ambiguity is fun until you're its victim

arg. fun, but ultimately ambiguous. this is why framing is important: everyone knows what's going on.

But there's too much to do to get hung up and neurotic over this. Either try to focus on the good, or just stop thinking about it.

Must gear self up to face another day of spreadsheets and endless phone calls. Replenishing my supply of chapstick will help, right?

ever vigilant?

Last year, I spent an inordinate amount of time worrying about how to get to and from school/home. Worrying about being safe walking about alone, worrying about feeling unsafe. All because of a mugging at the beginning of school. I spent hours on that little shuttle bus getting from the library to a half-block from home, and then worrying every time I walked from the bus to my door that those two men would have figured out where I lived and were waiting to get me. Even when there were other people around.

And now, the vestiges of that fear and worry remain. I still cannot trust anyone on the street; I still fear strangers and dark spaces and downtown areas, and I still look upon all unknown men as potential muggers. And that is terrible.

Sure, it's good to be vigilant, I suppose. But at what cost? At making innocent people feel like you are casting them as criminals?

Yuck. So thanks, Chicago, for making me a terrible, fearful person. Thanks, society, for creating the social and racialized stratification that led to those two men targeting me as I walked home that night.

sure, life is different, now, but the memories and the fears linger. I'm glad I don't constantly worry, every fucking day, about how I'm going to get to my front door. A year of that was enough.