Sometimes I wonder if do not possess some quality which, when seen by a certain segment of society, would be stigmatized or even shuttled into the realm of racial epithet. I don’t know what that trait would be. A distinctive turn of phrase which only ever comes from the mouth of a white trash trailer dweller — or which someone believes, rightly or wrongly, only ever comes from such levels of society. I don’t where the trailer trash analogy came from, but the idea is that some facial tic, or a physical quality, or a tone of voice … something so integral to my physical person that it cannot be extricated, nor can it be anything but unique and specific to something that is recognized by others as something which i do not know about myself.
Having trouble with this line of thought… it is something that came up a bunch in therapy. She wanted to know what I was afraid would come out if I was subject to public scrutiny. This, again, is where she failed me. She just does not understand the Internet and the culture of casual public shaming — a culture which needs no concrete evidence or even convincing substance to mobilize its machines of public humiliation. I could not explain to her that no, I don’t have any ghosts in my closet about which I have nightmares where they are revealed to the public. No criminal record or long-ago misdeeds to speak of, I don’t think. I had an incident during and after college which could have marred my record for life but it did not and it does not concern me any more.
Aha, gotta go. At the ghetto coffee shop again but heading out.
