Feeling So Misunderstood

Sorry I haven't written in a few days, readers. I spend so much more time doing work now than I used to that my procrastination time is running out. However, I did have one experience worthy of writing up, and it explains my absence from the bloggie for the last few days. Monday night on my way home from school, I felt really queasy. I wasn't sure why, but I had planned to go to the gym, and I dreaded getting on the train, so I decided to try to work out. "I'll forget all about the nausea," I thought, "once I'm sweating and puffing." About ten minutes into my regular work out, I jumped off the machine and ran for the bathroom. Yeccch.
Took a shower, rested, tried to stop being nauseous, debated taking a taxi, visualized throwing up in the cab, thought about sleeping on the floor of my office, thought about how that would look, finally, got on the train.
I made it to Jay Street, switched trains and then had to leap out at Bergen, where I popped out the door just in time to hang onto a pole and retch on the platform. ugh. It was pretty sad. People were not kind to me as I stood there, in my "business casual" attire at 9pm, vomiting whatever liquid was left in my system. There are so many people who vomit in public in NYC and most of them are drunk, especially in the subway, that it's easy to see why people probably made that assumption about me last night and scoffed and sniggered on their way past me. Don't they know there's some dread stomach flu going around? I remember when I was a kid at the public library and some nice lady came by and helped me as I was tossing my cookies in the shrubbery. Not the case in NYC. After the actual vomiting, getting on the train to go the rest of the way home in a cold sweat and pretty stinky, might have been the worst part of the night.
* * * and onto something more interesting.....
Then I got into bed and read Mark Tushnet's book on the Rehnquist court.
It's an enjoyable read, and he makes some interesting points, but he seems to me not to "get" race. In describing Rehnquist, who would have voted to uphold "Plessy v. Ferguson," Tushnet argues that he's not "a racist," but merely "indifferent" to issues of race. This weak analysis shows just how flawed is the notion of personal "racism" as a tool for understanding how racial privilege works. Rehnquist may not have demonstrated active hostility to African Americans, but he certainly was "white" and upheld white privilege in his every decision. Alltogether, I'm less impressed by Tushnet than I expected I'd be.
And on that note, it's time for me to get back to the important work of this evening: quaffing ginger-ale (soothes the stomach) and cleaning my room while listening, all a-thrill, to an audiobook of Ruth Rendell's novel,Simisola which might have more to say about race than Mark Tushnet does.