Big test starts tomorrow. I am ready. I have been performing adequately on the practice questions, I have worked out the kinks (mostly) for the simulator for the cases (that’s Thursday). I have the address and my testing permit printed out up on my desk. By this tie, much of the prep is pro forma, I know what to wear (layers, comfy), what to bring for lunch (turkey sandwich) & snacks (chocolate for a PM pick me up), how to spend the night before (a tiny bit of studying, mostly resting). In the past, I had an inkling that I wasn’t ready for exams but I took anyway. This was universally a mistake, bourne by my fear of admitting weakness or denial of the possibility of failure. So now I just reflect, do I feel ready? Does the objective data demonstrate that I am ready? Yes, I am nervous, but it’s going to be just fine. I look forward to being on the other side of this.
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Kids have been gone a week already! I am slowly chipping away at the list of things that I wanted to get done. And forgiving myself for not being nearly as driven as I imagined I was going to be. I’m getting things done, to be sure. But it turns out I’m not nearly as interested in working out in the morning as I am getting an extra 45 minutes of sleep! I’m eating more spinach and fewer carbs (it helps that I’ve eaten everything up not am buying more!). I predict this 8 weeks is going to fly by. It seemed like such an eternity before they left.
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Apropos of nothing, I have a story spinning around in my head that I recently thought about in a new way. A couple of years ago, I went to a beer festival at Tom McCall park on the Portland downtown waterfront. I was a PSU student at the time and had a bus pass and ended up taking a bus home from the event (this was the days before Uber came to town). If I walked over a bridge and caught a bus away from the event, it would be the bus that took me directly home. It was a frequent flyer so I didn’t worry about when the next bus was coming, I just finished my night and then headed up to the stop on the bridge. There were 2 drunk guys up there. I think they were also waiting for a bus, maybe they were just fucking around. (You can already see where this is going, can’t you?) One in particular wanted to chat me up. My usual cold, terse responses were not effective in getting him to leave me alone. In fact, they riled up the classic “She owes me something because I complimented her body” responses. He was “just being friendly,” why didn’t I want to talk?!? While he was making me VERY uncomfortable, it wasn’t too late out, it was a well lit, high traffic area with cars and foot traffic. Because of the beer festival, lots of people were walking across the bridge to their parked cars in East Portland. He didn’t touch me. I wasn’t in physical danger. But it was one of the more unpleasant drunk asshole confrontations I’ve ever had.
I haven’t thought about this event very often, and in the rare occasions when I have thought about it, I haven’t thought much about what came next. On the bus, away from the drunks, another guy sat near me (the seat behind mine) and talked to me. He had been at the bus stop. He had been watching what happened. He wanted to commiserate about how inappropriate and drunk and aberrant those guys were. I’m sure he was trying to put me at ease, chatting me up in a friendly, non-threatening, not drunk way.
But lately I’ve been just as pissed off at that quiet, nerdy guy who didn’t speak up while I was being harrassed. Who used my discomfort after the fact to make himself separate from Those Kinds of Men. He was invisible to those guys (though not to me because I had been surveying the terrain and I saw him hovering on the other side of the bus shelter), and he didn’t say a damn thing to endanger his anonymity, his comfort or his safety while I was being involuntarily drunk dialed while waiting for a bus. The more I think about this guy, the more pissed off I become.
Feminism has reached the end of what it can accomplish in the changing of women’s lives. Now if we want our lives to be better, men need to step the fuck up and change things on their side of the court. I’m not here for your entertainment, for your viewing pleasure. And I’m NOT here to make you feel better than the guys who think that I am. Unless you are actively and loudly rejecting that behavior in public and private, you are just as much of a problem, as far as I’m concerned. Time for the men to clean their house. We’ve done what we can to change ourselves. Your turn.
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I have this little health problem that bothers me very rarely. I take a daily medication to manage it (well, the allergy meds are a crucial part too though for a separate issue) and beyond that, there’s very little I can do. I will either have symptoms or I won’t. There are a few provoking factors but few palliating ones. Once it starts to bother me, I just have to ride it out. If I have to beg out of things, I usually claim a headache. It’s easier than explaining. I mention it because I’m bothered by it today, because of an unavoidable obligations that was a provoking factor. Now I’m begging off some social fun because it will be loud (which will makes things worse) and my head hurts. I’m trying to be zen with the reality of my limitations but it’s hard.
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