Getting the skeevy-jeevies

I’m proud to announce that sexual harassment is alive and well. On a business trip to a conference a few months ago, I experienced an attack of the skeevy-jeevies (this is what I call getting grossed out by shady pervs). Earlier in the day, the Perp was perfectly professional when he had met during a conference luncheon. That night, though, there was a party a-goin’ on to close the conference, and all of a sudden, just cuz there’s salsa dancing and drinking involved, it suddenly becomes okay to try and touch my hair. Being a polite person, I gave him the psychological stiff-arm (i.e—dirty looks and maneuvering out of his grasp) instead of doing what I really wanted to do—break every finger on his hand and laugh menacingly as I relished in his pain, much like the hired leg-breaking mafia thugs you see in the movies.

I know my Pantene-commercial-worthy locks are irresistible, but that doesn’t make it okay for the Perp to try and run his skeevy hands through them. And by no means did I give off any signals; in fact, I’m quite known for my invisible force-field superpowers that keep men at bay. I had an early flight the next morning, but decided to stay awake and pack instead of going to bed right away to burn off a lot of the feminist rage I had that night. I was especially mad at myself for letting him off easy. (He did try to convince my colleages to grab a beer with him when we got back to the hotel, but left us alone when they refused. In the hotel elevator, my friends asked me jokingly if I wanted to grab a beer with him. I told them only if I could shove the beer up his ass. Too bad I didn’t actually get to do it.)

Even though it’s the twenty-first century, and even though there’s more finger-wagging toward sexual harassment than in the past (I’m convinced it’s still hardly more than finger-wagging) one thing hasn’t changed—women are still hesitant to do say what we really want to when it does happen, especially in a business situation. This episode made me think of other instances of sexual harassment I’ve heard, which were so shocking to me that I could barely believe that they happened. For instance, my friend who works at a law firm said that at some company social event, she was standing in line for the women’s room, sucking on a lollipop, when one of the older lawyers took the lollipop out of her mouth, sucked on it, then proceed to stick it back in her mouth. And one time my boss told me that at some dinner at another conference (where there was a lot of alcohol involved, as usually happens in these instances) someone proceeded to tell her while piss drunk that he wanted to "push her down in the grass and take advantage of her," or some such nonsense. In both instances, the women told me they were in such states of shock they didn’t quite know what to make of the situations, and ended up not saying anything.

I don’t consider myself one who necessarily needs to shout about social justice and women’s lib, but I find it hard to swallow that none of us could say what we really wanted to: "Get your paws off me, you dirty, stinkin’ animal."

A few things did sort of interest me about this whole incident, however. 1) Apparently, at this conference, there are a lot of hook-ups, in which otherwise married folks pretend they aren’t married once a year in order to liaise with their conference lovers, so I think this guy was looking for a recurring hook-up; 2) most of the attendees weren’t American, and I think the definition of sexual harassment is more liberal in other parts of the world than in America—or maybe they just really don’t care. Maybe they see it as more of a personal choice: If you’re interested, don’t let work stop you from getting lucky; if you aren’t, you have all the right in the world to say: "Get your paws off me, you dirty, stinkin’ animal," and 3) some guys are really clueless; they probably think that your efforts to dodge their affections with the deft of an all-star running back means that you really want to be chased harder. Or maybe they just don’t care.

Too bad we can’t do what we used to do on the playground—kick boys in the nuts when they got on our nerves.

Does blogging make me a narcissistic egomaniac?

Upon the urging of a friend who felt I needed a creative outlet for writing (and ranting), I decided to start a blog.

This is not that blog.

I had actually tried starting one once before, for which I had great hopes, since I wrote the first entry with such creative fervor. It was so great that I kept reading it, tweaking it here, editing it there, and felt very pleased with myself, even though I started it because I was really procrastinating doing real work. But even so, I felt good about this because, gosh darn it, I had contributed my two cents to the Web for all to read, and I was now a card-carrying member of the Digerati.

I wrote a total of one entry. And other than myself, a total of one other person read it—the friend who suggested I write it in the first place. Not exactly my delirious visions of grandeur of taking the Internet publishing world by storm. I poured so much creative energy into that first post that I never wrote another one. I attribute this to not having a personal computer at home. But it’s really because I’m lazy, and my life isn’t interesting enough to warrant even Internet publishing.

But I’m deciding to give it another go-around. I scrapped the original blog, deciding to start from scratch with a new one, which I’m feeling really good about right now. This time will be different, I said to myself, I just know it.

Either that, or I’ll have to bury this blog like its predecessor into the depths of a digital graveyard because another six months will have gone by without me posting anything. Well, I guess we’ll see.

Anyway, I call this blog Lapses in Logic because I find that I like to bitch and moan, rant and rave, complain and kvetch, and every other cliché coupling of verbs, about a lot of stuff that gets on my nerves—my pet peeves, annoying people, stuff in this world that I find really irritating because it goes against my own natural logic—which, naturally, is the logic I believe should run the world.

Which brings me to my first question, which was the first question I posed in my previous first post, so I’ll just cut and paste from there: Does blogging make me a narcissistic egomaniac? Even the way I pose that question—using two words that essentially describe the same state of self-involvement, just because one isn’t vivid enough to get MY point across—made me hesitant about starting a blog.

I admit that even before my friend suggested it, I had thought about starting one, but thought it a bit weird to write down my thoughts and then force them onto others in cyberspace. I admit that at times I thought bloggers started blogs because they were self-important and just liked to write about themselves. But then I realized, hey, I’m self-important and I like to write about myself, so maybe blogging is a perfect fit for me. Thanks guys! You’re such good listeners.

Anyway, I still think I won’t be doing much marketing of this blog, at least not initially. I can’t seem to say just yet: “Hey everyone! I’ve just started a blog! Please read it often. Then post comments that provide some affirmation of my brilliance in bringing you irrelevant yet enjoyable topics. You’ll marvel at my ability to inject creativity, craft, and chutzpah into 500 words or less. Anyway, considering how verbose I can be, I highly doubt I’ll keep it to 500 words.

So here’s to second chances. I hope this run goes better. And I promise not to use this blog just to complain. But I’m not always one for keeping my promises.

(R.I.P. Pursuit of Trivia Blog: 7/4/04-7/4/04).