Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Thinking about college

Nameless Liberal Arts College was the wrong college for me in so many ways.

I was even more bull-headed then than I am now.

I wish I was consistently well enough to go back to school. Maybe one class this fall as a trial. I miss the awesome Chicago college I started attending right when I got sick.

I want to be one of those people who can overcome shit, and I want to be one of those people who can accept shit, and I don't want to be so frustrated and saddened by my version of life. They say to write down goals and then achieve them. Can that be my goal? I'd like to get my BA and support myself, but the real all-important pie-in-the-mother-fucking-sky is to be accepting of and happy with myself. Be good to myself. Love myself in a real way for once and for good.

Corvus and Aural Girl walked my dog while I was away this weekend at my brother's college graduation. Corvus cleaned my house as a birthday present surprise. He really cleaned my house. He organized my closets and did the laundry in my hamper and everything. And he said beautiful things about me I didn't believe. He can be quite incredible. I should have gone over there tonight but I'm so tired and have to have my car jumped in the morning (booooo) and I didn't. Now it's 1:30 and I'm still awake and I'm all upset and I feel like an ass for not running over there as soon as I got home. I'll call him in the morning once my car is running and we can drive off into the sun(wrongtimeofdayforset).

So many of my Nameless College regrets surround a Boy I let treat me like garbage. I loved this shit out of him, maybe more because I could taste the blood on his lips. Corvus treats me well and I'm holding myself to holding him to it.

My own voice is still so loud in my head, it makes for better writing* than personality or happiness.

*and sometimes not even that.

Thursday, May 12, 2011

I'm anxious. In general. About everything. I think the assault was more damaging than I gave it credit for. Not that it's so terrible, and not that I'm afraid to leave the house or anything. I'm just on edge. My safety and general well-being were fundamentally threatened and it rattled me. No wonder I felt no great relief the next day when the US offed Bin Laden- I'd just been reminded how many more dangerous people lurk around every fucking corner who have nothing to do with Al Qaeda.

Sorry. I don't mean to freak you out too, readers. I'm just jumpy because one asshole decided to be an asshole and had to remind me I'm mortal. Ugh.

Monday, May 09, 2011

Bin Laden's Death to One 28-Year-Old

When we heard Bin Laden was dead, Corvus spontaneously ran outside to shout with joy. "It's over. It's finally over." Tears dripped down his face.

I wasn't quite sure what ended with Bin Laden's death. I wasn't complaining, but I wasn't feeling the overwhelming relief or joy that seemed to take over my boyfriend. He's three years younger than I am, and it didn't occur to me at the time, but we were in different places in our lives on September 11th and I may be five minutes too old for the jubilance. Or maybe I'm just too skeptical to place my feelings of safety in the mortality of one human. Still, I envy the death revelers.

On September 11, 2001, I had just begun my sophomore year at Nameless Liberal Arts College. When someone in my statistics lab stood up that morning and announced an airplane had flown into the World Trade Center and another into the Pentagon, I thought they were doing an experiment for psych class. But no, Google quickly confirmed that the world had gone to shit. Class let out early. Some classes were canceled for the day, others went on with optional attendance. The dorm lounges were packed with students staring at the news, horrific images, and the first time I ever heard the name "Osama Bin Laden."
My most hawkish (and incidentally, at the time, only Republican friend) wanted, to bomb someone. Blow up something in revenge. But being a self-centered 19-yer-old, that was my biggest fear: war. We were in the middle of a middle state, nice and safe. I already knew my family was safe, so my next concern was my of-drafting-age male friend pool. We'd just elected The Bad President and there was no way he was keeping us out of war. I assumed at that point it would at least be the "logical" war, but my peers were the ones who'd have to fight it and I didn't like that. We sat in that lounge and I wanted to be held by the Boy I was pining over at the time as well as every single boy I gave a marginal crap about before they all had to go die for the country.

I had friends in school in New York too close to Ground Zero. One still has PTSD.
I had friends help clean up at Ground Zero.
Then somehow we ended up in Iraq and no one I really cared about at the time had to fight.
But the threat of Terror never felt like it was the threat of Osama Bin Laden. I remember Oklahoma City (though I was quite young) and that was American extremists. There will always be a small percentage of the human population that likes to screw things up for the rest of us, and that is terrifying. I'm glad there's one less ultra-asshole, but he was never the focal point of my fear or pain and therefor doesn't get to be a trigger for great relief.

Maybe if I was just a bit younger, or a bit someone else, I'd need a face for the abstraction of fear. I wouldn't have such concrete non-Bin Laden things from September 11th and he would hold status as the threat of my youth. Maybe he would have been my childhood's boogieman. But he was only a piece of my fear and feels like just one piece of the puzzle, not full closure on a hole in my soul.

I joined my friends for a post-Obama speech tequila shot. Obama is so presidential and doing a shot seemed somehow the most appropriate response to Bin Laden's death, anyway; we drink to life, death, joy and pain, to numb the feelings that are too alive and  to remind ourselves we're alive when we're too damn numb.

Sunday, May 01, 2011

Assaulted

April's last evening was among the only to feel like spring. Chicago winters are always long and hard, but this one refused to end. The whole city is suffering for sunshine, and the first hints of warmth make everyone insane.

Some in a more destructive manner than others.

I was walking home from the el around 10:30 PM. I was too tired to stop at the bar to be social, so I said hello to the smokers outside and kept walking towards my house. I didn't cross the street at the corner because a car was coming, so I rounded the bend and figured I'd cross at the alley.
There was a tall man in his 20s standing at the gate to the apartments next to the cafe. I was glad I didn't live there because he seemed like he was up to no good. When he started following me I decided not to turn into my alley but stay on the lit street and power walk it. As he walked too-close behind me I sped up and started wondering what I should do if he kept following...
GRAB!
In one swift motion he groped  my left boob and my right ass cheek and said, "Hey, baby."
I threw him off of  me and yelled "HEY! Fuck you!" as he ran down the street.

Two men and  a women in some sort of all-white religious frocks came up the alley and I told them what happened. I called 911 and when the police came I got into the back of their car and drove around, hoping to find my attacker. It's not like he did me any great permanent damage, but more than anything I didn't want him doing worse to someone else. He probably lives in the neighborhood. If he's still out tonight, we couldn't find  him, so I filed a police report (the officers explained that way if I see the guy again I can call 911 and have the asshole arrested) and came home.

Fucking dick-ass-douchebag-ass-hat.
 

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