last tryst with Julie B

[fflo]

That's it; I'm done with her. In a moment I'll dispatch her back to the LoC, now that I'm sated, spent of desire & wash-my-hands finished, in a way she'd probably appreciate---though not as much, I suspect, as if I'd gotten to her. "This woman is an egocentric bitch," wrote a vandal among the volume's previous readers, having restrained herself from pulling out her ballpoint all the way until page 148 (of 197), and apparently not having noticed that Julie had proudly claimed that very identity more than once in earlier passages. What had prompted the need for retort? The suggestion that it's not getting married that's the trick for women, but getting AWAY.

The librarians are feeding us s'mores. They're leftover from a kids' thing. I was hungry, too. A/C Refuge closes in half an hour, and then I'll see about getting some right proper supper.

And now, Julie B, I ditch you, not a helluva lot better able to sympathize with your modus op. But I did take some pleasure in your company, while I felt like it.

Comments

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Away from the husband/marriage. No problem getting married, any woman can do it, but the real problem: getting away from the (resultant) marriages.

It was like those were fighting words for our anonymous previous reader. (I guessed female from the handwriting, knowing it's not certain, but I'd have bet money.) (Do male-identified Nellies or pre-transition women in what are considered men's bodies have girly handwriting much of the time? I'm guessing no.) (Is there girly handwriting in Serbia[n]?)

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

there is girly writing in serbian, or 'feminine' handwriting at least. it's very much unlike mine -- it's bigger and rounder, a bit like most american women's handwriting (at least what i see from my students' stuff).

men's handwriting is usually just ugly. i wonder why most men's handwriting is ugly, in a way that makes me think "dumb." i know maybe three men whose isn't.

it is very prejudiced of me to anticipate people's qualities from their handwriting, but there are ugly kinds of handwriting that are not dumb, only ugly. but some people's letters and the way they link them just can't have resulted from much thought and use of language.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Oh, don't get me started on revealing my hard-fought prejudices about people's writing (hand- and otherwise). I know it's wrong. I don't really think, ultimately in my full intellectual ken, it's a good way to judge character. Yet...

I can confess, though, that girly writing says "dumb" to me more than sloppy or ugly or harsh or careless men's hand tends to. The girly says "I'm trying to make my handwriting look right for the other girls" no more than men's says "I'm trying to make my handwriting look right for the boys" --- but the latter is, by virtue of the dominance/standard of the masculine, harder to graspe. And, yeah, it's an internalized misogyny.

There was a great bit in Julie B about how teenage boyfriend-getting is more about communication between the girls than about the boys. I don't know how dead-on it was, ultimately, but it was funny and had a ring of truth.

[shmizla.livejournal.com]

yes, the girly handwriting is creepy in the way it all collapses into one.

we had this translation class in high school where there was some 'theory' mentioned about 'gender'-specific and 'nation'-specific handwriting, which i think makes some sense still, although i think the gender-specific handwriting also cuts across nations (now that i've known some), so that the same type of ugliness re-appears regardless of geography.