confusion

There's a line in a film (I will decline to say which one....OK.....JFK) that goes something like, "We're through the looking glass. Black is white and white is black."

I'm experiencing that now. I'm seeing that things aren't as simple as I had thought even 24 hours ago. Some bizarre things have happened to me. Twice today the number 666 sprang up at me, don't laugh: on the treadmill when I put my new CD in, as in, 666 calories per hour due to the numbers I had plugged in; and then when I made a trip to the nearby bodega looking for conditioner as I was out. I looked in 3 different stores and.......every time I go outside, this being a problem most women face, I get sexually harassed. Today I was really mad, and I wanted to really attack these men. Not only that, if these men are in the company of other women, I imagine they're hurting the women emotionally, probably scarring them for life. I am not going to make excuses for bad behavior even if it is part of someone's culture; well, unlearn it. Some people may call me xenophobic or racist or something, and I detest those kinds of attitudes, so I never want to be that. But I won't turn a blind eye from someone doing something wrong, and when I really get angry (it runs in my family on both sides) I feel my heart start beating faster and the blood rush to my face and it's a really bad feeling, as well as holding it back. I think so much of street harassment is power: that these men know they can get away with it: they play on women's anger, defenselessness really; because in these situations I feel their power over me, knowing I can't turn to anyone, not the police, not other people on the street, like I'm backed into a corner. I hear all the time people saying women shouldn't walk around alone after dark, but really these men see it as their God-given right to attack any woman who comes their way, alone or not. Though I have to admit, wearing a skirt, a short one, attracts this stuff in hordes; I mean I have gotten harassed when I was covered up but I don't think it was anything of this magnitude. I was thinking, what if it were against the law and these men could actually be fined every time they harass a woman?

So, I finally found a store selling conditioner, and I bought that plus three candles, cause I like to sit in candlelight at night to wind down. The cashier rung it up and it was $6.66. I stared at the numbers and she kind of laughed, like it was funny. I thought it was disgusting. I bought the stuff then threw it in the trash. I'll try to see the humor in it but at the time I was really upset, and I didn't want to let that on. I don't understand WHY this is happening to me.


On another note, I'm slowly getting into Willa Cather. I read on the subway now, that's the best time for me.