Neighbors and Fences

[lydamorehouse]

For those of you who have been following the story thus far, you know I've been painting our fence. This is the fence that goes between our house and the house to the south of us, which is a Section 8 rental. We've been passing acquaintances with one of the families that lives in that house because they have kids Mason's age and are, by chance, also lesbians. Today, while I was finishing up their side of the fence, Ebony (who may be genderqueer/trans because the kids call her 'dad,' though the partner uses 'she' to describe Ebony.) Regardless, Ebony and I exchange a few words about the fence and my work and how I'm mostly painting myself. Then, we have this very... interesting conversation.

Ebony: (somewhat angrily) "You like not working?"
Me: (confused, because WTF, I have a paint brush in my hand. I am clearly working), "What?"
Ebony: "I said, you *like* not working?"
Me: "I have no idea what you're talking about. I have a job at the library, I'm a sub. You might not know that because I work odd hours."
Ebony: "I ain't getting up in your business, but she [meaning Shawn] makes the money, right?"
Me: "Uh... that kind *is* my business."
Ebony: "Yeah, I guess it is. So, you're like the stud?"
Me: "THE WHAT?"
Ebony: "You know, like, the stud."
Me: "The stud? You're hilarious. I wish." [Because at this point, given the context of this very odd conversation, I'm thinking, 'are you thinking Shawn's my sugar mama or something?]

We say a few more random, though friendlier things to each other, and Ebony goes back in the house and I go back to painting, laughing at the idea of being Shawn's 'stud.'

Later it occurs to me that maybe Ebony meant 'butch,'* since s/he's no doubt seen me doing odd jobs around the house. It also dawns on me, while I'm retelling this story to Shawn that maybe the issue is that I also had a very short interaction with Don, Ebony's landlord, earlier. He came by for some reason and--though I tried really hard not to--I overheard Ebony tell Don that they were short on rent and that they'd have to make arrangements to pay him later. Thinking about this, I figure MAYBE Ebony really came over to harass me for my perceived status as 'richer.'

Which I guess, from Ebony's perspective, we are.

I mean, we don't rent, we own. We can very clearly afford groceries on a regular basis. I *do* actually get to stay home more often than not--though if I could find a full-time job that would accommodate Mason's schedule, I'd probably take it (though I do love the library a LOT.)  

So, maybe she was just mad about her situation and poverty in general and thought to harass me, because it seems like I'm doing so much better--and, you know, we are.  No mistake.  But it's a matter of degrees, and the distance between Ebony and Nicole and Shawn and I is not nearly so great as it is on the OTHER side of our OTHER fence, with Catherine and James--James also stays home, because Catherine is a college prof at Hamline and they own not only that house, but rent their upstairs AND own properties in Philadelphia.  They regularly travel to Africa and just sent Mali, their daughter, to a college out East for a summer writing program. They might actually be middle class (it's so hard to tell in America, these days.)  

I also get anger as a response to this.  I've felt it in much less dire situations.  

It was still, possibly, one of the weirdest conversations I've had with ANYONE in a long, long time....

---
Edited to add: 'stud'--d'uh, I should have gone right to the urban dictionary.  Stud is, in point of fact, a word that means butch lesbian.  I am Shawn's stud.  So, as a bonus, we got to be completely crossed-wired despite both speaking the same language and ostensibly from the same culture (lesbian.)

Comments

[dd_b]

Interesting, I wouldn't have recognized that usage of "stud" either.

From what you say here about the other neighbors, and from what I've seen of you off and on, it occurs to me that the first neighbor might also be not noticing that you're towards the low end of the economic range you think of yourself in (I may be misreading that, too) -- and reacting to you more as if you're midrange or high for the range you're part of? Or, class (which we of course don't have here in America) more than ecnomics?

[lydamorehouse]

Yeah, I'm sure class is part of the issue. Shawn and I are what I would call "Academic class," or some kind of weird "Liberal Arts/Non-profit class," which is to say, Shawn has an impressive job title: State Archivist, but makes a fairly low (as compared to say a business person/engineer, etc.) salary.

So, you know, that's a class thing, for sure. I get to be author or teacher or library staff, depending, but all of those are kind of in this weird 'academic class.' White collar, I guess? (But there ought to be a class to describe the levels of collar, you know?)

We're also both white. Our neighbor, Ebony, is black, and Ebony's partner/GF is white, but they both work down the road at a fast food place. So, there's a whole class divide which is quite huge. Shawn and I are closer in class to our neighbors to the north, because Catherine is a professor and white, and James, who is black, is an artist--a photographer. Ultimately, we tend to have much more in common (class-wise) with James and Catherine.

America is a fascinating place which is very stratified by all sorts of things.

[dd_b]

I recognize the concept "academic class". I think of it more as "intellectual class" and find it includes for example most people I know from the publishing industry (the ones I know are editorial, design, art types, not warehouse :-) )? But I think we're thinking of similar groupings of people and markers. (Also "intellectual" is kind of value-laden, different directions in different company, so not the best label.)

Ooh, State Archivist sounds like a very cool job. I'll bet it involves way too much frustration at not having the resources to do everything that needs doing, though.

[lydamorehouse]

Well, Shawn's been in the State Archives department for long enough that she was prepared for the budget realities of her job. Plus, a large part of what she does these days is very challenging and exciting--which is to say, electronic records preservation. It's a "new" field and Shawn has been a forerunner in figuring out how it all works (and gets paid for) for decades. So, she loves it. Speaking of the economics of class, she turned down a job that would have had the opportunity to keep advancing in rank and salary, to stop and be the Minnesota State Archivist.

I think those kinds of economic choices are very common in this "Academic/Liberal Arts/Intellectual" class, or whatever we want to call it, which is why part of me wants to add "Non-Profit" to this list. I've seen lots of people choose lower salaries to stay at work they can believe in, and you're absolutely right that writer/editor/artist fits in here somewhere too.

"Intellectual" is a value-laden word, but I think this class is value-driven, so there is that.