Most of my fellow pseudo-intellectuals think of “The Secret” as a big crock of steaming, unethical shit, but I found it interesting. I don’t know about this Infallible Law of Attraction & Universe As Agent Provocateur Catalogue stuff, but I do think that thoughts have an impact on our fates. I do not think that “The Secret” actively promoted chiding suffering people (SNL gave us the example of Darfur) for so-called negativity. While the movie was not clear on the subject, it seemed obvious that many of the people who had participated in it had horrible things happen to them in their lives, and the film did not make it look as though they were dumbasses who could have escaped plane crashes and abusive parents if they wanted to. If the filmmakers spent less energy on attractive packaging and promotion of personal wealth, and more on how we can overcome the many gruesome realities of our lives by refusing to let them rule our minds, it would have been better, but it wasn’t some terrible chimera either, and some of the pious wailing about it had irritated me way back.
Why exactly am I talking about this?
Well, check it out, while yours truly only graduated from college in 2006, in Ukrainian years, she’s practically a babushka. People are asking what is wrong with me: how come I still don’t have a ring on my finger? When am I planning on having kids? What do I mean by “career,” don’t I know that all career women are sexually unfulfilled evil witches with bad haircuts and secret underground freezers stocked with the phalluses of innocent men?
This kind of thinking I do not entirely subsribe to, but can’t help internalizing on some level nonetheless.
So earlier today I asked myself, “how come it’s been a while since I have been crudely sexually harassed in a public place in Kiev? Are people getting more polite? Or am I an evil witch with a bad haircut?”
Later in the day, I got my ass grabbed on the metro.
You can say what you want to say about coincidences, but come on. I spent three consecutive months in Kiev last year, and I was in a bad mood for a lot of it, and I think if anyone had even looked at me the wrong way, I would have beaten them to death with my handbag, eaten their heart, and hung them upside down from a tree as a warning to others. I’m a little less defensive this time around, and a little bit more concerned about holding on to my precious youth until it is washed away in a monstrous tide of hair dye and anti-cellulite cream.
So the universe, in its infinite wisdom, goes out of its way and says, “bitch, please. At the very least, you’re still hot enough for some near-sighted alcoholic from Krizhopol’ to risk getting punched in the crotch for.”
And that, my friends, is a life-affirming metaphysical experience right there.
Natalia A. 
I disagree with you on the Secret, but I’ve seen life sort of give me what I need, too. This entry was absolutely hilarious!!!
(And yes, I’ve been happy to have a construction worker yell things out at me occasionally. I’m even older than you–I’m 34! Practically using a walker!)
Yeah, some guy told me “nice tits” yesterday. I can’t say my immediate response was pleasure, though. Well, specifically, I said, “What?” and then when he said, cheerily, as though he were talking about the weather, “Nice tits! Gorgeous!” I snarled, “fuck off.” He didn’t change expression at all, which removed any lingering shred of any leaning toward philosophical ponderings on why if he’d said “nice hair” in exactly the same tone I’d’ve just said “thank you,” have done. Because, you know, I didn’t FEEL like it, and really it was none of his business, and I was thinking thinky thoughts and he came up behind me and startled me. Git.
I suppose points for cheeriness, though. or, something.
I laugh at it, because otherwise, I’d cry.
Hilarious post, and timely for me as well – I’m visiting DC, where the sexual harrassment on the street which drove me crazy for the five years that I lived here is oddly flattering after four years of living in northern European cities where social reservations and the unpopularity of my particular body type in the cultural mythology conspire to make me quite invisible on the street – which I appreciate *most* of the time.
well damn…..i only came here seeking knowledge….so why am i so utterly fascinated with the female ass….any woman that looks the slightest bit physically fit and any childbearing age….there you can find my eyes, riveted to her sweet rear, deriving something i can’t explain out of it…..hell, i’m 52!!!!……i possibly might understand it if i was in my early 20’s…..oh well…and on it goes…
I’m a straight guy and still got grabbed by the ass a couple of time by accident, probably because I wear long golden hair. I went mad each time, but on the other hand it was quite flattering :))
I wonder what would happen if women started grabbing guys’ crotches on the street, in the metro, while waiting in queque… 😀