21 Days: Day 17

I ate a baguette today at Panera. I contemplated telling them not to include it with my otherwise Fast-friendly meal, but I didn’t, and it was there, and it was delicious. I felt guilty for about 47 seconds, and now I’ve confessed and am moving on.

1. I woke to my alarm, which isn’t my favorite. No snooze. Counted lots of blessings not the least of which being no dog messes. She needed to go out and come back in and go out and come back in about 17 times, which freed my mind to focus on nothing else but being grateful. And, “ooooh, look at all these steps before 6 a.m.!”

2. When you focus so much on gratitude and meaningful experiences, it sometimes makes it hard to narrow it down to just one. That’s a good problem to have. Here was my favorite today.

I absolutely love subscription boxes. I currently get Birchbox and Bulu Box and have gotten Box of Happies, Beauty Army, Fab Fit Fun VIP. Chloe got Birchbox and Bonjour Jolie. And Lily got Kiwi Crate. So when Peyton told me he wanted a Loot Crate for Christmas, I was excited because it’s so much fun to get a surprise in the mail every month.

Today, after much anticipation, his first shipment arrived. If you’re unfamiliar with Loot Crate, it is a subscription box for gamers. He was so pumped he practically skipped in from the mailbox. Then, he opened it as we ooooohed and ahhhhhed over each treasure inside. So simple. But watching him nearly burst with little-kid giddiness soothed my soul.

3. I may never stop writing thank you notes. Every time I think I’m going to run out of people to thank, a memory jars my heart.

After an amazing lunch with one of my super-hero girlfriends, who always inspires me to dream bigger dreams and expand my vocabulary while simultaneously making me laugh til I nearly pee, I had to go to Wal-Mart. A few months ago, I bought a Rubbermaid mop thing, which I love, but it was faulty, so they gave me a $25 voucher to replace it. Unfortunately when I tried to use the voucher, the mop itself was only $23.97, and I had to have at least $25 worth of Rubbermaid merchandise. It wasn’t a big deal, but the whole determination of this took about 15 minutes, and I was mildly irritated and now running behind to finish my errands and pick up my kids.

So, I’m hustling out, when I hear, “Hey! Hey you! Stop, wait. Stop. Yes, you, come here.” I doubted this was directed at me, as it was coming from one of three old men sitting in front of Subway. Continuing to pay no mind as the pedestrian traffic flow stopped, I hear, “Hey, YOU, with the nice backside.” At this point, pissed off for whomever was being catcalled by these geriatric benchwarmers, I whipped my head around, and he spits out, “NOW I GOT YOUR ATTENTION.”

I was prepared to give him a not-so-nice piece of my mind, but I was fresh from a discussion about when people do stupid, mean things it’s because of something that’s going on in them. And I looked at this old dude in his tattered, dirty clothes leering at me with his few remaining teeth and…sighhhh…I just smiled.

What would you have done? That shit makes me CRAZY. If he had been clean or young or even had a full set of teeth, I probably would have lit into him. But this guy was already so far down…dirty and nearly toothless…I could hear Brad Bell in my head saying, “Babe…that’s like kicking a kitten.”

How was your day? Did you make anything fabulous to eat? Did you cheat on your fast–misery loves company 😉 Did you encounter any dirty old men?

xoxo

You Look Really Pretty When You Smile.

When I was a little girl, I was terrified of men. In my only professional photograph, taken at age two, I’m smiling, but my eyes are and swollen. My mom attributes this to the photographer’s maleness. I remember feeling afraid of men. Not my dad–well, a little bit–or my brothers, but strange men. Santa Clauses in the mall, photographers, and so on.

My super intense awareness saved me many times, once from a gymnastics coach who tried to convince me to go to the store with him so he could buy me a stuffed animal. For real. I was 9. He was a textbook predator.

I never completely got over that fear. Dr. K, someday when I make it for my appointment, you can undoubtedly help. Feel free to put in my growing file 🙂

As I got older, I wasn’t so much afraid of men as … uncomfortable. In fact, there are few men in my life with whom I’m really comfortable. I can count them on one hand and a few fingers. The aforementioned physician is an enigma being a virtual stranger and a man with whom I’m comfortable.

Recently articles and videos have shed light on veiled harassment, men telling women to smile, or whistling, cat-calling and more. My dad was a horrible harasser, but he would say he meant it as a compliment, and I genuinely believe his harassment was without malice. I also really loved him so this might be an excuse. He did embarrass me many times by flirting with my friends, waitresses and cashiers.

While I’ve always been hyper-aware of this behavior, my discomfort doesn’t rest on a whistle, wink, sideward glance or whatever. I rarely make eye contact with men (other than the aforementioned ones, my magnificent 7) because I feel like it is an invitation; my eyes give a lot away. This sounds unkind, but I doubt people would judge me if they know what it feels like to walk away from a conversation feeling as if they’ve been licked all over. You might never have expressed it in such vulgar terms, but I’m willing to bet lots of women know that feeling.

Like the scene from pretty woman where George Costanza tries to rape Julia Roberts. That’s an extreme example, but it’s the feeling. The weird, uncomfortable, having someone look at you as if you’re a meal. The I-wish-I-had-another-button-or-maybe-a-taser feeling.

It is this feeling that makes me despise a few run-of-the-mill tasks: Taking my car for any sort of maintenance, going to a car dealership, taking aluminum cans to the scrap yard; basically anything involving close contact with men who are outside of my circle of comfort.

Recently, I was harassed picking up my daughter from school. One divorced dad decided of all the people standing in line looking at their phones to avoid small talk, he would make small talk with me. As the days wore on, he began seeking me out, commenting on my gym card on my key ring and even asking me when I went, what I did there and so forth. My keys were in my left hand which also bears my WEDDING RING, which he did not mention. Ugh.

Once, I was pursued by a “lonely widower” in Walmart who followed me around the store for about a half hour striking up conversations despite my repeatedly walking away from him. He continued to follow me until I finally said, “You are making me very uncomfortable. I’m walking away, and I’m going to call security if you follow me.” Lest there be any doubt.

Not long ago in church, I saved a seat with my purse, and a creepy dude sat there. In church. Calling him creepy might be a sin, but Jesus knows that I tried to be kind. I sat next to him. He leaned up against me and elbowed me when my pastor/brother-in-law made a joke. Said pastor/brother-in-law is really funny (also in my Magnificent 7), so there were lots of jokes and subsequent elbowing and leaning in and, ughhhhh, it was weird. My husband was sitting right behind me perfectly calm as this guy was trying to get to first base. Go figure. “I was right there, babe. You didn’t have anything to worry about.” But he was annoyed a week later when some a creepy guy stared at me.

I’m not picking on men; well, I am picking on men who harass women in church or Walmart or elementary schools or ANYWHERE. My magnificent 7 would not accost anyone in Walmart. I doubt they make women uncomfortable. They are husbands and fathers and probably would not approach a strange woman in a store or parking lot because it could be creepy. And they’ve heard enough from their wives about creepy men.

Now, I have stopped going to the gym; I’m going to blame it on school-pick-up guy, but that might be a convenient excuse. I schedule any and all stuff that involves a repair man coming into my house to occur only when Brad Bell is here (except for WiFi repairs, but those repair guys are very nice and not creepy–good for you, Time Warner). I still go to Walmart, but I avoid eye contact with just about everyone. And when I pick Lily up from school, I wait til the last minute so I don’t have to wait in line and subject myself to any creepiness.

I’ve got a lot more creepy guy stories; what about you? Have you ever felt uncomfortable, objectified, or like you’ve been licked all over? Tell me about it, sister.