Fluidity

I spent my entire morning filling in tedious documents at the local council office and had an hour-long meeting with my personal banker. All for the greater good of "TravelBugging" of course, which eases the pain considerably, but it's times like these that make me wish I'd come up with SaneScientist's "Tuesday Twat" concept first. I shall refrain from launching the proposed "Wednesday Wanker", as I will undoubtedly just get carried away, but suffice it to say this morning would have fitted the bill quite nicely.

On the upside, my Personal Banker has managed to give a whole new meaning to the pratical side of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler's Queer Theory. Me being an avid backer of Queer Theory, this most definitely put her in my good books despite all the bureaucratic nonsense involved with this morning's meeting.

Let me briefly explain by quoting the QT-page info:

"Queer theory is a set of ideas based around the concept that identities are not fixed and do not determine who we are. It suggests that it is meaningless to talk in general about 'women' or any other group, as identities consist of so many elements that to assume that people can be seen collectively on the basis of one shared characteristic is wrong. Indeed, it proposes that we deliberately challenge all notions of fixed identity, in varied and non-predictable ways. "

I suspect this post will greatly amuse one of my exes, because for an extended period of time, I actually referred to myself as "Queer", instead of labelling things such as my gender. The concept somewhat lost its glam when I moved to the UK where "Queer" has a whole other connotation and I dropped the term soon after. But this Theory still describes how I think about myself and the world.

ANYWAY, to come back off the tangent:

At one point during the conversation, Personal Banker is forced to ring up the Brussels branch to seek advice on my numerous intrepid inquiries. Thus goes the conversation that followed: "Yes hello, I have a LADY in front of me at the moment and HE wants to know about the actual policy of the insurance cover. This GIRL is going away for a few months and HE is also enquiring about the cash refund on purchases made with our card and the APR on the overdraft. Do I simply give HIM a brochure and ask HER to read it at home, or do I pass HIM on to you now so you can answer all HER questions by phone?"

Now that's fluid identity for you ;-)