bubble bubble CREEPY

i've been reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides as part of a budding new book club, which currently has 2 members (one of whom is me, and both of whom are fabulous so you should obviously want to also join this book club and read with us). i don't want to go into the whole mess of providing a context for this next thing i'm going to talk about, but bear with me. in the book, its in the 1920s and this couple is living in detroit, where they immigrated to from greece. the husband, lefty, works at henry ford's factory and is taking english classes. for their graduation ceremony, the class is putting on a play, and lefty has been asked to be in the play. he has his wife make him some kind of get-up that is "like from the patridha." (patridha = homeland). also, lefty goes to by a blue suit. so the wife goes to see him in the pageant. on stage there is a big cauldron that is labeled "ford english school melting pot." one by one, the men in the pageant come out on stage, each representing their country (italy, poland, norway, etc.) and go into the cauldron. then lights flash and the cauldron bubbles and etc. etc. and then the orchestra plays "yankee doodle" and the men climb out of the cauldron, all dressed in blue and gray suits and waving american flags.

.......

how fucking CREEPY is that?????????????????????? why would we want everybody to be the SAME? why would we take beautiful and unique individuals and MELT them all together and take away their individual identities? why would you put people in a cauldron ANYWAY?

on a seemingly unrelated, but actually really relevant note, julie was telling me today that she doesn't like the mechanical pencils i bought her because they are kind of fat. she doesn't like to write with fat things because it reminds her of when she was little and they put this contraption on her pencil to make her hold her pencil a certain way, with her thumb and second finger, instead of the way she naturally held it (with her thumb and third finger). not that she was having any trouble writing, they just thought it was obviously reeeeally important for her to hold her pencil like everyone else. because it matters. so. much.

why are we so uncomfortable with people being different? why does there have to be a right and wrong way to hold a pencil? as long as you can write with the damn thing, then you aren't holding it wrong.

i wonder how many of the world's problems would be solved if people didn't see things strictly as black or white.....if people would acknowledge that sometimes there is more than one right way to do things.

i'm going to start holding my pencil with my damn toes. and i'm going to stay away from cauldrons!