July 16, 2003
Thoughts From Room 522 North
I have yet to meet a police officer doing his cop duties that has not fit the stereotype of a cop in my head. My stereotype is something along the lines of "If he's a cop he's an asshole." I try not to hold onto this prejudice, but I think it is worth noting that my stereotype has been accurate so far.
Obviously it is story time.
After work today all I was doing was getting gas. There was a cop there buying something or other, he was inside and I got the impression that him and one or two of the guys that worked there was watching me. I had no theory on why and dismissed it as paranoia, but then the cop got in his car, drove over to my car, and rolled down the window.
While he did that I ran a mental list in my head of things that he could be giving me a ticket for. I figured I parked my car next to the gas pump well enough and I did not think he had the ability to give me a ticket for that anyway. If anything he could ask me to move my car.
"Hey, do you have any tickets in that hot rod of yours?" he asked.
Shit, he is trying to give me a ticket! I thought to myself. My next thought was my car was definitely not a hot rod. Red sports car, yes. But it is a Mazda. Not a hot rod.
"Ha ha ha...no." Then my next thought was Is this how cops find out if you don't pay your tickets? Is he going to search my car? I have nothing worth finding, but fuck, I don't want him to search my car.
"Well...just be careful."
Now that sounded like a threat. I laughed it off then got in my car, waited for him to drive off so I couldn't accidentally do anything illegal in front of him, then grumbled to myself about cops being assholes.
My dad thinks the guy was flirting. I asked him if he ever exchanged similar conversational gems with cops when he drove my car and he said cops do not tend to hit on 50 year old men. Good point. But ewwww....the guy was at least 35 I am almost 18 but I do not look it!!!
Then I was driving to the hospital to visit my mom when some guys in a white station wagon shouted something at me. My guess was it was something flirtatious, so I asked "What?!" with a smirk on my face. Then I sped past them and looked straight forward because I lose my nerve to do dumb freeway flirting very very quickly. In that case, it was about 8-15 seconds. Once my nerve was lost the natural thing to do when I got out of my car at the hospital was to make sure that there was nothing wrong with it visibly to cause some guys to shout something at me.
While I was visiting with and keeping my mom company at the hospital (from 2:00 to 8:30) the feeling that overwhelmed me the most was a feeling of being responsible. I felt like this is what a good daughter does, she goes to visit her mom and watch sitcoms, etc. It was kind of odd because although I love my parents, they love me, and they love each other, we are not too open or obvious about our affection and sitting with my mom felt like a big gesture. Not to say that it was not genuine, but it almost seemed exaggerated. I am hopeless at describing this, I am never good at being forthcoming about my family or articulating the nature of how it works.
And now for a little bit more self doubt and criticism.
For the most part last night's dinner for Kenji went really well. People showed up, were mostly happy (why do the exceptions always mutilate the majority? no malice intended), were dressed up, and any problems were quite small and conquered easily enough. I was excited about people being dressed up like I requested initially, but now I have thought about it more and I am not as happy about it.
There was resistance to my efforts and I wonder if me pushing everyone to dress up is the epitome of how I treat people. It has already been pointed out to me and I have explored it some here that I am consistently hoping for people to reach beyond their potential and setting high expectations, sometimes or usually unreasonably high expectations, for others. My efforts to push the guys into wearing ties may just be another example of me trying to push people in directions they do not want to go. Directions they are maybe not meant to go, and even if they are meant to go in that direction it is really not my place to be the one pushing them.
I resent other people being manipulative but I do it myself all the time. It has been said that we hate most in others what we hate in ourselves. Hate does not seem extreme enough to me. I am so disgusted with my own worst qualities that it pains me and makes me nauseous to see the same disgusting qualities in others. It is bad enough that I have the horrible habits, is it really necessary for others to have them too?
Even if last night was a success, I do not deserve to feel like it was a success. So I am sure for the next couple of days (if not weeks and months) I will harp on and agonize and wince over anything and everything that I appraise to have "gone wrong." Then I need to work on fixing the damn stuff.
Being in a hospital for a while left me with even more time for thinking.
Love,
Mandy