shel

The Transsexual Chofetz Chaim

Mutant, librarian, poet, union rabble rouser, dog, Ashkenazi Jewish. Neuroweird, bodyweird, mostly sleepy.


I write about transformative justice, community, love, Judaism, Neurodivergence, mental health, Disability, geography, rivers, labor, and libraries; through poetry, opinionated essays, and short fiction.


I review Schoolhouse Rock! songs at @PropagandaRock


Website (RSS + Newsletter)
shelraphen.com/

The first time I ever heard the phrase “The Bay Area” I assumed they were referring to the Massachusetts Bay in Massachusetts, AKA The Bay State, since everyone in the conversation was a Bay-Stater and we were near the Bay and so I figured the Bay Area was the Area around the Bay that was near us and formed the basis of our geographic identity. So I was like oh yeah like Salem, Boston, Plymouth, Yarmouth, Provincetown, all those towns in the Bay. The Bay Area. And then someone called me stupid and said that the Bay Area refers to San Francisco and I was like eight years old and I was very upset about this. That same year I also had people call me stupid for not knowing that Oakland is north of San Francisco or that “OC” stands for Orange County and that it’s south of Los Angeles and the Bay Area. And it bothered me that I was supposed to know all this stuff about California which was literally the opposite end of the country from Boston like why would I know about the locations of specific towns and counties in California and why should “the Bay” be their bay and not the bay we are literally looking at on the horizon any time we face East in the Boston area. I held a grudge against California ever since. How dare they steal the word Bay from us. That’s ours.

And I remember this feeling when I think about how people outside the US probably feel when they’re expected to know where all the states and cities are in the US because of the international dominance of American culture over the global entertainment industry. Why should “Jersey” mean New Jersey on the other side of the ocean and not the island that New Jersey was named after?

Now, see, here’s the kicker though. I developed a Geography special interest. And now I can enact my revenge on random bystanders in my country who had nothing to do with those original incidents. I can be like “Xi’an is a northwestern province in China what are you eight years old that you don’t know this?”


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in reply to @shel's post:

See also "The Tri-State Area"

Once I told someone I was from "LA" and they answered "Louisiana?" and I could not fault that logic in any way so now I make sure to say "Los Angeles"

I grew up in Orlando, and my mom is from Tampa. So when I hear "Orange County", I think Orange County, FL, and when I hear "Bay Area", I think Tampa Bay (even though no one there calls it the "Bay Area" specifically).

I live in the Tampa Bay area and I had that exact reaction the first time I heard someone just say "the bay area" to mean SF Bay specifically especially since on the news here they do say "the bay area" to mean the counties around Tampa Bay (Hillsborough, Pasco, Pinellas, etc)

My California geography hot take is that San Francisco is clearly more in the middle of California than anything else and "Northern California" would make more sense if it were reserved for the area north of Lake Tahoe, where the eastern border becomes north-south. It confused me for a while that this wasn't the case.