was it "wrong" to ask that girl to take off her hijab? Was she, as Phanatic said, asking for special treatment?

I guess the big question is, does her right to practice her own religion extend to expecting the government to treat her a certain way?

As I said, my gut reaction was to think that she's a whiner. If she didn't want to take off her hijab in public, she could have asked for some privacy. If she doesn't know that she has the right to do that, it's not the security personnel's fault. Security personnel is treating everyone basically the same here. If someone is wearing any kind of covering on their head -- ballcap, fedora, homey hat -- they might ask them to take it off. Same thing for a hijab.

On the other hand, security wouldn't ask somebody to take their pants off in front of everyone. Why not? Because in American culture generally, what's inside the pants is considered private and not for public consumption.

So then, is this just a case of "majority rules"? The vast majority of Americans don't cover their heads for religious reasons, so there's no consideration given to the occasional woman to whom baring her head is like taking her top off to the majority of American woman?

It seems to me that the most reasonable thing is to take people into a private room, upon request, if they feel uncomfortable removing any particular article of clothing, but to expect security personnel to be aware of every little religious difference in the incredibly diverse American population is unreasonable.

Now, if she were living in a predominantly Muslim country, there's no question that security personnel would be taking women to private rooms if they needed them to remove their hijabs. So this is sounding like a majority-rules kind of thing.

This all ties in to some general questions I have concerning what American culture is, and how much you can encourage people to retain the culture of their home country before everything just splits apart.

People practicing their own culture implies a certain kind of exclusivity, and with that, an isolation that creates an "us" and "them" which can cause a lot of problems. When I was in college, the voluntary racial segregation was unbelievable and everybody was suspicious of everybody else. What good does that do? And how are you supposed to understand someone else's culture unless they're willing to accept you into it? The various non-white student cultural/ethnic clubs said they would welcome any white folks, but the truth was that the club was an escape from white folks generally. A chance to be with "my own kind" or "people like me".

That has always driven me completely crazy. I'm hard-of-hearing. I'm also, I'm told, a very unusual person. There are people out there who are impatient with my hearing loss. There are people who can't deal with my startling openness and directness and give me funny looks. I don't spend time with those people.

That does NOT, however, drive me to spend all my time with other hard-of-hearing people. What the fuck for? Just because we have this one thing in common doesn't guarantee we're going to have anything else in common. Similarly, I've never felt the need to spend time with a woman's group to escape from men. For godsakes. We're all human beings, and finding another human being to connect with is a rare thing, and I'm not going to limit my pool to people of a certain ethnicity or handicap.

My gut feeling, again, is like Nandan's: What happened to assimilation? I'm all for retaining one's native language and speaking it as often as possible, but the idea of moving here and not learning English boggles my mind. If I were living in any other country, you bet your ASS I'd be doing my damnedest to learn the language and customs.

On the other hand, inclusiveness among certain groups is what gives us a lot of exciting cultural diversity. The food, for starters. I don't want Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants baking apple pies, for godsakes. Then there's music. The blues, for example, which I love, might not exist if American blacks hadn't been an insular culture of their own. I love dialects and accents, and am sorry to see that they've pretty much disappeared among the educated elite, although I'm relieved that I still hear them among the more blue-collar folks I know.

Generally the argument goes that having to assimilate is oppressive and means submitting to the white majority. Yet I've heard other people argue that American culture isn't really just "white" culture, but is an amalgamation of all the cultures that exist here.

The thing is though, some of the ideas that are most predominantly "American" really are universal. The idea of working hard to make a better life is shared by nearly everyone here. The right to freedom of speech is extremely important (and boy, do they exercise that right!).

Another thing I find extremely interesting is that Americans, regardless of their culture or color, are instantly recognized as Americans when they go abroad. Everybody here thinks they're so different and one group or another is ostracized, but to people in other countries, we're all Americans. We just come in different colors.

Sigh. Lots of observations, no good conclusions. This is me.

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