It’s been 4+ decades since I made landfall on this planet, and I’ve noticed a few things.

One of them: in any given decade, the aliens and outcasts of the previous decade become the establishment of the current one – and they fight the new aliens and outcasts as mercilessly, if not more so. It’s this strange thing: every generation has to have an Other.

As a girl-child, relatively clever, white, now middle-aged, never wealthy (there’s a long list) I’ve managed to make the Other list in every one of my decades. Luckily, I take this as a kind of backhanded honour 🙂 It’s a crap job, but someone has to do it; may as well be someone with a sense of humour, no?

But it gets tiring. An Other has to triple-explain everything to everyone. Why? Because everyone’s usually already annoyed when Others just show up. And Others are not really meant to appeal to the public for help or empathy, no matter how hard things are for them. After all, their grating personalities mean they deserve whatever they get, right?

So I’m taking a short time-out from FaceBook et al for a week or so. No sense in irritating the ones who mostly tolerate us.  It’s been real, unreal and surreal, sweet people – see you next Monday. 😉