the circus surreal

I held her body close to mine
Clung to her
And did not want to let her go.
I wanted her to stay leant against me like that
Not forever
But for longer than that short moment
Standing on the corner of Cornell and Central
Trying not to block or disturb the patrons
As they flow in and out of the Frontier
She is hard to miss in her hoodie
The color of a sickly margarita, and so worn
It seems she had to mug a hapless hobo for it
And yet here she is
Arms wrapped around my rather cushy mid-section
Her coke-bottle glasses smushed up against my left shoulder
Her face is toward my ear
And she is whining
She whines like a small child when she is afraid
And she is often terrified of the world
Preferring her small existence
Where she must flip the light switch three times
Before she can leave a room
Her existence where she is safe
I don’t want to let her go, let her get in the car and drive home
But I have to, I cannot hold her against her will
She is not mine, has never been mine
To love or hold or protect
And yet I persist
With a dozen roses and constant affection
I persist
And I apologize to her
For forcing my self on her in this way
Afraid to miss my only chance
I cling and won’t loosen my grip.
She is the sun in the circus of my life
My strange miracle and my haven of nonconformist conformity
Who she is makes me inexplicably happy.

Rape: an outrageous violation

rape
Function: noun
1 : an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force
2 : unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent
3 : an outrageous violation

sexual harassment
Function: noun
: uninvited and unwelcome verbal or physical behavior of a sexual nature especially by a person in authority toward a subordinate (as an employee or student)

The Call:

me: thank you for calling DirecTV. My name is Kate. Can I please have the service phone number on the account starting with the area code first please?

Guy: uh yeah it's ___-___-____. You said your name was Kate? I have a sister in law named

Kate. You sound young, how old are you? Like 18?

Me: no sir I'm older than that.

Guy: like 20's?

Me: not quite.

Guy: so you're 19. what do you look like, are you hot?

Me: that's more a matter of opinion, the name on the account sir?

Guy: do you have dark hair? Or are you blonde like my sister in law Kate?

Me: it changes often, and the name on the account?

Guy: ___________ ______

*there is a password on the account, and the password is "19 inches," the account is in DNR (do not reinstate or resuscitate depending on the context) and collections as well. I feel like I'm moving in slow motion, stuck in ice frozen with no choice but to agree to what's coming. He has me tied to my chair and he's made a noose of my headset cord to kill me with.

Me: okay sir I do see there's a password on the account can I have that password from you?

Guy: uh yeah, my sister in law Kate measured me and said she called it in as the password, it should be something like 18 inches.

Me: um no sir, that's actually not the correct password.

Guy: it should be, the password should be 18 inch cock.

Me: sir, that's not the password, just a moment.

*I wave frantically trying to get the attention of my supervisor and/or mentor, someone to make this stop, they take their time.*

Guy: my sister-in-law Kate is on her knees in front of me and just measured my cock, she said my cock is 18 inches, that's the password on my account, is 18 inch cock. My cock is the password, I mean Kate is right here on her knees in front of me measuring it.

*I finally get the attention of my mentor, the guy hangs up on me, I'm shaking like a tweaker and I burst into tears, my mentor puts me into Aux 7 and lets me go sit in the corner and cry, the other mentor comes over to try and comfort me. She said it happens to everyone and try not to let it get to me.

Meanwhile I feel exposed, naked, raped, violated, devastated and abandoned. I go out to my car and can't cover myself enough to feel clean I try to make a phone call and my phone dies, I cry hard and shake and feel like I'll never be able to escape from the guy, I can't say anything but "no, leave me alone!" and "kill him, please, make it stop."

The call is playing in my head over and over again. The feeling of being trapped and scared won't leave me. I have to go back, we have an hour left, but it's just development, no calls. I sit in my corner and halfway listen, everybody gets up to leave, I can't bring myself to sit back down at my desk. The scene of the crime, this is where it happened. I pull up my computer to shut it down, his account is still up there, that password is still there mocking me. I try to shut down and it doesn't want to let me, I start crying and begging "please, just let me go, just leave me alone." It finally does. I log out but I'm still sitting there crying.

My coach Karen comes over and tries to pep talk me, telling me I'm a great agent, and it's okay, it happens to everyone they'll report him to DirecTV, I look at her and I want to slap her and yell that he raped me. I just sit and take it. She tells me to go home and relax and take a bubble bath, and to leave what happened there at the office. I put my crap in my locker and leave, I'm hoping to run into Joan, I don't. I get in my car and drive home between intermittent bursts of tears. I plug in my phone long enough to retrieve numbers from it.

I call Amanda and give her the rough story, she comforts me as best she can, tells me to stay with her family that night, I agree. I call my parents, they want to talk to Karen, Amanda calls me back, I drive over to her parents house, and it takes all of my apathy not to drive my car into a pole deliberately, just to end all of this pain and violation.

I arrive, and mom2 gives me a hug and tells me to stay as long as I like, I eat dinner and talk with dad2 and tell him what happened, I give him the information I can remember. I talk to my parents, they've talked to Karen, she's done what she can. I sleep, I wake up, I eat pop-tarts, I go into work, I pull into the parking lot and start crying again, I'm scared. I don't want to be here today.

I go in to the office and John the site director isn't there. I go and sit down at a different desk. I wait. Daniel comes up to me and talks to me: Karen isn't in today. I tell him I need to talk to someone; I'm not ready to work yet. He takes me over to talk to Ken our OM who ranks right below John. I talk with him, I can tell he doesn't understand why the call disturbed me so much. I explain that the jackass who called emotionally, psychologically, and verbally raped me, he used my own name against me like it was a fucking weapon.

They agree to give me my paycheck and a weeks unpaid vacation. I come home and sleep. I want to kill him, slowly and painfully, I want to make him pay for all the agents he's done this to that haven't reported him.

This is not okay.

I am not " Okay."

Frankenstein

no, it's not the name of the creature, the creature has no name, it is generally reffered to as a miserable wretch, or monster.
everyone should be forced to read this book at some point in time. it's amazing how a 19 year old girl managed to capture such emotion, she was so well read and so articulate it's obscene. Mary Shelley was such an amazingly talented writer.
Most people think it's supposed to be a horror story, and maybe her original short story was terriffying, but the book, is so much more than just a horror story.
in the book the idea of the horror story is at the back of one's mind and the story instead becomes a social commentary on the sciences, on the shallow nature of humanity, and on the pain of isolation. She crafts such a beatiful story, showing the self-centered nature of Victor, contrasted with the amazing desire to be virtuous exhibited in the creature. the ability to love, the ability to show remorse, the link between the creator and the created, become novel ideas all of a sudden.
her hideous progeny that brought me to tears.

it could never happen to me

so, i've finished watching the oscars, or what i got to see of it. i need to go see million dollar baby.
my mom turns on the news and is watching and we hear, "Ferndale!?" because ferndale is about four streets over. we go in there and we see on the news that this girl, ashley wax, was shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend, she was 15. they had been arguing about breaking up and he had pinned her up against his truck and her dad saw and was coming out side. before her dad could get there the boy pulls a gun out from under the seat in his truck, and shoots her once in the chest, he freaks out and takes off. she dies in her father's arms right there on her front lawn. the boy was picked up at an INS checkpoint, he's being held on a count of murder. but she's still gone.
it was weird that it was so close, but it was wierder that when i looked in my year book and i found her picture, i knew who she was. we hadn't exchanged pleaseantries before, we'd never even met formally, but i'd come into contact with her. i had seen her and knew who she was. this kid, that i knew, has been shot and killed. it's such a surreal feeling, knowing someone you came in contact with has been shot and killed. i just figured it would never happen to me. it's that numb denial feeling, like i'm floating, but not in a good way, just detattched.