On being an object, and then not being an object

I keep trying to write this post, and every time I'm taken aback at how angry I am, how very furious, and I don't want that, I want to be positive and have fun and entertain. But oh, there's something I want to say, so I try again, and I'm back to being furious. Well. I've literally been at this post for a year and it never gets any funnier or lighter, but I keep wanting to write it; I have to write it; I have to be done with it. So here we go.

A year ago I was at a family event and a few of my mom's friends--older women all--were expressing amazement that I would let my hair go gray. One of them--a woman I've known since I was born--said, "Men don't mind it when their hair goes gray, because gray hair makes you look more intimidating. And a woman doesn't want to look intimidating."

She was so well-meaning, so concerned about my looking approachable and pretty, and I know she didn't mean anything by it. But when she said this, so much rage welled up in me. So much. I made a joke and changed the subject, but all I wanted to do was scream. Loudly.

Because: do I want to look intimidating? God, yes. I do. Yes, please, I very much fucking do.

As a young woman, I was certainly the least intimidating creature on the planet, and as such I was prey to unwanted attention from men, attention that ranged from annoying to truly scary. I know there are people who dismiss the idea that such attention is upsetting--after all, isn't it flattering that strangers think you're attractive? But it goes far, far beyond that. It was endless and exhausting and I don't think it has a thing to do with how pretty you are. In fact I often felt the comments would come fast and furious on the days I felt particularly bad about myself, like I was giving off signals or hormones, like they could smell my weakness.

But now, I don't know, I may be slightly more intimidating these days, because I am 42. I am middle aged. Being middle aged renders you invisible to the kinds of creeps who dole out harassment, so you're mostly left alone. I'm really enjoying it. Not only do I not miss my youth, I am pleased to be rid of it.

To be a young woman in our culture means that you exist, from an alarmingly young age, for the appreciation of others. Therefore, your every feature is fair game for public appraisal.

It means you become accustomed to a certain kind of gaze: a cold survey of your merits and deficits.

It means you tense up when you walk past a group, any group, of men, because you know they're going to say something, it may or may not be positive, and either way it's not going to leave you feeling good about yourself.

It means you can't look sad or even neutral in public because a stranger, a man, will inevitably order you to smile.

It means you automatically flinch when a guy looking at you passes a little too closely, because you know he's going to murmur something in your ear. You know it. And then he does, he murmurs damply into your ear, and you feel like you need to disinfect that entire side of your head and you turn and shout, "WHAT DID YOU SAY TO ME," but by then you're invisible. He's done. He doesn't bother to acknowledge you. No one does.

It means that when you're going out you don't wear the short skirt you wanted to wear or that low-cut dress because you know the comments you'll get, and high heels that look right with the dress you're wearing are out; if you had to break out into a run there's no way in hell you could, and you can't afford to feel that vulnerable.

So: did I want to appear intimidating? So much. If that happens now because I have gray hair, I am all for it. I doubt that's why the public commentary has waned. The fact is, I just don't read as an Object anymore.

It still happens, of course; older women aren't immune to unwanted attention, or worse. I don't put up with it for a second, and maybe that's clear from how I carry myself, so they leave me alone. Maybe my gray hair pushed me over the edge into a new world, one where I'm considered worthy of respect. Or, more likely, I'm not considered at all.

This is just fine by me. As a result, for instance, I rarely have to endure seeing men masturbating on the subway. I'm not sure where all the public masturbators went. Do they magically appear only to women in their twenties, like awful leprechauns? Penis fairies? Because I am telling you, I saw one a week, back then. Granted, I was on the subway a lot more, usually late at night. But wherever I went, there they were. An old man reading the newspaper grinned at me, and then I saw what was going on underneath his Daily News. A middle-aged guy wearing bike shorts, of all things, whipped it out right by my head. On a crowded F train into Queens, a very large man I never saw stood right behind me and humped my back, and I was frozen, trapped, unable to believe what was happening. He kept going, stop after stop, and I stood there, realizing I couldn't move or speak, that I was too afraid and freaked out to move, and what's worse, he knew it.

I still can't get over the fact that I never screamed. I never said anything. I just wished it would stop. Which it did, of course, eventually, only it's still going on, when I think about it, inside my head.

There were other incidents, too; so many incidents. Every one underscored the message that I wasn't safe, that I deserved whatever was coming to me, because I was young and a woman and that was how it was and also I should appreciate it. I tried to look unapproachable, but I don't think my face works that way; I just looked sad and then men barked at me to cheer up, to give them a smile. I wanted to look hard and angry. Lord knows I wanted to be intimidating. It just didn't work.

These days I feel like I'm off the hook. Like I'm free. I still do want to be intimidating, though. There are days when I want to be terrifying.

A while back, a postal worker called out to me from his truck, in this creepy sing-song, "Little girl… little girl…" I couldn't believe he was talking to me, but there was no one else around, so I turned to him and said, "Excuse me?" He looked horrified and stammered, "I…I thought you were a little girl."  

What could I do? I told him he was a fucking creep. He took off, and I prayed for little girls everywhere.

Noises you do not want to hear

Well, kids! We woke up this morning to bam-bam-BLAMPH-bump-bump-bumpity on the roof and since it was raining, I naturally thought, "Oh, dear, the roof deck furniture has taken flight again," and then Henry called from his room, "Something fell off the roof!" which seemed to confirm it, and as I wondered if we had killed anyone this time, Scott spied a MAN shimmying down a tree in our backyard. So it was not a furniture, but a person. Who leapt from a neighboring roof to ours, like he was some kind of super-villain. Good morning!

Henry was full of criticisms for the alleged criminal while Scott spoke with the police and I tried to give Henry the comfort and reassurance that he did not require.

"I bet he thought people wouldn't hear him because we'd be asleep. Well, guess what, idiot, there's school."
"The important thing to remember is, look how fast the police showed up!"
"Do you remember school? I bet not."
"And let's remember, he was just running away from something, he wasn't trying to get in."
"Plus, duh, we have windows! And we could look right outside and see him right there! Hello!"
"We're all safe, honey. You may now hug me."

At any rate, the police officers wandered around the backyard and trudged up to the roof and peered up at the trees as if they would yield clues, and then they left and I have no idea what happened. I hope this man was only engaged in some wacky adultery hijinks and not fleeing from a crime scene, and I bet that's not the case so I'm just going to hope no one was hurt.

AND THEN:


Okay, I was WRITING THIS VERY POST and had in fact just finished writing the word "hurt" when there was ANOTHER eruption of noise, NOT A JOYFUL NOISE AT ALL. This one was a rrrrrrrrrrrrwwwhROOOOOOMPH and it was louder than anything should be, and I thought, oh, hey, the building's coming apart. So this is a good day! Of course if a wall fell off or the roof collapsed I would have, you know, seen it (that's the advantage of having all four walls of your home within sight at all times) so after I ran in circles for a few seconds (I am excellent when an emergency strikes) I hurried to the back window, where I saw THIS:

That is a tree that fell into our yard, causing the roomph noise. This is a tree whose branches are sitting in our gutters. That is a tree that came THISCLOSE to killing us all. Okay, not really. It's amazing to me that the tree didn't come down forever ago, since it's been dead since we moved in (it's in the empty lot just behind us, the lot entirely populated by romance-minded kitty cats). It might have come down when the (alleged) ne'er-do-well was climbing it this very morning! Oh, that would have been a story.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to take a Klonopin and practice my deep breathing.

Sorry about that west nile virus, Brooklyn

For a few weeks we've been having a mosquito problem in our apartment, which is not something one generally expects in mid-November, but thanks to climate change, every season is now an adventure in the unexpected!

Still, though, this many mosquitoes in one apartment points to a problem … somewhere. Somewhere nearby. We tried to get to the bottom of this problem by scratching our wounds and bitching about it. Then one night, as Scott and I were preparing for sleep (translation: reading erotic poetry aloud to one another; flossing--erotically) the cat jumped on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I assumed, as one does, that there were ghosts hovering up there--because everyone knows cats can see ghosts and it drives them crazy that they can't pounce on 'em--but I looked up and instead of glimpsing a floaty ancestor I saw approximately 1 billion mosquitoes.

As you can imagine, this was not a sight one wishes to see before one drops off to sleep.

Now that I'm picturing the scene a little more vividly in my mind's eye, it was maybe less like 1 billion and more like twelve. Even so, one does not like to share one's bedroom with more mosquitoes than zero. Much less A DOZEN WAITING UP THERE FOR YOU TO DOZE OFF SO THEY CAN DRAIN YOU OF YOUR DELICIOUS BLOOD.

Scott and I immediately leapt up and murdered each of the mosquitoes, or maybe if you want to be accurate Scott murdered them while I helpfully pointed out the stragglers and shouted, "Kill them! Kill them ALL!" Or, okay, maybe I just shuddered and rocked back and forth. At any rate, I made sure to keep out of his way until his spree was complete.

He felled all the mosquitoes that were waiting above us, but there were more. As soon as I began dropping off to sleep that night and for several nights after, I was treated to a series of those horrible ear-fly-bys, like they were saying, "Guess what, asshole."

We were baffled. Where were these mosquitoes coming from? What was going on? And then my brilliant husband, oh, he realized. It was a few nights later when he was awakened to another mosquito-party--this time going on on his body--and that's when it hit him: the roof deck. Where we had planters. And there had been rain. And we had not gone up there, because it was cold, and who goes up to a roof deck when it's cold? Smart people do to make sure there's no standing water, that's who. Smart people who are not us. Oh no, we had created a mosquito haven up there, and it was a short distance downstairs to our place, and I have no idea how they were arriving en masse into our apartment with our windows closed but I just hope we were the main victims and that everyone on our block was not similarly afflicted.

Anyway, Scott got up, in the middle of the night, and went up there and drained every inch of standing water SO THERE TAKE THAT MOSQUITOES HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAaa. HA. BAM. WE WIN.

Then we were still under attack, kind of a lot, actually, for another couple of weeks, and it finally occurred to us that the big giant planter up on the roof, the one that had plenty of soil in it, not water, so it didn't need to be drained, maybe was the problem? And come to think of it was kind of muddy? And maybe mosquitoes like mud? (Spoiler alert: THEY DO.)

Oh, I'll tell you, we are always learning! So it only took us 14 days or so to figure that out. We're really doing quite well for ourselves. This is why we're better off not owning a home. You're welcome, New Jersey.

Happy new year, or whatever.

Look, I’m generally a fan of celebration, but New Year’s Eve is the worst holiday ever. Am I right, folks? Can I get an amen? Why are you all looking at me like that? What are you pocketing—are those sparkly 2010 glasses? What party did you all go to and why wasn’t I invited?

I just can’t get into New Year’s. If we stay in, I’m certain I missed something, and if we go out, I have to kiss people I don’t know and there’s noise and my feet hurt from the high heels and I’m wondering why I didn’t just stay home. Bah.

I may be crankly this morning (crankly? I’m leaving it) because my building neighbors all decided the advent of a new year was a perfect excuse to unleash their heretofore-contained need to DEAFEN THE WORLD. Open your doors, folks! Play that thumpy-thump music louder! Do you have an air horn? Well then BLOW IT! Blow it so all the world can hear that you are, you know, alive, and you are capable of blowing things! That sounded wrong! OH WELL!

We decided we’d stay in and “enjoy” a “quiet” New Year’s, just Henry and Scott and myself, and all was well until the stroke of midnight, when there was some inexplicable squabbling as the ball dropped and we began the New Year with tears and recrimination. How festive! Just as we all made up, the building went insane. It seems a massive celebration was raging in our building all that time, and yet we didn’t hear a single peep, not a footstep outside our door, until the stroke of midnight. Suddenly there was shouting and bombs were going off and we all made a run for our beds and hid under the covers, praying for a quick ending to whatever was going down in the rooms around us.

Fortunately Henry was exhausted enough to drop right off, noise be damned, but it took the two of us a little longer. We somehow managed to get to sleep by, oh, two a.m., and were then awakened at FIVE by some drunken neighbors in the hall, leaning against our DOOR and yes I realize I am CAPITALIZING random WORDS. I listened to some guy I’ve never seen before leaning against our door (why yes I WAS peeping through the peephole—that’s what it’s for!) loudly questioning another guy about where he was going to do…something. Drugs? Urination? Unclear. “You going to do that outside? Not in here? Are you going to do it in the hall right here? Or you going home?” Murder? Knitting? What was going on?

At this point Scott arrived and took the bull by the horns by opening the door and informing this total stranger that the hallway wasn’t the best place to carry on an INCREDIBLY LOUD conversation and could he maybe go back to, you know, his own place of residence. We got a look at this guy, and oh my, was he drunk. So, so drunk. Eyes rolling in the head, weaving around drunk. He just kept saying “It’s New Year’s Eve!” (“It’s New Year’s day,,” I observed) and telling us he’s lived in the building for 20 years. 20 years! That gives you tenure, or whatever, so of course you can do drugs or murder in the hallway or at least TALK about it, geez.

So listen, I haven’t had much sleep, and I’m in a little bit of a bad mood and I may be contemplating running up and down the stairs with a large pan and a mallet and making some traditional New Year’s Day Racket for my hungover neighbors to enjoy, SEE HOW THEY LIKE IT. But in all truth, 2009 was kind of amazing for the Finslippy household—sucky for the rest of the world, sure, but total aces for us!—and I’m sure 2010 will be even better. Once I get some sleep. And stop wondering what that guy was going to do in the hallway. His taxes? Really, I can’t figure it out.