Sunday, August 10, 2008

What a day for a Sunday stroll

As you may have guessed, I've continued putting in many hours of work since our honeymoon. This is wholly due to my advisor, who desires some more data before a funding review later this August. I say "wholly" because 1) after a vacation like that, who would immediately dive into work? and 2) these are the last few days before my husband heads out of the city, only to return on his weekend visits.

So it was with great pleasure that I cast off the reigns of work on Sunday evening and wholeheartedly agreed to (perhaps even pushed for) a walk around our neighborhood. Unfortunately, we were "greeted" by some "nice" locals, who decided to welcome us with their disdain. While we've experienced such jeers before, we've never had the distinct pleasure of it happening twice in one walk.

Jeer no. 1 was the most in-your-face, in that a late 20's man on a bike turned around after passing us to loudly state "hey, keep that shit behind closed doors, you fucking faggots." What perhaps surprised me the most was that we were not holding hands; rather, our only physical affection at that time happened to be me rubbing my husbands back with my fingertips, and not in an overly cuddly manner.

Jeer no. 2 was from a group of men in a car about half a block behind us, whence we heard "(muffled loud voices) ... Sodom ... (muffled loud voices) ... Sodom ... (more muffled)". Who knows what they were saying. All I could tell them is that their message did not get through clearly.

At this point, I think it's ridiculous when this happens. Am I supposed to shy away from what I'm doing because of some hostile stranger who is there one moment and gone the next? Not likely. Which is how it played out today. We kept walking, we kept talking, and we kept holding hands.

(Day 57)

4 comments:

Pomoprophet said...

sigh. It makes me uncomfortable and scared. Which, as I told your husband, is the reason I carry a knife on me whenever my guy and I are out walking around for extended periods of time.

I wonder if I will ever be comfortable with PDA.

Selly said...

"(muffled loud voices) ... Sodom ... (muffled loud voices) ... Sodom ... (more muffled)"

Apparently, there is this new song with exactly those lyrics. Maybe they were singing that. Or not!

Please be careful when you walk around.

Topher said...

Pomoprophet, let me tell you that even to this day I'm not that comfortable with PDA ... even with my own husband! Oftentimes the only places I'll tolerate it is on campus and/or on streets with large amounts of traffic. I suppose those feel more safe, which is the root cause of my feeling uncomfortable with PDA.

That said, I also have some other reasons that I shy away from it, but that could be a whole other post!

Topher said...

Selly,

Really? Man, to think that maybe it was just a song! Then I guess we would've only been harassed once that afternoon and not broken our previous record afterall ...

;-)