Jen's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Thing One The first incident wasn't all that bad – almost routine in fact. I was at a meetup type gathering and most of the attendees were strangers. About forty-five minutes into the conversation, I suddenly realized a segment of the group didn't realize I'm blind. (My guide dog, Camille, was out of harness at my feet.) "Um, you know I'm blind, right?" "Oh, no we had no idea." I could have scripted the next part. "You don't seem blind." There I go again not living down to low expectations of my behavior. Thing Two The next was far more ominous. On a "no destination" walk with my dog, I crossed a street and a man asked where I was going. I knew the street dead-ended somewhere, so I asked if I could keep going or not. His answer was not, so I asked if the street we were on met up with another street. "No, you have to go back a couple of blocks." Great. I got my foot caught up in a plastic bag that was in the gutter and had some trouble untangling myself, then I took off. About a block along my route, the man calls from behind me, "Turn there." or something. He had *followed* me. Followed. Thing Three I next ventured to the Transgender Day of Empowerment ceremony at the local LGBT center because a friend was receiving an award. Upon arriving in a very crowded auditorium, I was trying to convince my guide dog to find a seat, but she was as overwhelmed as I. A woman approached, introduced herself as Tracy and offered help, which I accepted. She took my arm in the hold you are taught for drunk people so they can't escape. I was dragged to a chair, but I let it go. Later I realized there was someone's jacket on the chair, meaning I'd taken someone's seat. I let that go too. The woman who had helped me was the M.C and immediately prior to concluding the ceremony, she said something like, "There's this young woman who I see in Hillcrest all the time." She kept going and it finally dawned on me that she was referring to me. I put my head down and began shaking it no rather emphatically. It didn't help. "I'm coming toward you, dear. What's your name?" I answered. "Now I want someone to volunteer to help this nice young woman get some cake." She didn't stop until someone volunteered. Thing Four I fled the room, hid out in the bathroom and then took my dog outside to relieve herself. I was headed back inside, reaching for the right door handle, when someone came out the left door. Fast. I was hit in the head. Camille let out two yelps. Commotion ensued with ice bags and emergency room nurses coming to check us out and people and more people and orders not to take the bus home and..... I handled part of it badly. Eventually, someone I knew gave me a ride home. Camille wound up at the vet, needed X-rays and was restricted to light duty until the bruise she sustained healed. Thing Five By this point in my week, I needed some fun. With enthusiasm, I went to my first in-the-theatre described movie. We got my headset from Guest Services -- my specific request for "the one for blind people." It didn't provide descriptions and my companion finally left the movie and went back to Guest Services where she acquired the proper headset. (I'd been given the one for Hard of Hearing folks.) Thing Six Finally, and most amusingly, dinner. I ordered a salad with peaches and caramelized onions. About two thirds of the way through my meal, I asked my friend, "Where are the peaches?" "There aren't any," she said, baffled. "Maybe these shriveled up things?" "Those are cranberries." I tasted one. They were. We asked our server and he came back saying I'd gotten the right salad just without peaches and he brought me a bowl of them. I said to him, "This is one of those things that happens to blind people. I just assumed the peaches were somewhere on the plate but I hadn't found them yet." I thought that was funny, and my friend was certainly amused. The server -– poor man --didn't get it.

Chomp

As the past two entries might cause you to surmise, last week I had more than my fair share of crap landing on me because I'm blind. I knew it was getting to me, but truly didn't understand how much until I bit someone's head off.
I went to a discussion group on transgendered women's issues that, from my previous experience, is essentially a fascinating discussion of gender with lovely servings of race, class, and sexual orientation politics added to the stew. The facilitator has always been extremely open to disability issues going so far as to send me an article ahead of time so I could read it and fully participate in the conversation.
Maybe my expectations were too high. Maybe my frustration level was at the boil over threshold. Maybe I'm just human and like any member of a marginalized group sometimes want to not have to educate or explain, rather having everything simply be done the "right" way. Whatever the case, I lost it.
First, in trying to make a point about something being both intellectual and emotional, a person must have tapped their head and chest. It wasn't clear initially, but through context I sorted it out. Then someone made reference to how they look. I didn't understand her point because I had no way of knowing she has masculine traits. When the same person started telling a story using facial expressions that conveyed crucial information, I put up my hand and stopped her. The conversation then went something like this:
"Hang on a second. Could you please, please stop assuming everyone in this room is sighted. It's pissing me off."
She replied, "I didn't know."
"The dog under the table didn't tell you?" I asked.
"I didn't know what the dog was for."
I said, "I know I don't look blind, but still. You can't just assume everyone here can see."
She said, "My bad."
It was awkward, I was intense in how I presented my point, and the entire room was silent for that moment afterwards that tells you everyone is uncomfortable with how someone behaved. And by someone, in this case I mean me.
I'm not even going to explain why I was justified in being upset because clearly I had good reason. I did not, however, have reason to be rude. I simply lost my cool after a week of being hemmed in by a world that assumes sight and cannot manage to think outside that particular box. I wish my ire had been directed at those who truly deserved it. Then again, when it's an entire social structure to blame, how do you vent at the appropriate entity?