for a minute i thought i hated this place

so i am on my way to the class that i am terrified to take, horrified at the possibility of being late AND in a ratty tshirt, and i catch the tail end of a yellow light meaning, for me, that i am just getting into the intersection when it turns yellow. this is more than typical for boston; in fact, there's a car behind me that will clearly still be in the intersection when the light turns red, and a car behind that who's thinking about going. i can't count on my fingers and toes how many red lights i've seen run since i got here. but, for some reason, even with two cars in the intersection going around 35 miles an hour, a pedestrian steps off the curb, right in front of my car. panicking, i swerve around him, and he takes this opportunity - it must have been timed perfectly - to spit right through my open driver's side window and onto my face. i immediately burst into tears, and neglected to check how the car behind me dealt with him.

the guy was dressed nicely, probably coming home from a day of work, tie loosened and shoes a little scuffed. he can't have known that i feel like i'm from a different world, that i'm alone and don't know anybody and have never driven in this city before. driving in boston, it feels like everyone is ready to say "fuck you" before you've even looked at them. the hostility is tangible. hopefully i will have a better experience once i give the car back to my grandparents and begin relying solely on the t. anyway, instead of getting mad, maybe even mad enough to get out of the car and kick the guy in a punch fight, as i'm sure i might have done if he had done that in portland or san francisco, i just cried and felt even worse than i already did. which was pretty bad, because earlier on my way home from the grocery store i saw a cat who looked a lot like one of my mom's cats picking through somebody's trash, and a sad song was on the radio. so, i was already pretty upset, and a little homesick, and also had only had my face spit on once before which is another story but both times it was pretty terrible. i can't really explain why - besides being gross, which, if it's never happened to you before, you might think would be the main thing, there's a lot of symbolism there. and instead of getting mad about this guy thinking i am a low person, i for some reason felt like he had a right to do it because he's from here and i'm not. i think i should maybe stop reading "snow flower and the secret fan," which is basically about how powerless women were in old-days china.

then i called jake and for the first time he said he would fight someone for me and actually sounded like he meant it, which made me feel better. i am not a proponent of violence, but i'm not going to lie about it feeling good when someone offers to use it on your behalf. and i was in class on time (the professor was late even!) and it wasn't half as scary as i thought it was going to be. everyone commiserated with me and ignored the fact that i had clearly just been crying profusely, and now everything is ok.