When The Census Meets Real Life
The people conducting the census are clearly go-getters, sticklers for details. A couple weeks ago, we got a postcard advising us we would be receiving our census form in the mail shortly. Then we got the form. Then a few days after that, we got another notice reminding us that we just received the census form and that we are required by law to complete it.
We began to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, they wanted us to fill out this thing. We were still coming to terms with the idea that I have now gone from 'boyfriend' to the more statistically-precise-sounding "unmarried partner." It kind of sounds as romantic as a deflated Valentine's balloon being dragged through the gutter behind a dusty Muni bus whose driver keeps calling the elderly passengers blind because they thought he was going to stop at the actual stop instead of across the street from the actual stop before zipping on by what was, technically, the actual stop. Silly old people, thinking transit is supposed to make their life easier.
In other words, the census kind of tries to drain the romance out of living together.
Thank god we both like Sex and the City and a good cocktail. Also, we like cuddling. That restores the romance right there.
Yes, that's right. I like Sex and the City. And cuddling. And I'm damned proud of it. (I also love college basketball's March Madness, which is the other bit of March excitement, other than the census; who knew that the "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawks" of KU would become "Rocked, Shocked Jayhawks" at the hands of Northern Iowa? This loss is tragic, especially for a good friend who goes to school there--and whom I promised I would skip the clever wordplay about the loss, but honestly, I probably just promised that so she would ask me what the wordplay was--but at least it was to an Iowa school, and Iowa is, amazingly, more progressive than California in terms of gay marriage. But I digress. Sue me. It's a blog entry about the census, and I have a rough word count to aim for.)
But my point was the census, which leads me to the real point, a briefly glimpsed juxtaposition of two different worlds. At 26th and Mission, on the side of a grocery store, there is a Spanish-language poster touting the ease of completing the Census form. It has been tagged with the usual permanent-marker scribblings you see everywhere, but more interestingly, the center of the poster was covered by a handmade, roughly artistic poster calling for "Justice for Oscar Grant," the unarmed Oakland man shot and killed by BART police on New Year's last year.
I'm not a sociologist, so I won't try to analyze the significance of this juxtaposition. But it is surely striking, in a subtle way at least.
We began to get the idea that maybe, just maybe, they wanted us to fill out this thing. We were still coming to terms with the idea that I have now gone from 'boyfriend' to the more statistically-precise-sounding "unmarried partner." It kind of sounds as romantic as a deflated Valentine's balloon being dragged through the gutter behind a dusty Muni bus whose driver keeps calling the elderly passengers blind because they thought he was going to stop at the actual stop instead of across the street from the actual stop before zipping on by what was, technically, the actual stop. Silly old people, thinking transit is supposed to make their life easier.
In other words, the census kind of tries to drain the romance out of living together.
Thank god we both like Sex and the City and a good cocktail. Also, we like cuddling. That restores the romance right there.
Yes, that's right. I like Sex and the City. And cuddling. And I'm damned proud of it. (I also love college basketball's March Madness, which is the other bit of March excitement, other than the census; who knew that the "Rock, Chalk, Jayhawks" of KU would become "Rocked, Shocked Jayhawks" at the hands of Northern Iowa? This loss is tragic, especially for a good friend who goes to school there--and whom I promised I would skip the clever wordplay about the loss, but honestly, I probably just promised that so she would ask me what the wordplay was--but at least it was to an Iowa school, and Iowa is, amazingly, more progressive than California in terms of gay marriage. But I digress. Sue me. It's a blog entry about the census, and I have a rough word count to aim for.)
But my point was the census, which leads me to the real point, a briefly glimpsed juxtaposition of two different worlds. At 26th and Mission, on the side of a grocery store, there is a Spanish-language poster touting the ease of completing the Census form. It has been tagged with the usual permanent-marker scribblings you see everywhere, but more interestingly, the center of the poster was covered by a handmade, roughly artistic poster calling for "Justice for Oscar Grant," the unarmed Oakland man shot and killed by BART police on New Year's last year.
I'm not a sociologist, so I won't try to analyze the significance of this juxtaposition. But it is surely striking, in a subtle way at least.
posted by Devin at 10:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home