musings

I can't say exactly why I feel discouraged. I think it goes something like this:

Since Jason and KS are getting married, there's all this confusion about when we're all going to move out of Partridge. The current thought is around August, but this creates all sorts of confusion. Dan suggested yesterday that we stick it out through August, since I will be leaving for Irvine in September, and that he might just go to London for the entire month of September and hope that Jason and KS had things sorted by the time he got back.

But Irvine doesn't start till about September 20th. So what am I going to do for like two weeks when Dan is gone, and Partridge doesn't exist any more? Go home and stay with my parents and get very depressed (inevitably I would, I'm sure)?. Go down to LA early, where I know exactly one person? Stay at my uncle's and hang out around Stanford (and get very depressed)? I don't see any good options.

So I turn to my usual conclusion when I feel rather un-needed and slightly friendless (yes, I know you all are my friends! but you're kind of scattered) and basically disinterested in anywhere that I normally live: I decide I should go to Europe. No real reason to be in America--then might as well go somewhere interesting. This isn't a total fantasy either--of course you probably all know that I talk about traveling (funded by my uncle) about three times a year, and basically never end up going, but hypothetically I COULD go.

This summer I'm supposed to teach myself German (I have gotten as far as "ich bin"--fluent already!), so my first thought was that I could go to Germany for a couple of weeks, as a kind of reward. But you know. . . I really want to go to England, or Ireland. (This also always happens to me when I think about traveling--I'll go learn French in Switzerland! Or . . . I could just go to England. Again.) I've wanted to go to Ireland for about my entire life, except for when I really wanted to go to Brazil until I learned that they had giant spiders.

What would be REALLY cool is to just kind of wander around the British Isles for a couple of weeks--aren't there supposed to be all kinds of walking tours? I looked into actual structured walking tours, briefly, but they're all for people who are 45+. Then I realized this was because young people just do it themselves.

And here comes the crux of the problem, which I have been thinking about one way or another since I was about 12 years old. Is it safe for me as a young woman to wander around England or Ireland by myself? I don't really know anyone else who would want to go. (at least I don't think I do). If it's not safe, you know, it really pisses me off. I feel like despite all the men-and-women are equal stuff I've grown up with, in some ways men are able to basically do whatever the hell they want, while women have to sit around and wait for something to happen, either to gather a large clump of women so they can all safely do something together, or for men to come along who will take them out.

Some examples:

1. When I was living in New York a couple of summers ago and my friend Greg was my roommate for awhile, he used to go and hang out in city all day, and do things like go to the pub where Dylan Thomas drank himself to death (am I getting these facts all wrong), and just like, chat with random people in the pub. Can I go talk to random people in a pub? For one, no, because I'm shy, but I feel like even if I wasn't, it would be weird.

2. When Dan is home in Croydon, he can take the train up to London to see his friends, and then walk back at home at like 3 am, drunk, alone. Could I wander around London at 3 am, alone and drunk? No.

3. When I was about twelve, my mom used to tell me I wasn't allowed to walk around the woodsy area near our house, because she had heard of rapists being somewhere around there (or something--it's always hard to tell with my mom how much is realistic and how much is paranoia). I think that was the first time I felt something wasn't fair--as a girl, was I never allowed to have introspective wanders in the woods? Was enjoying nature something I could only enjoy if I had a hypothetical boyfriend who was willing to indulge my mood? Plus, if he were there, how would it be introspective? It would defeat half the purpose.

This is all related to various feelings that have been floating around in my consciousness lately, I think partly because there are currently about 10 young Canadian men staying in my house at the moment, and that can't help but make me feel a little out of place. But let's take a look at the Bachelor/Bachelorette parties (there were essentially two of each of these, because there was the Bachelorette party/boys night out and the Bachelor party/girls night out, since everybody in the collective group is divided up into couples, more or less, and none of us know what to do with ourselves without the other half of the group around). Obviously I wasn't AT the Bachelor party, so I don't know exactly what went on, but there must have been at least 12 of them or so, and they went to some strip clubs in SF, there were some lapdances and such. The usual Bachelor party stuff. On the "boys night" they went out to some pubs and got absolutely trashed. For Bachelorette party, we had a bit to drink, played some games, went out to a club (but the club was actually kind of boring (don't tell that to anyone who arranged it)), and on the "girls night," we went to Nola's and had dinner and a couple drinks. On the whole, the girls nights were very tame. Too tame, if you ask me, though I guess it reflected the tastes of the brides. I guess I was frustrated by the vague feeling that when the boys went out they really had fun being boys, and while I had a nice time having a martini with KS at the Empire Tap Room before going to Nola's, I don't really feel like the girls had a really good time being cohesively girly. Actually I think on some level I'm not making sense, and that 1) I wasn't with the boys so I don't know how much fun they had, and 2) this may have less to do with gender differences than with the girls I know right now. It's true that in a lot of ways the groups of girls I end up hanging out with, especially recently, tend to be a little more tame and modest than I would ultimately prefer. Certainly I'm not a wild person, by any means, but I think that's kind of the point--at a Bachelorette party, you're supposed to take the opportunity to be a little wild while you can, even if it's not a fundamental facet of your personality. Maybe they've just gotten all their wildness out already, because they're older than me.

On another note, I think the idealized female is basically supposed to sit around romantically and look pretty until a man shows up and infuses her life with meaning (because that of course is traditionally the story that is told). I don't consider myself particularly a feminist--I don't MIND sitting around and looking pretty, exactly. At least I don't mind the idea of it. In fact I rather like the idea of being some kind of idealized beautiful female person. But in practice? It's really boring. What are you supposed to think about when you're sitting around looking pretty? And why should you waste your life sitting around and looking pretty when you're missing out on all these cool things the guys are doing? I know this is a very old idea, and I'm not blaming anyone for it, particularly, I'm just kind of frustrated. And bored. And tired of sitting around. This is probably all partly related to me feeling generally bored of my life, and starting to understand how all those women in the late nineteenth century or so would have all these nervous problems or hysteria or whatnot. Not having anything to put my mind to eventually will make me absolutely CRAZY. I keep thinking about that Charlotte Perkins Gilman story (is that the right author?) "The Yellow Wallpaper."

So about wandering around England--should I just say fuck it, and GO, safe or not? (Keeping in mind that this is a two-hour old idea, and might wear off over the next 24 hours--I always have to give ideas at least a week to figure out if they're good or just stupid). But still. I don't want to get mugged and raped in the English countryside, fair or not. (I also don't want to get robbed at gunpoint, which apparently happened ON STANFORD CAMPUS a couple days ago). I will ponder.

Hmm.