I finally got the words out....

... of my mouth before the action occurred. What I mean is, I was finally able to say "don't touch me" before the hands touched my body.

People are bad at giving verbal directions. When they want to communicate something, the left right forward back goes away and is replaced with the more general here there that way this way, or worse, the grabby hand. The grabby hand is most likely, at least on a conscious level, out of benevolence. However, I have the choice, and the right, to determine whether or not I'm okay with people touching me. So I said "please don't touch me" to a man who was trying to guide me to a bus seat. He said sorry. It is possible he was mildly offended. I murmured mild things in return. But a) I said please and b) my not wanting you to touch me is not an assessment of your personal self-worth or my opinion of you as a person. Then the old lady tried to guide me to the seat (which was next to her) with the grabby hand and I was like "don't!" She had just seen me say what I said to the man. Maybe she thought my touch-resistance happened because he was a man. World of strangers: I would like you to know, you have an equal opportunity to be gently chastised by me for trying to use your grabby hands instead of your words. Unless I am on the ground and can't get up, or bleeding profusely, etc. In which case probably no one would stop because who wants to be involved with that?

I would also like to say, I was kind and positive to a different man with intrusive questions because he respected my boundaries and withdrew his grabby hand without my having to tell him to do so. Which is why I didn't mind answering his question about how did I know when the light turned green. Blogland, if you want to know: a) I'm not completely blind and b) I pay attention to the sound the traffic makes. He said to me then, "but people go through red lights." And I was like, "yes, yes they do." He gave a slight horrified grimace, perhaps picturing me as road-splatter. I had nothing in reply to that. It's important to practice defensive pedestrian (just like defensive driving) skills. I.e. wait for all the assholes who are gonna go through the lights go through them.

All of this nonsense and hoo-ha happened in about, I would estimate, 30-40 minutes of commuting time. So if you ever wonder why I'm so sensitive, it's because this is my day. What I deal with now.

I can say today, it is better than "fake seeing." That's what I call the vision that I have, and how I use(d) it, in a crowd, with no assistive devices. I was at a really bad place last week. I don't know if I would have said so then.

And lastly, because I know you like to know everything --or rather because I am committed (one might say compelled) to putting them out there: I fell again today. I think I need a longer cane. I'm just a fast walker and I need more advanced notice on what's coming up. Also, I need a longer reach to navigate things like curbs.

In case you were curious where a person orders a new white cane, you can go to the NFB market and click (on the left sidebar) "canes and travel products."

I have never procured my own cane before. Both of my canes were given to me, already lightly used. These days the canes are different --better looking with carbon fiber instead of aluminum. Many have these neato "metal glide" tips (it looks like a tiny flying saucer) instead of the hard plastic "pencil tip" like I had or perish the thought, the completely gauche "marshmallow" or "ball" tips. Yes, I am cane vain. AND this new cane should not have that ugly-ass golf club looking handle that the previous type of cane had. Which means I can choose whether or not I decoupage the handle because it might not need to be prettified.

If K were here she'd say EVERYTHING needs to be prettified. She's probably right.