Oh gosh, you should work in the whitest segment of a jobsite teeming with Mexicans. If I had a nickel for every unfortunate use of the word "they" I encounter each day, I could quit and perhaps pursue a job that involved my college degree. Very much enjoyed your summary. By the way, what is it about hairdressers? I have a strikingly similar story involving a haircut I got in high school, during the entirety of which the good lady was asking questions like, "So you go to Lincoln, huh? Tell me, do those black boys try to go with the white girls?" God, how do you answer that question. My high school was 85% black, and there were about 6 white girls. Most of us were social misfits, like myself, and dated no one. Those of us who did date, out of logistical necessity (and presumably also perfectly congenial freedom of choice) did in fact date black guys, because in a four year period there were as many white guys at the school, and none of them were there long except one particularly hopeless geek. Who of course liked me. IT is an unfortunate sidebar that the one guy at school I came close to dating, whose friendly phone calls caused my previously open-minded mother to foam slightly at the mouth (southern roots coming up to bite her in the ass) happened to go on to engineer one of the few successful jail breaks perpetrated from a facility in El Cajon. His story is particularly interesting in that he was super smart, and previously educated in some of the best prep schools in the country, and oh yeah he lived on the streets in Hollywood for a couple years and was now attending my high school in a quite rough area with no sign of parents or visible means of support whatsoever. And um, he dressed like a skater, which is something a white guy could get away with at my school, but not a black guy, which he happened to be. I guess he started selling some not so legal stuff out of the Taco Bell he was managing, and the rest is history. Needless to say, my mom is unaware of this. On an unrelated note, my mom has also apologized profusely in the intervening years for her long-since-abandoned race-mixing hangups. =)

Isn't life grand? =)

Enjoy checking in with your musings now and then, usually when I should be doing something else. YOu bastard.

Noelle