confirmation that i am in fact a woman

...Hm, on second thought, perhaps that isn't the best of titles for a blog post. But I'm keeping it.

Hello, everyone! Yes, I exist still. It's amazing - I thought for sure that when I went to sleep at 6a.m. on Saturday morning after being in and out of the lab since 8a.m. on Friday that I would never wake up. But I did, in fact, wake up...at 2:30p.m. It was quite a surprise to look at the clock and see that the day was mostly over. I had just enough time to cram in a "breakfast" of coffee and a banana and "lunch" of chocolate chip cookie dough before it was time to meet a friend for dinner at 5! The moral of the story is that I have been crazy busy with work.

It's good - I have proven to myself that I can in fact singlehandedly take care of an experiment that normally I would be required to employ the assistance of at least 3 other people. This is very difficult to schedule, in case you couldn't figure that out for yourself. It is much easier to schedule an experiment into my life when it is just ME who needs to be involved with it. And truthfully it doesn't take that much longer to do with just me than it does with everyone else, although I have to sacrifice a couple replicates of tissue samples, which means less statistical power. But oh well. It's much less of a headache.

Now, that has nothing to do with my post's title! Let me get to the point here...

I got my hair trimmed last Saturday, and the stylist thought it would be great to straighten it. She tried to convince me that despite what everyone seems to think, it doesn't really take that much time to style one's own hair from naturally curly to unnaturally straight using a brush and a hair dryer. She did it in about 12 minutes. And, as she said, everyone should have 12 minutes to give up in a day - it would be rather a bad thing if one didn't. What she doesn't realize, though, is that even if I had all the time in the world to straighten my hair, I do not a) want to and b) own a hair dryer. At any rate, here is a picture of me with the straight and trimmed hair.Ah - and speaking of haircuts, someone else recently got one because she looked a bit crazified herself.It was indeed driving her to eat phone books, it appears. However, cutting Joelle's hair isn't a one-time event. It's a multi-day process because she dislikes it so distinctly and because there is so much hair. So I thought I might terrorize her by making a sort of mohawk and taking pictures to then display on the world wide web.Finally we got it all off. Isn't she a looooong bunny??I love it when she lays all stretched out like that.

Okay, so I got my hair cut. And then I threw on jeans and a fleece and old tennis shoes and ran some errands and went to an intense counseling session and then went to the vicinity of my church. I wanted to attend the Saturday night service because I was slated to meet a friend on Sunday and wanted to keep that open in case I had to hit the road before church time to reach the 3-hour-away destination. I didn't realize that there are extra funky people hanging around the church area on Saturday evenings.

I should note that my church is located in what many would call a "bad" part of town. It's really not, but it is on the cusp and is often populated with people who would most likely fall into the poverty category. Not that this really bothers me, but I am aware that there are certainly some shady dealings going on at some times, and it's good to keep aware of one's surroundings.

I had reached the church area early and decided to walk a block to the gas station to get some food since I was absolutely starving. As I walked along this fine gentleman (I say sarcastically) called out, "Where you going with that fine self?" (And, I should note - this was the best - this other dude leaning against the wall of the building I was passing muttered, "None of your business!" Thanks, man!) I totally ignored him and kept walking. But then I thought...wait a second...I'm wearing JEANS a FLEECE and GRUBBY TENNIS SHOES. Hello??! I do NOT look fine! But, apparently I did, because when I (regrettably) walked back the same way, he reminded me several more times that I looked good. Maybe it was the haircut?

Okay, so that was last week. And it didn't irk me too much other than the fact that even if I try really hard to be modest and don't try at all to even look nice, men can still take a totally innocent woman and situation and make it be inappropriate. (I should note that women can also do this; the point isn't that men are evil, because they're not. They're just men.)

This week walking to church, however, was when I really realized that I'm a woman.

I like to think that I don't come off as being very vulnerable. I'm tall and I usually try to walk like I know where I'm going. And I am pretty sure it looks like I could run really fast if I had to (and I am pretty sure I actually could, too). I try to convince myself that I am, in fact, quite confident and capable and safe and able to defend myself or deal with bad people that might happen upon my path. And then something like today happens.

I'm on my way to church, going across the street, and this guy is jaywalking across the other street perpendicular to me. Our paths intersect and he says something semi-normal-to-this-area like, "Hi, Miss Lady," which usually means absolutely nothing. I replied with a friendly and courteous, "Hi!" To which he then went on, reaching into his pocket, "I've got something I know you'll love."

Er. I doubted that. I don't know what that something was, but I said, "I'm fine, I don't need anything, thanks," and kept walking.

Right, so that wasn't so bad. But...

But why in the world did I suddenly feel like I wanted to go hide somewhere and cry? Why did I feel so flustered? This person did not attack me or in any way threaten to injure me. We were in broad daylight and there's always about 5 cops doing traffic and stuff around the church, which was about 100 yards away. Why did I feel so...scared?

I'm a woman. Underneath this whole, "I've got it all together, don't mess with me, I can take care of myself, I'm very brave" facade, I know I'm this close to getting plucked from the sidewalk by some strong male and assaulted. I know I'm the target for lewd and inappropriate comments and there's nothing I can do to stop it. I know that I want someone to protect me and I hate having to walk through dark or scary places by myself.

So, in a sense, it's good for things like this to happen to me. They remind me of how I really feel deep down, how I try to cover it up and pretend I'm someone I'm not. It's unfortunate that this pretending is what is both celebrated and accepted in the world today. It's unfortunate that there is such a women-centered battle going on without very many people being acutely aware of it. And it's unfortunate that more men don't realize that women (at least this one!) want to be fought for, defended, and in the end treated with the utter dignity and sheer love for which they were created.