The Book of Love
As you may have read in an earlier post, a few weeks ago, a seemingly very nice Navy boy wielding a somewhat large knife gave me his phone number and led me to believe he was interested in me. This boy and I have been playing phone tag through voicemails and text messages for two weeks and finally today we made contact. I had texted him late morning to see if he wanted to get a beer tonight. He called back about an hour later and sounded in favor of the idea. We discussed where to go, what time to go. And then he let this bomb drop:
My girlfriend is in from out of town. Then continued to ask if I liked to play pool, what about darts? He had some he could bring along to this great place on 41st. What side of town do I live on?
I was completely dumbfounded. Literally mouth agape. I think I stopped saying anything but "umm, uhhuh, sure." WHAT THE HELL?!!! I've discussed this with a couple of girlfriends and they agree that probably he was hoping to get some action on the side without ever having to bring her up. Living in a new city, new opportunities, new women, etc., etc. So either she came into town and he had to respond to me in front of her, or he felt guilty but wanted to play it off like I was the one being presumptuous in thinking that by giving me his phone number that meant anything more than general amiability.
Incidentally, he is one of THREE guys with the same name that I have met since I've been here who I could potentially be interested in; all of them have girlfriends. It's the girlfriend curse. I get definite vibes from at least two of them, but what to do? One of my friends here just declared celibacy. I'm starting to think that may be the best route. Because this is getting ridiculous. And at least if it were my choice, I wouldn't feel like I was getting shafted.
Rules of the Road
Just now, as I was driving home from class, I turned onto my street a few blocks from my apartment. As I was driving I noticed a guy behind me in a little Honda: a non-threatening car, a non-threatening guy. When I approached my place, I tried to pull over quickly to do my parallel parking so as to get out of his way. But he backed up behind my landlord's car to the curb, and I completely panicked. I could see him in my rear view mirror. Should I pull back out and keep driving? Stay in my car until he does something? Leave my bag and run? Turn around and face him to show I'm not scared? Grab something large and heavy from my car to wield at him? All of these thoughts in a matter of seconds.
I tried to remain calm and quickly opened the car door, grabbed my school bag, left the bag of detergent and dryer sheets so as to have one hand free, closed the door, and quickly locked the doors from my keychain as I walked away without glancing behind me. I made it through the gate and made sure the latch was firmly shut behind me, then paused to see if he had followed. Took a moment to listen to whether my landlord was home and could hear me scream. The guy didn't cross my vision again. I turned and walked to my apartment. Probably he was just parking, visiting a friend in the neighborhood. And yet the threat of men when I am alone is so firmly ingrained in me that it sent chills up my spine.
When I was in high school I had a part-time job at Baskin Robbins. I worked nights after school and would get off sometime between 9 and 10:45, depending on the day and the crowd. At this time, clunky cell phones in your car were only for the rich, the businessmen, or in case of emergency. If I hadn't left BR early enough, I had to call my mom from the store and tell her when I was leaving so that she would know how long to wait until she called the police. The drive home was a 10-mile stretch of nothing—very few houses, no convenience stores or anything, just one straight country road without streetlights. Every passing car was a potential rapist. I'd been warned with stories of girls being murdered and disposed of on the side of the highway near where my mom grew up in Texas City. Always my mom would say "OK, be safe, lock your doors."
The worst part about this sense of fear is that it is not unfounded. More of my female friends have been raped than haven't. Just last week, one of my fellow grad students was terrified because while biking on a trail through the forest, she came upon a girl shrieking with her shirt unbuttoned, bra exposed, skirt askew, yelling that "He just raped me, he just raped me." She called the police, got help, gave a statement, etc. She won't go into the forest without her dogs again. So even when 10% of me thinks
hmm, is my reaction silly? The other 90 is always there to validate the sick feeling in my stomach by saying,
no, unfortunately not.
That hat? Consider it hung.
Finally,
finally, after one month and one week of living here in SC, my apartment has come together. The mirror you see in the first picture was the last puzzle piece procured off craigslist, of course ($70).
Other things from craigslist include: the utensil holder above the sink ($15), the lamp on the counter ($15), the fridge ($23), stacked nesting tables ($20), and galvanized metal magazine rack ($10).
I don't have too much else to say in this post, besides the fact that now that everything is put away, I finally have peace of mind. Or as much peace of mind as is possible in the midst of a master's program.
This picture shows how I decided the spacing between the photo and shelves...
