recently, I had a couple of creepy experiences...

I recently had a brief but very scary experience just two days ago while walking home from the store--some guy on a bike was hassling me, following me, and my phone was dead.  It was only for a block or so, and it was the middle of the day on a fairly busy street, but I was still rattled by it, briefly...

But just a month before that I was completely weirded out by a man who literally followed me around Rite Aid for half an hour while I picked out different hair highlighting kits and make-up and spray tanners (my BFF and I had a DIY make-over slumber party) and I ended up spending like, $150 on all the stuff I got. (The total sum of stalker dude's purchases? Whatever a chapstick costs.) Then he followed me out to my car and asked me out from behind my closed driver's door window.  I politely declined his invitation to "get a drink or maybe some coffee" and peeled out of there, my tires' traction being pushed to its very limits, leaving a few feet of black tread in my wake.  What is my point? Uh, that every woman, regardless of her age, race, body-type, hair color, and religion (or lack thereof) has had her peace of mind interrupted, however briefly, with the unsettling worry which for me, is usually just "What is this man capable of? What is he going to do if I say something he doesn't want to hear? Am I in danger?" And I have to be honest, the few athesist/skeptic "functions" I've attended, the men were incredibly well behaved and genuinely good company and never once did I feel in any way threatened or objectified in any way.  But I"m sure that there must be plenty of atheist men (and women) who behave predatorally

Wilson, SPONSOR ME!

No hammer? No problem!

I recently covered my patio with a tablecloth-sized piece of white linen.  In other words, I'm using a linen tablecloth as a summery shade over my roofless deck. I hammered the corners of the cloth on two of the beams that make up its frame.  It looks a bit tacky, maybe, but not overly so--my gardenia bush and myself are much less exposed now and can enjoy my nice deck without risking heat stroke and squamous cell carcinoma.

But, when I was putting it up and figuring out how to make it work, I noticed my rude, good-looking 30 something neighbor, "Alex" standing just outside my patio, on the other side of his fence.