Quiet, furious rage

Is that title perhaps a bit redundant? I DON'T CARE.

It had been a long week for me, last week was, one that I was hoping would be brightened by a fun filled concert on Thursday. I had tickets to see Blink-182, with Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. I was excited. It was an excuse to dance (the area I was going to be in was large enough that I wasn't too concerned about moshers this time 'round) and an excuse to visit my sister and an excuse to have FUN.

Overall, I had fun. But there was this one part, this itty-bitty part which has eaten at me like the worst heartburn a person can ever experience.

There were 20,000 people at the concert, and a majority of the people there had lawn tickets. I was one of the people who snapped up a lawn ticket (wrongly) assuming that the view would be reasonable enough to go without a decent seat. I was there by myself, unlike most of the people there. I ended up befriending a girl and two guys (who didn't know each other until we started talking before Blink took the stage).

I ended up in front of this girl's friend, a guy. I was dancing, having FUN, rocking out, generally rocking out more than I usually do at a concert. It was VERY packed, so we were shoulder-to-shoulder, front-to-back across the entire lawn. Every fifth person was smoking, and I was about six inches shorter than all of the people around me. I was very hot and, periodically, I would get dizzy from the smoke and the heat. Breathing problems for the win, yes?

So, I'm dancing to this one song. I could tell you which one if I heard it, but I imagine I'm already blocking this out, because the whole thing just PISSED ME OFF. Because, out of the blue, I feel a hand GRAB MY ASS like it is hoping to take a chunk off.

MY. ASS.

I stopped dead in the middle of my dancing, rigid as a board, my brain scrambling at what sort of reaction I needed to scrape up. I was on auto-pilot, so my initial reaction was to wave it off as an 'accident' like all of the bumps and slaps and slams I'd been getting up until that point. He leaned in, said "SORRY!" loud enough for me to hear. I couldn't think. What was I supposed to think? Do? Say? It wasn't a mace-level offense, but it was enough to... be worthy of a response.

When the song ended, he leaned in, again. "Sorry! I just like to grab things!"

I JUST LIKE TO GRAB THINGS?! I thought. Really! REALLY! THAT WAS HIS EXCUSE!

I am angry and disgusted. My reaction ended up being slowly inching my way through the crowd, away from this man, quashing any major reaction at that moment because what could I do? There was no space to turn around, and the opportunity to hit him like he deserved for the unwanted action had passed. It was too loud to yell at him, dress him down. Part of me wanted to go the pure rejection route, make up some line better than "I HAVE A BOYFRIEND!" because so many people act like that is simply a paper barrier, no more strong than the gowns you wear when you visit the doctor for the yearly physical.

"Wow. My girlfriend is going to love having me fork over the twenty she bet me about tonight," I purred in my head, my voice both sweet and so cutting.

I stayed silent. The anger built as I found myself worrying over my dancing, where I stood, how much I knocked into the people around me. Focusing on things that had been background motion and noise to me seconds before, making me less confident, less able to stick a jump.

I was shot back to earth, furious and betrayed and, worst of all, worst than anything? I felt like a BAD PERSON. As if I had done something wrong, simply by enjoying myself.

Maybe he wouldn't have done that if I hadn't kept dancing into him, my treacherous brain whispered, as if we were in the 1950's and men were still allowed to pass off the blame of any wrong to a woman. Maybe if I hadn't been moving around so much... Even though it wasn't on purpose that I knocked into him, even though I had done nothing wrong, the thoughts built, mounting, orienting themselves inward instead of outward. Anger at myself for enjoying the concert instead of at him for thinking that he could fix things with that stupid apology.

The fury eventually edged that out. It is now hanging out with regret, the horrid regret of not doing anything. My brain shut down and I didn't fight my way back out, didn't get to express how angry I was. He knew he did something wrong, sure, but he almost made it seem like it was my fault. My ass, the way he put it, was simply too tempting to not grab. This is the second time in a week (third, in some ways) that I have been objectified, reduced, made less than, by a person's actions/comments. These incidences have left me dumbfounded, wondering where feminism is, what happened to it, that men are comfortable, again, with reducing women to a pair of tits in a dress or an ass in a pair of shorts.

Girl Friday, get your act together

On the one hand, I should hate today. On the other hand, I am so far beyond amused at today.

I was running late for work, and I was kinda irritated. I was in a rush and needed to park, so when I saw three open spots across the street my workplace, I pulled in. Quick. One could argue that it was a little TOO QUICK, but those people would just be asking for me to lay down some ass-whupping because you do not get to tease me about my driving skillz. Which are plentiful, I swear.

Because, you see, I pulled in a little too fast, and somehow the angle of the turn and the speed of the car caused me TO HOP THE CURB SO BADLY THAT I KILLED MY TIRE. 

NO SHIT.

Two OU employees were walking by and turned to stare, a mix of shock and amusement on their faces. My tire had made a decent 'pop' sound when it hit the curb. I knew it was dead. So I just sat there and laughed. I felt like this woman in a recent episode of Grey's Anatomy, the woman who is yelling "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!" every single time she gets bad news. As if the world is falling down around her ears and every time she gets a handle on it, a curve ball gets tossed in her face.

I got out of the car and surveyed the tire, some part of me accepting the inevitable. And, yep, there it was: a two-to-three inch long tear in the rubber, all the way through the 'sidewall,' according to my dad. In the space of time it took me to explain to my dad what had happened, all of the air drained out of my tire. ALL OF IT. 

My boss let me move the car to our back parking lot, which was nice considering that it meant my other boss had to park in a spot meant for the people that rent the apartments above the shop. My dad came, checked the tire, declared it dead (which, HELLO? I TOLD YOU IT WAS!), picked up a replacement (artfully forging my signature, I am sure), and replaced it.

So that was my morning. 

AND THEN. YES REALLY.

I decided to just park my car in a local neighborhood for the rest of the day and just walk anywhere I needed to go. On my way to Chinese class, I saw a bicyclist get hit by a van. Once I saw the biker was okay, I laughed.

NOW, before you start saying I am a horrible person or anything like that, let me just point out that Athens bicyclists are more-often-than-not assholes of the best order. They are uppity and rude and obey NONE of the rules that they are supposed to. Oh, and they rarely wear helmets.

In this case, a van was waiting to turn left. Clear as day, blinker going and everything. It finally had a clear shot to turn and this bike came out of nowhere and basically got toppled over by the van. That's the best way to describe it. I heard an 'aaah,' which was more of 'whoa, what the hell, you mean there are CARS on ROADS?' scream of surprise, not one of pain. I screamed in shock, frightening my poor dad (who I was on the phone with), and walked closer to make sure the girl was okay. The business owner of where the van was going came out and asked if she needed to call 911 as a few cars stopped to see if they should help. The poor van driver stood there, looking panicked and upset.

The bicyclist stood up. "I'm fine, I'm fine, okay?" she snapped. Okay, fine, she was hit by a car, SHE IS TOTALLY FINE, SURE. Then she picked up her bike, popped it up and down once or twice and loudly declared, "YOU MESSED UP MY BIKE!"

Really? You came up on the LEFT SIDE of a vehicle when it was waiting to turn LEFT, you weren't wearing a helmet, you aren't letting anyone call 911, and you're pissed because your bike got messed up?

I just had to laugh. I mean, really? Of all the things you could be upset about, you choose to be angry that your bike isn't properly aligned anymore? Sure, she could have been in shock, but her reaction was just too ridiculous. 

I'm almost afraid to see what the rest of the night will be like. 

Wilco = awesome

Long overdue, I know, I know.

I saw Wilco last Friday at MemAud, a place that I am hoping to not enter again until May. Why? Because I was there until 2 in the morning for David Sedaris on the seventh (or the eighth, depending on how you look at things) and was there again a week later for a reading from Sandra Steingraber. Okay, sure, I was paid to go to both events, and I had been planning to go see Steingraber anyway, but really? How many hours do YOU want to spend in the university auditorium? 

Anyway. Wilco was pretty much awesome. Not as awesome as the JM show earlier in the week, but had that not been my baseline for the concert, it would have been pretty freaking spectacular. The band had good chemistry, Jeff Tweedy talked about as much as was expected (ie, not a lot), and they stuck around after the show so that the 30 or so fans who stuck it out to meet, at the very least, Jeff, got to. 

I got my shirt signed by Jeff Tweedy and got to tell him 'he was really good tonight,' only to be told that he actually doesn't hear that that often. Really? Why not? I'd like to think I'm not the only one who realizes that performers probably like to hear, 'oh my god, you were amazing tonight! Thank you!' rather than 'oh my god, I love you, will you have my babies?!' 

It'd be a just a little too ironic if I was the only sane one in this situation.