August 31, 2013
I did say that we’ve been doing a lot of traveling lately, didn’t I? A big part of that has been food, food and food. YUM.
On review, it does seem like the options weren’t always super healthy… Whoops.
Upper left corner On a day when the pain was overwhelming and sleep was elusive, food was so unappealing that nothing on the menu looked good. PiC ordered a funny-sounding dish and it turned out to be perfect: a hearty vegetable soup, sliced bread, generous chunks of cheese, a handful of blueberries and a wafer thin slices of peach. I’m not normally vegetarianly inclined but I didn’t miss the meat in this at all. Never knew how delicious such a simple combination could be. Also never I liked Brie.
Marché Provisions: Eugene, OR
Upper right corner This waffle has basically ruined waffles for me, forever. A sweetly crispy, bacon and syrup infused waffle, topped with perfect bacon pieces – not bits, not slices – and topped with a runny egg. Hea-ven on a PLATE. Pretty reasonable at around $8-10 per waffle that’s basically a meal.
Off the Waffle: Eugene, OR
Lower left corner Wandering the city, headed for Laughing Planet Cafe, we got distracted by a furniture clearance shop and then too starved to go any further, ran across the street to Oven & Shaker for their happy hour instead. The prices weren’t nearly as good as we had expected for a happy hour but the Wild Fennel Sausage pizza with tomato, smoked mozzarella and potatoes was perfect for two.
Oven and Shaker: Portland, OR
Lower right corner For all my love of cheese, I hadn’t tried any of the grilled cheese trucks or shops hereabouts, until now. The Mousetrap sandwich (Tillamook sharp cheddar, creamy havarti, Monterey jack, on artisan sourdough) and added grilled onions and tomatoes. With an ice cold drink, what more could you ask for? Fresh strawberries on the side of course. Summer at its best.
The American Grilled Cheese Kitchen: San Francisco, CA
We had a few other amazing meals, both homecooked and out and about, but I’ll spare you the extra drool 🙂
August 27, 2013
In our almost-whirlwind search for a reception venue, we found that doing this thing in Southern California, and from afar, most definitely has its costs.
The Bay Area is suffocatingly expensive in some respects but one of the family truisms is that it’s twice as expensive and half as good as Southern California as far as Asian cuisine goes. For the most part, I have found that that is true.
We pieced together the costs of doing a separate ceremony and reception, having realized that we do need to do a small/quick ceremony lest we utterly confuse the close (but not close enough) relatives who don’t know about the courthouse deal, and found that renting any kind of venue for about 200 guests in the general area that we’re considering is a pricey matter.
We were finding that before food, venues wanted thousands of dollars just to reserve the damn place. Then we’d have to pay for food, and drinks, and whatever foo-for-rah we decided that we wanted. I never thought of ourselves as having champagne taste on a beer budget, I figured that we really had tap water and pretzels taste on an equivalent budget, especially considering the cost of Fancy Craft Beer.
That didn’t really help us much. 🙂
So far, we’ve been getting prices between $75-120 per guest and that’s a bit appalling considering the alternative. (The culturally traditional alternative would cost more along the lines of $40/guest. And mercenary as this is going to sound, I’m not going to be inviting many of the relatives who are obligated to give a fair amount of money to “repay” the gifts my parents gave, so we’re going to take a loss on the wedding. That’s just how the cultural version works, the couple is not expected to have to go into their marriage in debt from the wedding because the community gifts them with a solid start.)
Given my usual frugal (ahem even cheapskatey) ways, I would have preferred to paying that much lower cost but I think we’re going with a higher price tag for a greater degree of convenience: an “almost all-inclusive” that rolls in all the costs of your decor (which I don’t care much about), food, alcohol, a coffee station, cake, venue, set up and teardown, parking and transportation for the guests, and a ceremony place. It doesn’t include music or photography but those weren’t huge priority items in our minds.
I did cost out a few restaurants where we could do the ceremony and reception together, and the total cost after food, drink, venue, sales tax and service fees? Was about a $1000-2000 difference. And we’d have had to do between a little to a lot more legwork. At this point (and I can’t believe I’m saying this when I go back for refunds on an incorrect receipt for as little as $1) that’s just not worth the work and coordination efforts.
As an example, I checked for other possible venues just now, and Middle Ranch seemed appealing. For 200 guests, we’d be paying: $5000 venue fee, $11000 for food and moderate alcohol, and tack on sales tax and service fees for a total of: $20,800. Still to be added: whatever cake, decor if any, photographer, DJ if they require one rather than letting you set up an iPod. Cons: this is a long drive away from most people we know so it’s not convenient.
Every time I revisit the cost, I wonder if I’m making the right choice, but I suppose it’s not a lie to say that I’d rather pinch those pennies where I like doing so, building up that cash reserve against these times that we need to spend it on convenience. That still feels specious and at least a little bit like a waste of money.
At this point, I’m still looking at back-up options because our first choice vendor/venue’s hasn’t responded in a few days and I get fidgety. We’ll see if I come up with something better!
___
State of mind: Mostly calm, mildly anxious, wanting to get it over with, but wanting to have a party that’s fun if we’re going to do this because I did kind of hate our first wedding. Because I didn’t get to feel anything but fear and anxiety over my mom, and then guilt because she wanted to come to lunch but I couldn’t let her. It would have pushed my dad over the edge with taking care of her, and I couldn’t risk their safety and health. Because there were half a dozen weird things that were just Not Nice. Because it was followed up by Mom’s death and a horrible year. I have no good feelings about the wedding even though there were really nice spots in it like my best friend flying to be there at the last minute, another really close friend making a Literal Drop Everything Dash to make it. This is my do-over.
___
It’d be nice to have an outdoorsy thing that is bright and cheerful and fun like this, but with more of my idea of fun.
August 26, 2013
A friend’s spouse and I bonded over a plate of overcooked eggs.
“I was really looking forward to my runny egg!”
“I was too!”
“Let’s go get runny eggs.”
And like new playground besties, we ambled off to register our complaint with the server, leaving our spouses to look at us fondly and remark: It’s nice that they have someone to do that with. I would just gripe about it endlessly and do nothing about it.
We all laughed about how much Z and I are alike in refusing to take guff from anyone or be cheated of what we paid for, whereas friend Y and PiC are alike in preferring to let things go, even if they were unhappy.
Since we had, just the day before, gone back to a store for a $4 refund on a candy bar that should have been discounted, I think Y knew I was that type already but it was nice to discover my fellow introvert was also a fellow finance manager.
This led me to wonder, knowing that there are certainly extroverts among us, whether there’s any kind of predisposition for introverts or extroverts to enjoy managing their money more.
*Without assuming that introverts and extroverts are incapable of acting differently from the standard definition of their “type”.
**Borrowing from Wikipedia, working from these definitions and not the assumption that the extraverts are socially competent while the introverts are socially incompetent:
An extroverted person is likely to enjoy time spent with people and find less reward in time spent alone. They tend to be energized when around other people, and they are more prone to boredom when they are by themselves.
Introverts are easily overwhelmed by too much stimulation from social gatherings and engagement, introversion having even been defined by some in terms of a preference for a quiet, more minimally stimulating environment.
August 23, 2013
I have survived!
We have had weeks, literally consecutive weeks, of travel and visiting friends lined up for this summer and we’re finally home with no plans for a good while ahead of us. As an introvert, I’m not 100% sure that it didn’t break something in my brain. But we have returned, and I am alive. And not gibbering. This is good.
Rituals, settling in and shaking down
There have been dozens of trips where I’ve felt completely unready to take the final step out the door and lock it behind me. Either it was unfinished work holding me back mentally or the certainty that I’ve forgotten something. (It’s usually a hairbrush or pants. Or shirts. Sometimes I really shouldn’t leave the house.)
These last few trips have been harder because I’m working my way through juuuust keeping it together, there’s all kinds of family stuff I’m feeling like I’m being dipped upside down in, and we’ve been on the go constantly. The motivation to keep going, it was missing.
As it turns out, the best Getting Ready to Leave routine, aside from actually packing with a whole brain instead of half and getting a sensible majority of work wrapped up, is doing all the laundry and cleaning the house. Coming home to a clean and nearly fresh smelling house is balm for the soul, no matter why the travel and how it went. Even better when the trip was awful and I just want to disappear into Home for about a month.
This does mean that whenever I get home toting bags and bags and bags, I go into a flurry of unpacking, putting-away, and starting the laundry because I came home to a nice clean house, I can’t sully that!
Coming back this time was no different. I wanted to do ALL THE THINGS upon return. All in one night.
Open the mail, pay the bills, sort out a To-Do list for the weekend, finish all my work that I’d fallen behind on, write up some blog posts with recent thoughts, edit photos, finish designing simple wedding things, read one of the new books I bought from the Amazing Bookstore, watch all the Castle episodes that might be new (none, as it turns out).
Apparently I can’t do anything in moderation, not even recovery! I honestly don’t know how @mochimac and @eemusings hold up after months of travel. My travel meter seems to run out after about 2.5 weeks away from home.
September 24, 2012
still in recovery mode, so some links!
Scalzi dissects the less than scintillating 47% statement from a fundraiser.
I don’t usually get into politics here because it’s polarizing and I don’t appreciate the lack of civil discourse around the very real issues our country needs to resolve. Yeah, I’m not naive, that’s always how it’s been to some degree. But it infuriates me that we generally seem so incapable of getting past our posturing, politicking, and mudslinging to get at the core of the problems to try to solve them that I look around and this is the state of the union. Bit frustrating. And I could try to do more, but what, in such a broken system? And yet, choose what else? Certainly not not-democracy. /sigh
In any case, I do appreciate the puncturing of any statements that I find insultingly obtuse by any individual, on any side, of any party, regardless of any belief. I’m equal opportunity for improvement, honesty and transparency. Especially when it makes me laugh.
I could swear another blogger recently covered paid maternity in a post that I would have liked to link to but I’m having fatigue brain and simply can’t pull anything out of my mental files. But I did have this Think Progress graphic link saved to share.
Single Ma’s Wealthy Wednesday: Wealth Nurturing Mode with her thoughts in response to my Shifts in money attitudes and life priorities post.
And she shared a To the Point FB message on achieving goals.
Also via Single Ma, Meg’s post on Giving solicited financial advice that is ignored. Personally I love helping people but that is still work. Why on earth would one continue, even with a nearly-pathological love for helping people (me editorializing now, not speaking for or judging Meg) to offer time and energy when you know you’re being ignored?
I now have a cut off: If you repeatedly ignore me, after asking for my help but then return to the well for the same thing because you create the same messes, I will not help anymore. That’s too much of the same crap I already went through with my family and my feelings don’t need to get involved anymore, that’s just common sense! Why repeat myself if you don’t actually want to hear what I have to say if I know it’ll fix the problem while you only want to hear that you can have your cake and eat it too?
It’s not like I’m being paid to be ignored so I couldn’t make any reasonable argument for being involved at that point. (Actually, I don’t know that I’d take that person on as a client either.) Call me crazy, I guess.
Donna really is moving to Alaska. I know it’s ridiculous, we’re online and “location-independent” in our sphere and yet there’s still this sense of, oh but, I might have met up with you, maybe! Best of luck in getting everything wrapped up, Donna, and maybe we still will run into each other one of these days!
The Oatmeal’s My Dog: The Paradox.
September 12, 2012
A flashdrive for size perspective. This is what I will be having more of but point of order, Trader Joe’s: this is not a lemon BAR. This is a lemon CUBE.
Things have been brewing.
My feet were set on a path toward climbing career mountains, while time and experience began carving out a niche in our lives, for our lives. And in nearly direct dichotomy to my quest to conquer the career dragons, my health demanded its rightful share of my attention and I made the decisions, over and over, bit by bit, that it had to be tended to.
And there’s a saying I’ve been living by a lot lately: plan for the worst, hope for the best. After all, theories are all well and good but life will happen.
And it surely did.
The Big Work Satisfaction Plan (ease my work burdens so that I could finally take care of my health while carrying on a successful work life) was knocked off the table due to a variety of complications, some sudden, some progressive.
My immediate reaction was to double down, and make the best of an initially bad situation while assessing the landscape. Of course, I also put the word out to my Career Board of Directors for their thoughts and guidance. While I could certainly change my mind and adjust my actions accordingly later, my first instincts matched their recommendations to a T.
After a waiting period, my assessment was: Failure to improve, no true signs of improvement to come in the foreseeable future, and a quickly developing toxic environment. While not blindly optimistic about the future, I still believed in the organization’s overarching goals and hoped for the best. My next move was to map out potential options that stretched out into next year.
While I created this action plan, the developments continued in a downward spiral on a number of critical fronts. I did my best only to allow minimal venting once in a while publicly and about less important things, but though I didn’t realize it, even that wasn’t very minimal.
Tough cookie though I am, it took a toll. Curled up on the sofa after work at least 20 minutes a day – utterly drained, listless, short of breath, misery incorporated. Weekends were worse, my body just needed every minute to try to recover.
My doctor, the one I’ve seen exactly once since last year, discussed my stress-induced, exponentially increased pain for about 12 minutes before asking me to quit.
My friends, at least the ones who are willing to be totally blunt, told me she was right: take her advice and leave.
Those weren’t just signs, they were people willing to be upfront with me and give me a push. That, I truly appreciate.
At first, I was worried about how I could walk away without financial preparations and from what I saw as my responsibility, my reputation, and without appearing weak. I had to work through those mental barriers, even before doing the math, which is a first for me.
In identifying those precise barriers, I was able to address them.
Responsibility: Who are we kidding? I own this word by now in my personal life. It’s no surprise, then, that my professional accomplishments have certainly far exceeded what I’ve been paid to do by any objective measure, with data to back this up;
Reputation: See above – my value has been firmly established with reliable people internally and externally. If someone chooses to denigrate me or my choice to leave, that’s their problem and not mine;
Appearing weak: My leaving is a valid choice, for any reason. As long as I did so in a graceful and professional manner, nothing else matters, not even the money. No accusations of cracking under pressure or “losing” can actually make it true – I made a smart choice for me, my family, my health and anyone who chooses to sneer or smear is doing so from a dark place. I have nothing to prove, I’ve already had an untouchable stint there. (And if my ego wanted a bit of something? As sometimes it does. It may take four people to replace me, if not more.)
And wouldn’t you know, as I was coming to terms with that, I was surprised with an offer.
I’d been gearing up to create my own path, such was my determination to leave on my terms, but this was an unexpected opportunity to:
A) leave on a much shorter timeline,
B) increase my income,
C) significantly improve my commute.
I hadn’t felt as light as I had just during the negotiations in years. I don’t celebrate until any deed is done and done but even solely the act of building an immediate road out instead of waiting out to the longer term as originally planned so that I could save more – the difference that made to my mood, to my breathing, to my physical health -well, it was just amazing.
Knowing this is the break I needed, in more than one sense of the word, and will be a positive change for at least a year or two, I accepted.
With that timeline in mind, I will continue to work on my own side projects but with a more focused eye on directing that energy to making those projects something more worthwhile and perhaps income-producing than just hobbies.
*****
Donna Freedman’s recent GRS post on personal responsibility touched on the idea of taking stock of your surroundings, the results of your choices, and realizing that you have to take responsibility for the role you played in getting to where you ended up when you find that you’re in a seemingly untenable situation.
This is all very true – so much of our lives, we become inured to the power, and responsibility, we have to actively make choices.
How often do people choose to stay and complain at jobs where they are increasingly unhappy just because something about it is “good” except for the job itself?
Staying at a job where I could build a “stable” career under increasingly stressful conditions reminded me of being a lab rat: how long will one stay when the heat is only increased in tiny increments but the conditions are inexorably intolerable?
How often do people stay on when they’re unhappy because they have too much debt or financial obligations? Or because they have perceived obligations, burned too many bridges, or failed to build bridges in the first place? Or because they’re too busy for a job search?
I didn’t just get lucky – I put in about a decade of hard work to build a stable financial foundation so I could walk away from anything. And while things would have had to be pretty dire before I did that, I was also building social capital with my professional reputation.
Most critically: we have to make and take those opportunities.
We also forget that the smallest decisions can hold the greatest influence. Being flexible, understanding how you work best and learning how to make the best of any situation but refusing to tolerate abusive conditions – these aren’t monumental decisions. But those are all decisions I made long ago and when I remembered them in the context of the greater whole, not just as part of my work ethic but as part of my life philosophy, they paved the way to a big decision that feels right for me, and right for our family.
And reading J “Poppa” Money’s updates? I can foresee a bigger challenge ahead already. If we do have a family, how shall we manage this without me having to be the pregnant one? Hmmm…… 😉
(Mostly kidding but ….. We shall see.)
September 10, 2012
Of late, there have been a few poignant posts and conversations that touch on a very important issue: safety with an underlying theme – sometimes not at all hidden – of misogyny. Safety’s important for everyone, a message I communicate to all, but the degree to which men don’t experience the same issues of objectification and targeting as women do is obvious by the reactions and ::horrorface:: that we get from our husbands and those men friends who haven’t ever run a protection detail for us on a night out when we Facts-Only describe the experience of a simple solo walk or a run.
*****
This woman’s experience on public transit when she just wants to be left alone to read her book may sound like an exaggeration to anyone who has had hundreds of safe and easy rides, day or night, sober or drunk, but I have had thousands of those and I still have my guard up every minute against this occurrence because it happens.
The vast majority of my rides are peaceful, most people talking to me just want directions, need a bit of information or are a bit curious and then drift back to their own world after a 30 second exchange. I’m approached or interrupted by people – usually tourists or new commuters – all the time on my commute and once I’m past my initial startlement it’s not a big deal.
Still, there are a few jerks who think they’re welcome to bother me rudely, persistently and without regard for boundaries. They aren’t too frequently imbalanced so I’ve been able to put them off politely or immediately change cars and seats at a station stop if the polite wave-off doesn’t work.
Sometimes it doesn’t work. Then it gets uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. There’s often cursing, raised volume, nastiness.
It can even devolve into something extreme like what she describes – the person froths and foams, screams, raves, rants, flails and threatens. (Sometimes they board transit like that, actually.) And you need someone to reach in and physically haul you, the target, out because you need someone watching your back. You don’t know if your movements will trigger an actual physical attack. I’ll point out, too, that the would -be attacker is not always male, sometimes the person demanding something from you is female. I’ve seen that too.
You don’t need to be pretty, I certainly deliberately dumb down my average-enough appearance for transit travel, you just have to be unlucky enough to have attracted some persistent fool’s attention.
*****
The incessant stream of Twitter threats against a variety of comics professionals, many of whom, like the public who came into contact with the repulsive slug probably blocked him, recently came to the attention of Mark Millar who took a vocal stand and insisted that we all do something about this, but the fact remains, people can do this with impunity.
And the reaction of a number of people? Blame the targeted persons. “Big girls know Twitter has a block function.” (comments thread) Really. That stops the bullying and the threats and the invitations to bodily harm?
Clearly not, as Sue and Kelly of DC Women Kicking Ass have been trolled, harassed and cyberbullied to an outrageous degree for years by that very troll. Yes, blocking makes no difference, folks.
You can’t stop a bully by ignoring them. And I’m hugely thankful that people like Ron Marz recognize that:
….
Ignoring a miscreant does nothing to prevent the same disgusting behavior from being inflicted upon someone else. It probably encourages it, frankly. You’re just passing the buck. I’d rather spend time dealing with it, and finding a way to get the abusive behavior stopped, than turning a blind eye. The goal should be to prevent the asshole in question from moving on to the next victim.
Comics is a medium that tells a great many stories about heroes, about people who do what they can to protect others. About doing the right thing, especially when it’s hard. I like that. I believe in doing what’s right, and helping others when they need it. I believe people who cross the line of acceptable behavior so outrageously should be punished. That’s why I did what I did. That’s why Mark did what he did.
While there’s been plenty of support for what happened (which is much appreciated), I’ve also seen a fair amount of dismissive reaction: everything from claiming this poor troll is having his free-speech rights violated, to the lazy shrug of “Well, it’s the internet…” Maybe I’m pissing into the wind here just as much as I am when get on my soapbox about digital piracy. But in just the same way, I believe it’s a discussion is worth having, a fight worth fighting.
…
Social media offers access for people like him to abuse innocents. But it also offers ways for us to come together and do what’s right. If you see something that shouldn’t be happening, don’t just ignore it. Do something about it. If you’re suffering abuse from someone, ask others to help you. We can all be somebody’s hero.
*****
via NicoleandMaggie, to them via a comment thread on a Scalzi post: Letter Writers who don’t know how to deal with the Creepy Guy in their friend groups.
A quick sum-up: Letter Writers have dude friends in their groups who are tolerated despite their creepy-ass and inappropriate and unacceptable behaviors as Situation #1:
“concentrating on the other women: telling them to expose themselves, telling them their skirts weren’t flying high enough while they were dancing, hitting on them when he knows they have boyfriends….. Whenever there are parties, it seems like he goes with the mindset that he will meet someone there that he might be able to have sex with, rather than to have fun with his friends. A couple months ago at one of these parties, some of us went to the park after dark to hang out; Creeper approached one of my friends, asked where her boyfriend was, and when he was told that the BF was out of town he put his hands on her shoulders and told her that BF had “forfeited” her for the evening.”
Or outright sexual assault in Situation #2. Evidently in Situation #2, Letter Writer was dismissed by her BF who didn’t want to confront the assaulter because they were longtime friends.
Captain Awkward’s extensive responses to both were pretty spot-on. I’m only writing here as an adjunct because, of course, I was outraged that the situations were ongoing and the men involved were that blatantly laissez-faire about their own friends, male and female both, involved.
I can’t conceive of the notion of living with, or staying friends with, people who were so utterly dismissive of basic human decency.
I have been in situations like that, and like this, and my friends have been verbally assaulted time and again, and I react very very negatively.
PiC had a creeper friend, you see, and before we ever started dating, I met all of his friends. Including that creeper friend. He thought it was totally appropriate to spend the conversation standing way too close to me, staring exclusively at my – let’s face it, folks, remarkably unendowed chest – so I concluded the conversation quickly and walked away, disgusted.
I related the story to PiC later, half smiling, and told him that should that creeper ever pull that stunt again with any move to touch me? I’d feed him his own eyeballs. I made it quite clear to him and a close mutual friend that their fuzzy friend of yore, going back double digit years of history, now with all the drunken-excuse embellished, prostitute-centric and other “amusing” gamy stories whenever he came back up on their radar was a creepshow and he was unwelcome.
They could do whatever they wanted together on boys’ nights, but he was certainly never welcome to join us, ever. There was never a moment’s hesitation or disagreement with my statement, and I noticed that his presence at mutual parties and gatherings was incredibly rare thereafter. I also noticed that he wasn’t voluntarily added to the guest list of boys’ gatherings either.
I don’t take responsibility for the changes in that set of relationships across the board – there were many mutual friends who chose to step back from their own personal friendship. But I do note that there were at least two important narratives that had to exist: I had to be willing to speak up very clearly with my observations and expectations, and PiC had to respect me and those expectations more than he cared about that friendship. And in addition, at least a few of his key friends happened to agree with my observations and acted accordingly to disengage from the creeper on a regular basis.
There was no doubt in my mind that it was possible the guy’s creepiness could be curbed but not if he was “encouraged” or rather, enabled, as guys can and will do in their casual friend group environment simply by not saying anything about the Creeper’s actions or behaviors. I’ve seen that happen because there’s no comfortable way to police a friend in a friends-only environment. And yet, I’ve watched others do it casually with a “Dude, that’s creepy, don’t do that.” Those are powerful words: Don’t do that. It’s not right.
But many don’t do that because they don’t feel like it’s their place to criticize a friend, they don’t feel like the behavior is really out of line when they’re among friends, a multitude of reasons. Still, it has to start somewhere lest a minor creeper grow out of hand to become a Full Scale Creeper and worse.
People like him are those who think it’s ok to catcall and harass women trying to walk down a street – he definitely didn’t think that was an issue.
And I certainly can’t tell the difference between someone who’s just catcalling because it’s amusing to one who has intent to assault, harm and/or rape. From my perspective, the 3 guys in that car who decided to stalk me for more than a block and cut across several lanes of traffic to pull up next to me at the corner several weeks ago certainly made themselves a credible threat so calling the police and pulling anything to defend myself was an appropriate response. From theirs? Who knows? It could just be a game that they always win, big or small.
And that’s not counting the 11 other instances of catcalling in the previous mile of walking up til they arrived.
I’m not of the mindset that we have to spoonfeed a new narrative for men to understand how to react in shitty situations – I know plenty of men who are perfectly decent human beings and know pretty much the right things to do in principle. They are the ones I am friends with. This is why I am married, PiC’s not a rotting jerk in any degree and neither are his friends.
I do think, however, that there is plenty of evidence there are idiots out there who do need to be identified and not enabled. The reinforcing that the creepy and unacceptable behaviors are in fact, creepy and unacceptable, has to happen before it’s too late and harm is done.
At the very least, the fact that we all should be able to recognize and say that creepy and aggressive behaviors are wrong, toward men and women, without coming under ridiculous fire, should be a given. And it’s incredibly disturbing that we often don’t even have that basis of humanity to rely on.
