YSUMENS

As a single woman living alone I must say there are moments where one might think that one would be alarmed if one saw a shadowy figure in the window while watching television late into a Friday evening (that was last month).

Or one would think that one might find it odd when one hears the voice of an inquisitive man mumble into one's ear "mmmmhharmmruffyouknow?" from within the wall of one's laundry room in the middle of the day (that was last week).

Further, one might seriously freak out if one wakes to see a faceless figure standing above one while sleeping peacefully (this happens all the time).

Especially if one lives alone, right? Well, one would think...

When it comes down to it, there are certain circumstances in the life of a single woman living alone where panic would seem logical, yet I tend to adopt my maternal grandmother’s innate (and I would argue, practical) response to an alarming situation—denial. Make no mistake, it’s a ballsy, proactive, you're-screwing up-my-evening-now-scat kind of denial. I refer to it by the acronym, YSUMENS.

You see my grandmother would regularly encounter peepers who would peer into her windows at night while she would cook or sit at the kitchen table. These guys were bold enough to actually peep through the old-school mail slots that used to be cut into your front door—very muppety if you ask me. In fact, after a night of bumper to bumper, one-way traffic peeping, one could count the number of cigarette butts heaped beneath the windowsill from the previous evening of peeping activities.

Today, modern DNA technology would have every one of those peepers identified and thrown in jail to be sure. However, decades ago grandma’s response to this breach of privacy was neither panic nor even fear--she would simply whip her dishtowel up into a tightly wound weapon and aggressively thwack it at the window or door without missing a beat of any conversation that was taking place around her.

THWACK!
And with that, the peepers would scatter like vermin. This thwacking is similar to that which takes place during middle school pool periods across the country.

I’m just sayin; the woman had balls.

As a single woman, I find that this ballsy, proactive, you're-screwing up-my-evening-now-scat kind of denial works well. Although, I have yet to thwack a dishtowel at anything since the summer of 1982. And my reaction to the shadowy figure in the window last month? It was to simply stare straight ahead at the television with an expression that said,

"I can sit here and act like I don't see you all night, so either do something or scram ya jag-off!"

Or my reaction to the man's voice in my laundry room
(remember,"mmmmhharmmruffknow?")

Yes, it seemed like a question at the time regardless of my inability to translate “mmmhharmmruffknow?” into English. Basically, my inner dialogue was (and I must say, I may have even said this out loud), "I know, I think you're right."

And finally, the faceless figure above my bed as I sleep?
Well, this was a bit different you see because I was half asleep at the time and also pretty sure that these figures were extraterrestrials. More on that later.  So naturally my reaction was a bit more...um, Hollywood.

Ahem. You see it was summer and I actually woke up repeatedly screaming, "people next door...call the police,” from my bed. I was full of piss and vinegar, but not nearly so alarmed and clearly too sleepy to either flee or call the damn police myself. Not screaming out of fear, no. In fact, I later came to realize I was paralyzed, but still, more on that later.  I was merely screaming for added volume (and probably theatrics), quicker recognition and a speedier response by the authorities—whether Mulder and Scully or Officer Doughboy from Headquarters I didn’t really care—only that upon their arrival I could return to my slumber sooner rather than later.

Did I mention this was in the middle of August and my windows were wide open? Wait, wait…did I mention that I can easily hear a mouse fart from my neighbor's house during a sleet storm? I can’t imagine how The Born Again Family next door didn’t hear me; still, the police never showed. No good Bible beating dunces. I guess that's why my neighbor once described me as enigmatic. Yeah, yeah, get in line.

By the way, it turns out that the shadowy figures above my bed that have been plaguing me since childhood and the subject of so many of my film works are in fact common for those with narcolepsy and goes along with sleep paralysis, so I'm no longer concerned for experimental probing.

So, what is this phenomenon of ballsy, proactive, you're-screwing up-my-evening-now-scat kind of denial? Is this an extreme form of liberalism at work; in that I assume that we are all equal to do as we please no matter the circumstances because peeping, poltergeist and alien probing remains a universal right of every organism?

Or is it a sloth like laziness that has managed to render me sedentary and apathetic toward any proactive action that might say, require me to drop the remote and/or think too hard?

Or, is this just plain mental illness? Freud would probably site Plato’s definition of hysteria (hystera is the Greek word for uterus):

“when it (the uterus) remains barren for a long time after puberty it finds it difficult to bear, it feels wrath, is goes about the whole body, closing the issues for air, stopping the respiration, putting the body into extreme dangers, and occasioning various disease.”

Here is where I would tell Freud to kiss my skinny, barren ass in a wrathful manifestation of fury.

It's not mental illness. It's a strain of resilience.  In fact, I would recommend that young girls are taught that the ballsy, proactive, you're-screwing up-my-evening-now-scat kind of denial is indeed a practical approach to coping with the various challenges that a single woman may encounter whilst living alone; that is, peepers, bumps in the night, voices in the wall and bags of flaming shit on your doorstep.

Which will bring me to my next post.

3:30 a.m. on Monday, May 28th…there was a bump in the night…

a big one...
to be continued…