spit me baby one more time

my school day began with a documentary on genocide and ended with a stream of spit in my hair and face from an unknown thief. suffice it to say, today was no good. granted, the span in between was rather nice as i was able to purchase and consume carbs and finish reading a good short story, but thanks to the primacy-recency theory, all of that has been eclipsed by the shit time i had at the park.

i was writing in my journal (oddly enough bits and pieces to remember from the past few days so that i could add them here later) at my usual park after a rather banal class. looking up from my notes, i pondered the scene as oftentimes this park is a potpourri of people and personalities. once, i witnessed a man barking at children. always be aware of your surroundings, they say. 

at any rate, i caught a rather plain looking lump of a woman working her way up the incline via the ledge upon which i happened to be sitting. nothing wrong with that. relatively common occurrence. i continued my scribing. all of a sudden, i felt a gentle tugging at the hem of my dress, and then saw a hand reaching for the straps. i immediately noticed the nails: sparkly baby shit orange. this was obviously a bad person. instinctively (as i told dad later), the only child in me snatched the bag with astonishing force and conviction, and i think this took the woman by surprise. she looked at me as if she had hyperthyroidism and pulled harder. shit. i can't even win against myself with a chinese finger trap. i didn't know how i was going to pull this one off. adrenaline must have started to kick in, and i soon began shrieking at her in english. and before i knew it, the tacky nails made contact with my shoulders and soon i was supine on the ground. unfortunately for her, my body was the ball and chain to my purse, and it was safe underneath me. still in shock and unable to comprehend what had actually happened, i looked to my purse. all things were there. i looked to my tights. there was a gaping hole. i looked to her with utter incredulity, and she reciprocated by rearing her head back like some foul boar before it charges at you with its tusks and then spat in my face. to that, i responded with a nonsensical and painfully anticlimactic, "I HATE YOU." as if my abhorrence of her would have made any difference. she proceeded to run off and i never saw her again.

like most things, the hardest part was getting up. my veins were still comprised of whitewater rapids at this point and because of that my entire body was shaking. i was just waiting for the hives. there were others relatively nearby, yet no one seemed to notice what had happened. or maybe they just wanted to pretend so. awkwardly, i grabbed my things (the bitch didn't want to take my notebooks or collection of f. scott fitzgerald stories, what a shock) and made the long walk home, where i would collapse into crying fits every 50 paces. and it was as true then as it is now that i couldn't tell you exactly why that happened. it may have something to do that i have just started the monthly process that consists primarily of tampax, tears, and cheese-laden products, or the fact that it was so hot out, or the fact that i'm realizing that things are coming to a close, (actually, i think those are all good reasons and in truth it was probably a cocktail of the three) but i suppose i will never be certain. more than anything, i think it has to do with how much i've romanticized this place. nothing like that should happen here. sure, i've heard others say they've had things stolen, been mugged in dark alleys, but not here. not in my granada. 

though the truth is that even princesses can't sleep in forever. despite how it may appear occasionally, i think today highlighted a bigger issue with which i've always had problems: i have quite a hard time accepting things for what they are. no, i'm not an overt optimist, nor have i experienced any major hardships in my life. yet time and time again when these things happen (as they have before; i must bear some sort of an invisible mark), i tell myself that i've learned. i've wisened up. i "get it" now. i see. but i never do. the truth is that i don't like to think that beautiful cities can have ugly underbellies, and i hate to think that people aren't as good as they may appear. part of me thinks that i should hold on to this, as it's quite a slippery slope to becoming jaded, which is an even quicker catalyst toward complacency, but at the same time i know i am crazy not to recognize this as truth and respond accordingly. 

in the meantime, my eyes are feeling heavy. i'm going to let my neurons randomly fire for approximately nine hours and hopefully when i wake up tomorrow morning, the dust will have settled some and i will be able to see a bit more clearly. i do, however, recall a quote from a shirt that i liked today, oddly enough right before i entered the park. it read, "lo importante es saber que es importante," or, "the important thing is to know what is important." and today, despite the shit storm, despite the spit and the ripped tights, what is important is that i am safe and, in spite of my blubbering, i am stronger than i think.