bright light, bright light!

[derien]

Ack, the sun just cleared the rooftops and drove it's golden spikes through my eyes and into my brain.  I have to get dressed up and go get eggs because I have nothing for breakfast.  It's -4 °F / -20 °C, but the wind chill is supposedly making it more like -16 °F / -27 °C.    eor's van did not start, today, which means he had to walk down to the parking garage where I put the car because of the plowing ban.  I put it in the expensive one down next to the Radisson Eastland on High Street, because they usually do a deal for parking ban nights and it's still probably the closest one to us.  Maybe a half-mile walk..?  Maybe a little less, I'm not quite sure.  At 6:30 this morning I felt eor getting the car was rather nice for me, I hadn't been looking forward to walking down there before 7AM to fetch it out, but even then I was completely aware that what it means in the long run is that I'll have to walk down to the bus stop and wait there in this cold, and that's really worse - waiting rather than moving.  As the time grows nearer when I'll have to do that I'm looking forward to it less and less.  However, my nose hasn't fallen off from all the walking around in the cold I did last night. 

When I took the car to the garage last night I was supposed to go to the ATM first and get money so I'd be able to get it out in the morning, but I forgot and parked it first and then had to walk down Congress Street to the ATM that's just about across from the CVS (pharmacy) - I think that added about another half mile to the trip.  But I had dressed just about right for it; aside from having to occasionally press my mittens to my face to make sure my cheeks didn't fall off it wasn't too bad. 




It kind of sucks having to listen to homophobes on the street, though.  I turned left at Longfellow Square and went up ... what street is it?  I think it's Pine.  I know it's Pine at the other end but this thing Portland does of having streets have different names at either end confuses the hell out of me.  Whatever, I passed the Treasure Chest (porn/toys store) and Blackstone's (gay bar) and as I was passing Blackstone's I heard two guys on the other side of the street talking. 

Younger guy says, "I went by here one time and a guy whistled at me." 

Older guy says, "Did you punch him?" 

"No." 

"You should have punched him." 

"Well, I was all the way over on that side." 

And they went on like that, generally agreeing that the proper response to a guy whistling at you is that you should really punch him, and it's totally not right, blah blah.  Meanwhile I'm thinking he probably wasn't inclined to punch the guy because probably there were six other burly gay guys standing around - I've seen the crowd that usually hangs outside of Blackstone's.  And I was wondering if it would be a really unwise idea to yell across at these two and ask them what the proper response for a woman who's whistled at by a guy should be.  Most guys who've whistled at me in the past probably would have been pretty surprised if I'd just walked up and punched them for it.  After I got home I began to feel annoyed at any gay guy who would whistle at some random guy on the other side of the street - he should really know better.  And then of course how does that guy know for sure he was the one being whistled at?  It's kind of self-centered of him to assume that - the guy might have been whistling at some friend of his he saw coming across the Square.  Which is the main reason I never would go punch someone for whistling at me - I always brushed it off thinking it was ridiculous for me to be so vain as to think they were whistling at me.  In some alternate universe perhaps he did go punch the guy, and get the shit kicked out of him, and then found out he had been mistaken.

Comments

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

I got whistled at by a couple of morons in a car once.

There was no doubt that they were whistling at me - I was literally the only person anywhere near their car.

I got steaming mad - I really hate that kind of behaviour - and when their car stopped at traffic lights just ahead, I crossed the road, paused in front of their car, and spat on it.

(I blush recalling it. If it had happened five minutes later, I might have cooled down enough.)

Then I saw one of them opening the door of their car, and made hastily for a brightly-lit shop, where I hung out for ten minutes until the car had gone away.

Obviously I wouldn't have punched them. And most of the time I just assume that someone whistling in the street is whistling at someone else.

[bravecows.livejournal.com]

*nods* That's the sort of thing I always do when I am mad, and always feel rather ashamed of later. Not that such yobs do not deserve it, of course, but I feel I deserve me to behave better, if you know what I mean. (But at the moment it is always so satisfying!)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

but I feel I deserve me to behave better, if you know what I mean.

Exactly. I feel I let myself down by descending (almost) to their level.

(But at the moment it is always so satisfying!)

Oh yes. But the moment never lasts long enough...

[derien.livejournal.com]

You're both so brave! I'm just too much of a fraidy-cat. *hangs head* I just walk around being vaguely annoyed. If I notice at all - most of the time I'm in my own little world. ("but it's okay - they know me there." --Steven Wright) One of my Supervisors (FIL) asked me a few weeks ago, "Why didn't you even acknowledge me when I yelled at you on the street the other day?" I just told him that if I had to stop to acknowledge every guy who yells at me I'd never get anywhere, but the truth is I screened him out. I was talking with Teena, and she's cute enough to totally block out anything else going on around, especially random hollering guys.;)