und_so_weiter epitome of incomprehensibility I must have some buried resentment somewhere. "Germishly," indeed. To_the_host_family_in_Kassel I need hold no grudges. For yes, was uncool of Jurgen I-still-know-his-last-name to say a homophobic thing that one time (he thought gay men were too "sentimentalisch"), but it was perfectly within his rights not to return my unstated affections. But is that really what I resent, twelve years later? Being shown the "friendzone"? and when I've found someone else I actually get along with?? ...Not quite, but the truth is a little more pathetic. What smarts is the time he told me I'd used "und so weiter" wrong - not semantically, but tonally. I had emailed him something like "I hope you're doing well and X thing is going well and Y thing is going well, et cetera, und so weiter." He wrote back, and I paraphrase: "If you put it in that context it sounds dismissive, like you don't actually want to know how I'm doing" (with an apology preceding the correction). It was a friendly and thoughtful comment, on the face of it. There was no need to get angry. But I did. Not TO him, but I think I went crying to my parents. It hurt that he thought I sounded like I didn't like him, when I did - more than he (probably) knew. Und so weiter. 230228 ... e_o_i I wouldn't resent my mother much for *one* homophobic remark if she didn't have such a renewable supply. I mean, it's not like such statements are constant. But they hit me in a tender section of my identity (the boobs, it must be). Of course, it's only by chance that the bi bit is an identified identity, a codified one; if she took aim at daydreaminess or stubbornness in the abstract and I took that personally, it wouldn't relate to any culturally relevant zone. Maybe. So I shouldn't identity-politics this without seeing the bigger picture. "mother" but also: "mom_wisdom" and also also: "unwritten_rules," the part about shared round noses (my mother's schnozz is also Scottishly bulbous - cutely so, but yes) The bad, the good, and the so on! 230416 what's it to you? who go blather from