I was feeling a touch demoralized as I left work today. I'd stayed late, stupidly, futzing with InDesign which kept crashing until I was actually going backward in progress. I finally decided there was nothing for it and that it was time to go home.
I crashed outside into the cold night and grumped the block to the parking garage that I hate. Half-there, I cracked open my dumb bubble water because I really wanted it. I thought about my pepper spray, detached from its usual place on my keychain after my last run and in the bottom of my purse. The parking garage is on the classical "bad part of downtown" and I've had to brandish my spray at a creep there before. Now that I'm parking there again, I'm always pretty careful, especially when I work late.
Anyway, I headed into the deserted deck, and as if on cue, I saw this man coming toward me. A white guy, dressed entirely in black and wearing a black winter skullcap so I could only see his face. Even from a distance, I could tell he was looking at me in a way that rubbed me wrong. He was my height or shorter, but big. I sized him up, morbid wagers. Shorter men that I don't know make me uneasy as a rule; I know too well from my dating days in college that some seem to take rejection from tall girls with macho over-reaction and, rarely, violence. As his path took him parallel with me, heading in the direction I'd just come, I kept my eyes straight ahead, keeping him in my periphery, alert for any sudden movements. Weighing my options for fight or flight the way I think all women do when placed in a situation like that.
I stepped up my stride, wanting to put him behind me, and suddenly, he called out, "I think you dropped something!"
I whirled, awkwardly, startled. What? Had a misjudged him? Was this a benign exchange that I imbued with womanly, frightened paranoia? I scanned the pavement behind me, my mind blank and buzzing. Nothing. I hadn't heard anything drop. My eyes darted up to his face in question.
He clutched his chest dramatically, walking backward away. "My heart."
Dear reader, I tell you in that moment, I blossomed with the purest fury. My can crunched in my hand. I produced a noise of incredulous anger. I think I would have thrown the dumb bubble water can at his face if the rage hadn't been so sudden and stunning, almost incapacitating. His laugh cut off abruptly when he saw my face, mixture of fear and wild anger, and he quickly went on his way.
I guess it was just that the idiot had scared me, you know? I'd gotten spooked with the dark and isolation. A dumb pickup line is the thing a graceful woman dismissively laughs off, and I was fine. Nothing had happened to me, and I would walk the remaining stretch to my car in unmolested silence.
My dad said a funny thing to me this weekend--genuinely funny, not funny like talk too much about it on your dumb blog funny. I don't actually remember the context; I had done something of which he approved--something bravado-ish. He was joking with my mom, had me proudly by one shoulder, claiming me. He declared that I had turned out so much like him, that I was just the female version of him. My mom rolled her eyes, and mugging for her, he told me in a theatrical aside: "Aww, I'm sorry I couldn't make you a man, sweetie."
I like the woman package. I like my long hair and my breasts. I glow under the affirmation of a loved one. I'm a sucker for chivalry. I like to be nurturing or dainty in turns. I wear skirts. I buy that old-fashioned stuff about learning to be a hostess, to be graceful and a creature of great household efficiency, and I think there's value in my abilities there. Secretly, very secretly, I think I'd like being a mom, and that I'd make an okay one. I like these things about myself.
But sometimes, also, being a girl really sucks. I hate not being able to go places alone (my standard setting) or coming off as helpless, clingy, needy, or weak. I hate crying, and the way I do it sometimes even when I'm desperately trying not to.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. I guess it was just a stupid thing, and it made me feel weak and shitty, so I wanted to write it out. I'm tired, a little lost, and okay, this week, go ahead and take your point. Shuffle, deal again.
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