So I'm drinking coffee, arguing (in a nice way, because while I can't say I respect the intellectual process of the woman I'm arguing with, she's the one who said she wants to be in a group just with me...), that women would not willingly choose to be "passive, gentle, and subtle" in their maneuverings to accomplish stuff, if their culture and society were egalitarian and stuff.
("Stuff" is apparently going to be my morning blog word... At least until the coffee kicks in and my brain fires up a little more.)
If some guy knocked your teeth out (as happens in the world lit novel we're reading), would you choose to be gentle, subtle, passive and simply stop speaking to him? I suppose you would if that were your only societal option. But in a fair, just, and equal society, I think you'd call the cops, file a law suit, get a restraining order, hire a ninja. (That last one may be just me and my never-ending quest for vengeance...)
Speaking, even parenthetically, of my never-ending quest for vengeance, wanna hear the latest on my criminal driveway issue?
Okay. (Hush! You're gonna hear about it anyway!) So I talked to the guy who did my septic system and graveled my drive last summer and he was supposed to come out, and then I called the guy who had come over to tell me that my driveway was a violation blah blah... And wait. You know what started growing in my mind as a source of offense, insult, affront?
I'm gonna tell you.
Remember last Monday? I was sitting in the family room, all the kids were gone, I was both working on my course work and trying to blog therapeutically? In fact, I think I was in mid blog entry when my geese started freaking out and I saw a truck outside. As it was flipping 97 degrees inside this hateful tin can of a trailer and I was of course not expecting freaking invaders visitors, I was dressed very simply in a thin tank top and very abbreviated shorts. (And I don't say this because I was in any way, you know, hott and stuff. Because I'm too old and tired and bitter to be hott. Except in the roasting-sweating, I-hate-this-trailer, sense of the word hot.)
So someone's banging on my door, the geese are freaking out outside, the dogs are freaking out inside (I bet you read this and you just think, "I can't wait to visit Circe!"), and so I don't have time to put real clothes or even shoes on and I open the door and go outside as I am. (Because Science forbid I let someone into my home!) And he looks at me like I'm some kind of poor white trash welfare trailer woman, which I am of course, and it's a look I've grown accustomed to here. And I am of course at an immediate disadvantage. And he starts in about my driveway blah blah blah, but the thing he does, the thing that has grown inside my brain, is he takes out a pen and starts writing on my porch railing. The estimated cost, the filed document I'll have to pay for with the city, the length and width of the culvert, the ten yards of rock I'll have to put in... And he's writing all this on the wood of my porch railing. Writing all over my porch.
And I KNOW I'm poor and my porch railing is poor and I'm some kind of disgusting criminal because my gravel has washed down upon the road... BUT HE'S WRITING ON MY PORCH. Like it's no big deal. Like I'm so worthless, like my porch is so worthless, that he can just fucking WRITE ON IT.
Would he go to someone else's home, just take out his pen and jot stuff down on their porch railing? If he came to YOUR HOME, reader, what would you think if someone was WRITING ON YOUR EFFING PORCH?
It's been angering me more and more.
That and the way he looked at me. Like I was nothing. Like I was some aging, partially dressed, barefoot, messy poor trashy woman.
You know... so often, I want to say to people, "I'm poor. That's it. That's all. I'm not stupid. I'm not worthless. I'm not inferior. I'm just poor."
Fuck but I'm sitting here getting all mad.
WRITING ON MY PORCH. Coming on my property uninvited, unannounced, banging on my door, looking at me like I'm trash, writing on my porch.
Okay... Breath.
So anyway. I started thinking about the whole criminal culvert thing. Especially since I noticed that my neighbor doesn't even HAVE a culvert. I understand, I accept, that my driveway needs graded, that last summer's floods washed my gravel down about a yard into the road. I can see how that is both my responsibility and something i would want to take care of. But I looked at my existing culvert and the thing is fine. And even if it wasn't fine, the culvert has nothing to do with my gravelissue Whhoops, grarve guy here.
("Stuff" is apparently going to be my morning blog word... At least until the coffee kicks in and my brain fires up a little more.)
If some guy knocked your teeth out (as happens in the world lit novel we're reading), would you choose to be gentle, subtle, passive and simply stop speaking to him? I suppose you would if that were your only societal option. But in a fair, just, and equal society, I think you'd call the cops, file a law suit, get a restraining order, hire a ninja. (That last one may be just me and my never-ending quest for vengeance...)
Speaking, even parenthetically, of my never-ending quest for vengeance, wanna hear the latest on my criminal driveway issue?
Okay. (Hush! You're gonna hear about it anyway!) So I talked to the guy who did my septic system and graveled my drive last summer and he was supposed to come out, and then I called the guy who had come over to tell me that my driveway was a violation blah blah... And wait. You know what started growing in my mind as a source of offense, insult, affront?
I'm gonna tell you.
Remember last Monday? I was sitting in the family room, all the kids were gone, I was both working on my course work and trying to blog therapeutically? In fact, I think I was in mid blog entry when my geese started freaking out and I saw a truck outside. As it was flipping 97 degrees inside this hateful tin can of a trailer and I was of course not expecting freaking i
So someone's banging on my door, the geese are freaking out outside, the dogs are freaking out inside (I bet you read this and you just think, "I can't wait to visit Circe!"), and so I don't have time to put real clothes or even shoes on and I open the door and go outside as I am. (Because Science forbid I let someone into my home!) And he looks at me like I'm some kind of poor white trash welfare trailer woman, which I am of course, and it's a look I've grown accustomed to here. And I am of course at an immediate disadvantage. And he starts in about my driveway blah blah blah, but the thing he does, the thing that has grown inside my brain, is he takes out a pen and starts writing on my porch railing. The estimated cost, the filed document I'll have to pay for with the city, the length and width of the culvert, the ten yards of rock I'll have to put in... And he's writing all this on the wood of my porch railing. Writing all over my porch.
And I KNOW I'm poor and my porch railing is poor and I'm some kind of disgusting criminal because my gravel has washed down upon the road... BUT HE'S WRITING ON MY PORCH. Like it's no big deal. Like I'm so worthless, like my porch is so worthless, that he can just fucking WRITE ON IT.
Would he go to someone else's home, just take out his pen and jot stuff down on their porch railing? If he came to YOUR HOME, reader, what would you think if someone was WRITING ON YOUR EFFING PORCH?
It's been angering me more and more.
That and the way he looked at me. Like I was nothing. Like I was some aging, partially dressed, barefoot, messy poor trashy woman.
You know... so often, I want to say to people, "I'm poor. That's it. That's all. I'm not stupid. I'm not worthless. I'm not inferior. I'm just poor."
Fuck but I'm sitting here getting all mad.
WRITING ON MY PORCH. Coming on my property uninvited, unannounced, banging on my door, looking at me like I'm trash, writing on my porch.
Okay... Breath.
So anyway. I started thinking about the whole criminal culvert thing. Especially since I noticed that my neighbor doesn't even HAVE a culvert. I understand, I accept, that my driveway needs graded, that last summer's floods washed my gravel down about a yard into the road. I can see how that is both my responsibility and something i would want to take care of. But I looked at my existing culvert and the thing is fine. And even if it wasn't fine, the culvert has nothing to do with my gravelissue Whhoops, grarve guy here.
Where do we get the ninjas?
eBay?
Ninjas R Us?
Rent to Own?
If you haven't washed it clean yet, I'd take pictures, clean it, then send the oh-so-loverly person who wrote on your porch a BILL for services rendered.
You could also call your local police department to report graffiti. And since you saw him do it, he could be fined. Most places it's illegal.