look into my eye

And I thought that work would slow down, that I'd have more time to post, and so on, over the holidays. Ha!

I noticed that the entry below is empty and titled "Pimp". There's a story behind that. Not a happy one, but it's a story and I don't seem to have many stories, so I'm gonna tell it.

A rainy night a few days before Christmas, I headed out of the apartment by myself to attend a performance of Unsilent Night, an hour-long electronic piece that's played simultaneously by as many people as show up with tape players. The procession then wanders for about a mile throughout the city. Every year I plan to attend then forget about it. This year I set a reminder in my online calendar and when the notice popped up on my screen I eagerly snuck out of the office just in time to make it home and change in something warmer.

About a block away from my apartment, I noticed the bus at its terminal stop. I was already running a bit late, the bus would take me exactly where I intended to go, and I wouldn't get soaked until we actually started wandering about the city with our tape players. I thought myself lucky -- the bus claims to run once every 20 minutes, but everyone who relies on it know that it can take up to 40 minutes for the next one to show up, depending on city traffic. I waited, but the bus didn't move. I kept waiting, but the bus still didn't move. Finally, I knocked on the door and asked the driver how soon the bus would be heading out. He didn't know. Something was wrong with the electrical system. Ok, fine, I could just take BART. Though I'd have to hurry even more because I'd already lost time waiting.

As I turned to cross the street, the wind picked up and blew the rain horizontally into my face. I held the umbrella out in front of me, low over my head like an oversized and lopsided hat, then dashed across the street. When I stepped up onto the sidewalk, I found myself immediately on the ground, as if I'd slipped on ice. I tried to struggle up, but there was a weight on top of me. Then, BAM. A fist landed on the side of my face.

Things get a bit blurry here, but I distinctly remember having multiple thoughts at once, as if my consciousness had divided into about three different layers. The first was engaged exclusively in the struggle to get myself away from the this guy who was punching me. That part of me kept screaming for help and trying to dodge the punches (which came harder every time I screamed). The other part of me was engaged in this idiotic self-critical monologue that went something like "You should have been paying attention. You clearly weren't paying attention. Didn't people always warn you this would happen if you didn't pay attention? Now, look it's happening. See what happens when you don't pay attention?" And the third part of me was extremely dissociated from the experience, analyzing it, thinking things like "Hmm. I'm afraid but I don't feel as afraid as I thought I would. This guy is punching me, but the punches don't really hurt that much -- at least as much as I thought they would. This may not be pleasant, but it's not as overwhelmingly horrible as I'd imagined. I've always wondered whether this would happen to me, and what it would be like if it did."

I got a few good glimpses at the guy's face. I didn't recognize him. He was silent, and his expression was absolutely emotionless -- no rage, fear, pleasure, nothing.

Between punches, I managed to pull my wallet out and throw it away from me. I begged him to take it. He did, then he reached into my pocket and yanked out my cell phone, ripping my pants halfway down the leg. That distant part of me thought "Oh, I think this is going to be the end of it now. Thank God." Fortunately, I was right -- the guy was already halfway down the block before I even realized he was no longer on top of me.

"Are you ok?" I stood up without much diificulty -- good, nothing's too damaged, I thought -- and saw a guy about two feet away from me holding open the gate to his apartment building. "Do you want to come in?" I followed him inside, where his girlfriend was attempting to call 911. She'd apparently been on hold for several minutes. "He got you pretty good there by your eye -- do you want some ice?" I noticed for the first time that my left cheek was more visible than it usually is. Oh geez, I thought, this is probably going to start hurting.

They gave me ice, the police showed up, took me for a quick drive around the neighborhood to see if we could spot him. I have to admit, the police were incredibly kind and attentive. One of the officers found my glasses on the sidewalk, put them back together, then even let me use his personal cell phone to call Gerardo.

I've been told by several friends that I'll probably have some mild post-traumatic stress from this, but so far so good. It could have been much, much worse. I had no broken nose, no broken bones, the eyeball itself wasn't bruised. Only one scrape on my cheek. And I'm happy to know that in the midst it I listened to my "gut instincts" about continuing to scream and throwing the wallet at him/away from me. And I made it through something I'd lived in fear of for years.

As for the "pimp" post . . . the guy who stole the phone apparently had some fun playing around with the email features. He sent a few similar emails to coworkers, and the "pimp" email to an address I'd set up to email blog entries to. I thought the address didn't work -- at least now I know it does.