Day in the Life of an Idiot

 On Monday night, I joined a couple hundred people in downtown Minneapolis.  This protest was billed as "Minneapolis Against Trump," but it was really about workers' rights.  


Here's another attempt at a photo. If you can't see it, it's a young white woman holding a hand-painted, anatomical heart-shaped sign that reads, "Lead with Love." The heart itself is very nicely done, she's got a lot of pink and red shading going on.  Realistic in an ARTY way, you know?

This particular group was a little more... well. Let's put it this way. Normally, there's a call and response that goes, "What do we do?" and the answer is, at certain  marches, "Stand up! Fight Back!" At this one the response was, "Shut. It. Down."

I have no problem with either statement, but "Stand up! Fight Back!" is more in my comfort zone, if you know what I'm saying.  On the other hand, right now, I feel like it's okay for me to stretch outside of my comfort zone from time to time.  The Socialist Alternative people carried legit red banners and the #NativeLivesMatters folks led the march with a banner that read, "Cut off the head of the Black Snake."

These people weren't fucking around.

Unsurprisingly, I think I only saw one pink pussy hat.

I will say that seeing all the signs has made me realize that I really need to up my 'art' game, if I'm going to keep going to these things.  Gods know, I have a ton of art supplies, so I certainly have the materials (and some skill... mmmm, maybe I should play to my strengths and see if I could do a good rendition of Captain America punching Hitler?)  I also, weirdly, want to find a way to embrace this ridiculous slur, "Libtard."  I feel like there needs to be a movement to turn around "Libtard" the same way there was with "snowflake."  I don't know if I wrote about this earlier, but at the Powderhorn march that Mason and I went to, there was a woman who's only sign was an oversized snowflake.  It didn't say anything else. I thought it was brilliant.  So, I dunno, I kind of want to have a sign that says, "Another Libtard for Justice" or some such. (If you think of anything brilliant, please leave me a comment. And, yes, I know the word 'Libtard' is super-offensive and ablist, but it's also so freaking ridiculous that I feel like its power should be taken from it, and we should be able to mock it and embrace it somehow.)

Meanwhile, at home, Shawn has been on the VERY slow and super frustrating road to recovery.  Her pain isn't really subsiding, but the muscle relaxants do seem to be doing something. She's no longer sobbing in despair, which is good. Although the muscle relaxants do seem to make her a little loopy and when I had to go off to work on Tuesday I got a very funny (in retrospect) paranoid text from her, in which she'd convinced herself that someone was lurking on our porch (they were not, and possibly, she has since confessed, she might even have dreamed the doorbell ringing.)  So, though I'd been planning on attending MarsCON this weekend, I've decided it might be best to stick closer to home... at least until Shawn is on fewer drugs.  :-)

Mason, we found out yesterday, has qualified to go to state for the National Geographic geography bee (if you follow this link, you will see his name, alphabetically under his school: Washington Technology). The next step will be that on March 31st, Mason will compete against the other qualifiers in the state at the University of Minnesota: Mankato.  So, that's a huge yay!  Shawn and I are typically anti-helicopters in the extreme and don't even go to watch things like last weekend, when Mason and his team went to state for Lego Robotics.  That one was held at Mason's home school, Washington Technology, and lots of other parents tagged along to watch, but we stayed away, mostly because Mason performs better without us watching over his shoulder, and because we really feel that Little Nemo deserves his own adventures.  That being said, one or both of us MAY tag along to this Geography Bee, depending on what the school provides in terms of transportation and whatnot.  I've been telling him, too, that we might have to--for fun--play an all geography Trivial Pursuit game.  Mason LOVES Trivial Pursuit and, to that end, we have collected a TON of different versions of the game.  Goodness knows we have enough card packs to play an all-geography version no problem.  I suggested that we invite Rosemary, but she's, apparently, a little sore to have lost out. (She was a semi-finalist in the in-grade competition, though as Mason put it, "I didn't have to strangle my best friend to take the prize, at least." So I guess she got disqualified before the final round. I can understand. I have a highly competitive streak, myself.)

Tonight are Mason's parent/teacher conferences, which Shawn will likely miss for the FIRST TIME EVER IN MASON'S LIFE.  Believe me, she's fairly crushed about it.  I hate to say it, but I'm weirdly glad to be going on my own, however, because I find that often teachers won't talk directly to me. They hear Shawn introduced as Shawn ROUNDS and they--unconsciously, I believe, but still--treat her like she's the important one, the *only* parent, and even when Shawn makes a point of saying "my wife" when talking to me, I'll get a cursory glance like, "Oh, okay, I guess you're not some random stranger," but then they go back to addressing her.  I find myself desperately trying to insert myself in these things with comments that prove my legitimacy as a parent.  Sometimes I try to blame this phenomenon on the fact that we often schedule our parent/teacher conferences right after work, and so Shawn is dressed in full-on professional clothes and I often look a bit like I forgot to remove my stained shirt and comb my hair.  Shawn is also a physically impressive person at 6'1".  BUT... that doesn't change the fact that I often *feel* like the issue is that I'm not seen as a legitimate parent as the "other" mom.  So, for me, it will be a nice change, since they'll have to talk to me, if they want to talk to a parent. :-P