pre-Valentine's Day fun

courtesy of jfoxdavis :

List five fictional people -- from television, movies, books, whatever -- that you had a crush on as a child (or early teens). Then post this on your LiveJournal so other people can be assured that you’re as weird as they thought.

1. Mr. Spock--Star Trek
2. Kermit the Frog--Sesame Street
3. Namor the Submariner
4. Dr. Strange, Master of the Mystic Arts
5. Lucan--from the [all too] shortlived tv show about a boy raised by wolves

Elitism and social class

Back in 1998, it was our first WorldCon and first ever listie gathering thereat. After dinner, a dozen or so of us went back to Alayne McGregor's room for further chat. Well, actually, mostly to enjoy Douglas [from bookcase_claudi]'s floor show. He had just quit smoking and was still wound pretty tightly. One of the things he was pretty passionate about was the elitism in fandom--i.e., the pervasive feeling that we're better than everyone else just because we're fen. I disagreed rather intensely then because, after all, we're listies, and we're all inclusive and cool like that. [uh, yeah]

Still, that discussion ties in rather neatly with what ataniell93 was saying on-list the other day about not feeling like middle-class, but rather like an impoverished aristocrat. Although my mom's actual socioeconomic realities were far divergent therefrom, I had a similar experience. My great-grandparents were sharecroppers in middle Alabama. My grandparents lived sometimes in the country and sometimes on the edge of town and were millhands [textile mills mostly]. My mom was a secretary for 25 years [none of this "administrative assistant" nonsense, either] and then boss of a small office for 10 more. She wanted to go to college, but girls from south Georgia in the 1950s just didn't do that back then. [It wasn't until I was in my 20s that I even found out she'd gotten a scholarship to the local business school; the woman has severe self-esteem issues.]

We were able to escape to a small wooden house in the suburbs when I was 7 [given the state of Atlanta schools back then, I use the word "escape" advisedly]. At the time my mom was dating a divorced man with a daughter about my age. We were both saving our money, but I remember feeling distinctly supercilious, because I was saving my money for *college* [spoken in proper tones of reverential awe], whereas she was only saving her money for a car. Of course, the school system was still good back then.

Socially we thought of ourselves as middle-class, although economically we were probably lower-class. All my life I knew it was my "manifest destiny" [to swipe a phrase] to be the first one to go to college. Most of the kids in my high school grew up in split-levels and much larger houses, but it didn't bother me unduly [after all, I probably had more books than all of them put together. ;)]; I just figured, in terms of social mobility, my family was just a generation behind some of the others.

Now I live in the suburbs in a small brick house only a little bit bigger than the house I grew up in. It was what we could afford back in [my spouse's] student loan days; since we never had kids, we never needed anything bigger, and we like it. The yard is largish, so no one's peering into our windows, but we're still within 12 miles of downtown and the airport. And we still have enough books to share with the *whole* list.

The differences between perception of superiority on the part of more "educated" people and the sometimes actual economic superiority of "less-educated" people has been the subject of many romance novels of varying quality and of recent discussion hereabouts. I never really thought of the dichotomy of it until recently. After all, while we don't have as much money as some, we have sufficient for our needs and are actually quite comfortable, in our own, low-profile, low-stress way.

So I understand some of Miles' feeling of carrying the weight of generations, although in my case, it's more like 3 than 11, and there won't be a next one.

National Bookfest cybercasts

note: there're enough authors here [even many folks one wouldn't usually think of as such] to please even the finickiest palate. Enjoy!

Subject: [LMB] (News) Bookfest cybercasts

For all who wished they could have gone to the National Book Festival
last fall, here, through the magic of technology, are the speeches,
including mine. For all who went and regretted not being able to see
all the writers they wanted to see, it's even *better*.

http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/04/cybercasts/index.html

Ta, L.

my spouse

hornedhopper refers to her husband as the Teflon Spouse. Perhaps I should start referring to mine as the TP Spouse. After all, he is extremely "Charmin'" and certainly "Squeezeably Soft." [weg]

Further deponent sayeth not. ;)