Yesterday, we took the day off and went to Tarpon Springs, the Greek area, where Ray rescued someone’s phone sitting at the fountain of the naiads. The phone turned out to belong to a kid of about 7-8 getting an earful from their mom. I got the impression of CHAOS INCARNATE somehow, like I’d met a freshly reincarnated version of Loki.–I told Ray this and she agreed. Also we went to the Frank Howard beach. It was gray and rainy, but cleared up enough to lay out on a blanket and read about coroners for a while.
Yoga this morning: every time I reached up, I felt like I was asking someone to grab my hands and swing me like a kid. There’s long been a knot along my bra line that I hunch into; I’d always thought it was a boob-related thing. Now I suspect it goes deeper than that. Definitely a day where I wanted to give my past self a hug.
I was feeling very mischievous on the walk this morning, but ran into a douche on the way back that was giving me the “should I hit on you?” look. He didn’t. This time. But he lives near the AirBnB and I’ve seen him before, and he also gave me that look.
Because of the story I’ve been working on, I’ve been digging into a fair amount of what guys have to go through to get socialized, like, the kinds of bullying. And I’m always sympathetic until the moment someone goes, “And that’s why I’m not a feminist! Because women don’t have to blah blah blah.”
Dudes, if I could swapped experiences–not to minimize them, because they sound legitimately awful!–and then BEEN DONE WITH IT, I would have. I would have traded my experiences in a heartbeat and done a little happy dance.
Instead, I’m 48 and going, “I need to get ready YET AGAIN for the possibility of getting raped and murdered, don’t I?” It just never fucking stops. The only year of my life since I was 13 that I haven’t been stalked was during Covid. And that doesn’t count, because I was living with my ex.