The Writer's Block

Last week I took my first trip to Salt Lake City. I stayed at a hotel on North Temple and decided to stretch my legs and get a closer look at this city and it’s beautiful skyscrapers on Sunday to take some pictures. I was out maybe two hours. Two very interesting hours.

As I stood on a busy street corner an older gentleman pulled up to the stoplight and offered me a ride with him and his German Shepherd “roommate”.  As I declined, a slightly mentally disabled woman desperately in need of a dentist stepped up to the curb next to me and tried to strike up a conversation with me about how she had just walked nine blocks. I had this strange moment where she zoomed out of focus and the man standing behind her came into sharp view.

A zombie who could have come straight from the set of Dawn of the Dead, with deathly white, pasty skin and white hair plastered down on his head, face slack and vacant of intelligence stood there, rocking back and forth, slightly groaning and I had the distinct notion that his poor soul was dwelling in eternal torture. Finally, when I realized I had missed the green walking light and it was now flashing a red count-down number, I hustled across the intersection and left the poor travel-weary woman without a word of conversation. 

If I had been the superstitious type I would have probably taken this event as an evil omen and ended my walk. However, I continued, determined to get a few closer shots of the buildings rising up in the distance. I walked as far east on North Temple as I could, and reluctantly turned around when I realized that the road passes over a railroad track with no safe place for pedestrians to walk. On my return jaunt to my hotel room, much to my dismay, I was subsequently approached at least six times by men driving by in their vehicles and others waiting at bus stops as I passed.

I did not feel that I was dressed suggestively, wearing mid-thigh length shorts, a tight-fitting tie-die Tinker Bell t-shirt, tennis shoes, black leather purse and a camera. I thought I looked quite like a tourist from Southern California come straight from a day at Disneyland. As I walked along I had numerous men honk, pull over to the curb and yell, “Hey!”, make U-turns on the six-lane road and pull into driveways just behind me honking and yelling for my attention.

I do believe I could have earned my round-trip airline ticket costs, had I been so inclined. I say this not to brag, because I was frightened out of my mind all the while this was happening, but more as an exclamation of horror and disgust at my foolishness. I had suddenly been made quite aware that I had made a dangerous assumption we all make on occasion, where we think we know what to expect and rely heavily upon it in order to carry out our plans. I had blindly assumed that all men within the city would be and behave as Mormons which I had been accustomed to: acting with a strong moral conscience as if God were watching over their shoulders.  Although not a Mormon myself, I felt that being in “their” city would be much like walking in the presence of exceptionally saintly men. At the very least I assumed I would walk among them, unremarkable and invisible, as I often do in my own state.  Well, that was the soapy bubble that burst. 

As I pushed along at a faster and more deliberate clip, staring intently at business signs and cracks in the walls of buildings as I passed, I began to re-analyze the area I had walked through when I believed it was safe: older buildings and some kind of power plant, lots of fast food restaurants, the Statefair Park, lots of industrial business offices and goofy-looking hotels with cartoonish animals and fairytale-like creatures decorating the pool area. I did also recall seeing a bum lying in the shade of a tree outside of the Statefair Park with his head covered.

Ok, so now I registered the fact that the area had several cheap hotels and a bum. Other than this, I was dumbfounded. There was no evidence of graffiti, abandoned cars, unkempt lawns, or any other women “working” the streets. It seems possible that the less than savory males who attempted to approach me this day paid attention mainly because I was the only woman “brazen” enough to show myself on the sidewalk on a Sunday morning. All the “good” girls must have been attending church or temple. However, I was later informed by two Utah residents that this area is known for this type of activity. You could’ve fooled me if I’d not taken the footpaths. It made me think about something though: I wonder if there is a website anyone has created for women who travel alone that would inform them of such female-friendly information as streets better left untravelled?

One other factor I thought about briefly was my recent change in hair color, which you will recall from my posting entitled, “Open Mouth, Insert the Truth--Now Chew,” had me allegedly looking like an ugly, old woman according to my foot-in-his-mouth spouse. There were, after all, no other blonde pedestrians aside from me and the zombie. I chuckled at the thought of informing my husband that the “ugly, old woman” look seemed all the rage in this city full of obviously sexually-repressed men. It was a brief chuckle, punctuated by screeching tires and honking pickups.

I must say, those Utah men are terribly more friendly than this little ol’ lady from So. Cal. is accustomed to.