an incomplete list

   Events I have been remembering over the past few days:

   A man in my life told me that body hair on women was gross and ugly, and immediately the memory of tip-toeing quickly across the bathroom floor with blood steadily flowing from the backs of my ankles popped into my head. Those were my worst shaving related injuries, but there was also the time I cut the back of my knee, or the time I cut an inch long gash on the front of my shin, or the innumerable times I nicked my knees, or the time, or the time, or the time.

   I was on the train going home from work and a drunk man leaned over me, asking what my name was, where I was coming from, where I was going, if he could come home with me. I was deeply and earnestly thankful for my bike acting as a physical barrier between me and him. At one point he walked away from me and I made the mistake of relaxing before he turned around and leaned in close to my face. I wanted to escape, but what would I do at a train station far from my house in the middle of the night? There were at least three other men in my line of sight on the train car, and they did nothing.

   At my job at a theatre I was leered at and propositioned by a drunk man, who leaned over the counter and stared at my chest. He was already inebriated, but I served him so that he would leave. He was in a group of men, one of whom apologized and tipped me as they left. I wondered why he didn't say anything while it was happening, and why he thought his twenty dollars would make up for his silence.

   Again at the theatre I was yelled at by a man who told me I was a waste of space. I was shaking and shaking as I called my supervisor on the radio. The group of patrons around me stood by quietly. One woman told me I handled the situation well after the man left.

   Walking down a street downtown at night with a friend, we both stiffened when a group of men approached us. The men didn't move to one side of the sidewalk as we passed, but rather made it so we walked between them. They made comments as we walked by.

   A male friend said that cat-calling was fine because it's just men paying compliments, and I recalled the times I have been yelled at out of cars while walking, while biking, while driving, and how it made me fear for my safety, and made me feel exposed.

   Several times, despite my "train gear" of headphones, sunglasses, a book, and a scowl, men have approached me, taking up my time and space and energy. They sit too close or interrupt my reading and I think of the time a stranger at a train station asked my younger sister for her phone number by shoving his phone in her face.

   As I compiled this list all I could think of was the stories and experiences of the women in my life, and what their stories involve (violence, weapons, violation, injury, fear, coercion, trauma) and how mild my own experience has been in comparison.