Akaky Akakyovich (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} admiralbunny) wrote,@ 2005-09-20 18:45:00 |
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Last night saw the remarkable start to my creative poetry workshop. For the past few weeks I've been a little worried about the trip home from my new school, which is out in the dark, quiet suburbs. I have to walk down a very sparsely populated, residential street with only a few streetlamps to get to the train station. I've been building scenarios in my head where some murderer/mugger/rapist is running down the street towards me and there are only darkened houses on either side of me and no one to hear me yelling. This street is seriously something out of the Berenstein Bears Haunted Treehouse book, with big twisting elms and spiders skittering all over the place. The lights and busy-ness of the city has seemed so much safer and I've been psyching myself out a little bit.
Well. First, I took the train out to school and the twenty-minute trip took an hour and ten minutes. SEPTA sucks. A disabled train chugged along ever so slowly ahead of us, delaying us and making me late for class. One good thing: a security van from the college seems to make rounds to the train station and the driver picked me up and delivered me to Lawrence, so I was only 1/2 hour late to class. Another thing: it was the first class, and no one really cared. So class got over early, and I and another girl who had been on my train stayed to talk to the teacher, and we walked back to the station together. It's nice to have someone else in class who will be commuting with me, and walking down the creepy street with me. She's a quiet New England girl; she likes the fucking Patriots.
I feel good getting off the train, and I decided to take the bus home - there were people all around me, I have nothing more to worry about after getting past the scary street. I get off the bus and start walking home, and notice three teenage boys riding their bikes around. A few minutes after I turn the corner onto my street I see them ride across the street again. I'm walking on the dark side of the street, next to an old penitentiary that is now empty and across from a row of homes. Suddenly there's a tall black kid walking right towards me on the sidewalk, from where the kids had just passed. I'm all the way over on the right side of the sidewalk and he's right on top of me. It really freaks me out and as he passes, I feel infintely relieved. Then I hear a lady on the other side of the street calling out, and I turn to see that the guy has turned back and is coming towards me again, so I cross over the street to the woman and she tells me that the boys on the bikes stopped and were obviously waiting for me, or holding the bike for their friend to to do whatever and get back to them. She and her husband and son walked me home and I was seriously freaked out for the rest of the evening. Who would have thought that north Philly is more dangerous than the goddamn suburbs?
Well. First, I took the train out to school and the twenty-minute trip took an hour and ten minutes. SEPTA sucks. A disabled train chugged along ever so slowly ahead of us, delaying us and making me late for class. One good thing: a security van from the college seems to make rounds to the train station and the driver picked me up and delivered me to Lawrence, so I was only 1/2 hour late to class. Another thing: it was the first class, and no one really cared. So class got over early, and I and another girl who had been on my train stayed to talk to the teacher, and we walked back to the station together. It's nice to have someone else in class who will be commuting with me, and walking down the creepy street with me. She's a quiet New England girl; she likes the fucking Patriots.
I feel good getting off the train, and I decided to take the bus home - there were people all around me, I have nothing more to worry about after getting past the scary street. I get off the bus and start walking home, and notice three teenage boys riding their bikes around. A few minutes after I turn the corner onto my street I see them ride across the street again. I'm walking on the dark side of the street, next to an old penitentiary that is now empty and across from a row of homes. Suddenly there's a tall black kid walking right towards me on the sidewalk, from where the kids had just passed. I'm all the way over on the right side of the sidewalk and he's right on top of me. It really freaks me out and as he passes, I feel infintely relieved. Then I hear a lady on the other side of the street calling out, and I turn to see that the guy has turned back and is coming towards me again, so I cross over the street to the woman and she tells me that the boys on the bikes stopped and were obviously waiting for me, or holding the bike for their friend to to do whatever and get back to them. She and her husband and son walked me home and I was seriously freaked out for the rest of the evening. Who would have thought that north Philly is more dangerous than the goddamn suburbs?
