Yesterday the weather was beautiful, blue skies and not a cloud in sight. G took me to the beach, which I was surprised to learn in only 20 minutes from my house by car. It was a ton of fun. We collected lots of pretty rocks and shells to put in an empty vase he has. We took a long walk on the beach. (It's a cliche for a reason, because it's really enjoyable.)
After that, G took me to Best Buy to pick up my new camera which I haven't used yet. I need to put some AAA batteries in it; then I'll photograph at least some of the jewelry I've made to put on Etsy. After Best Buy, G took me to an early lunch at Red Robin, to celebrate the fact that he got his master's degree and I got a job. Over lunch, I told him that my boss has been sexually harassing me. Nothing as bad as rape, but what the law would describe as "unwelcome touches". My boss has rubbed my upper thighs both front and back, given me back massages where his hands end up going under my shirt, and patted me on the butt, all on more than one occasion. In fact, it's been happening every day for two weeks now. The first week of work, he didn't do anything like that but as soon as the second week started, so did the unwelcome touches. At first, I tried to rationalize it, like maybe he doesn't realize what he's doing. I would get up and walk away to work intently on some project. I didn't even write about it on here, because I guess I was sort of in denial. If I don't tell people about it, I can pretend it's not happening. I don't know if I actually had the flu last Friday or if the thought of going back to work just made me sick to my stomach, but I puked at least 10 times before I was able to call in sick, then more after I called in sick. I thought I was finally better when I was about to go to bed for the night, but then I puked some more, and had to stay up a couple more hours. When I get sick, I get thoughtful, and that's when I decided that minimum wage is not worth feeling so uncomfortable that I feel sick to my stomach, as I had every day before going to work since the touching started. After I told G what had been going on he told me I'm not going back to work, and I told him I wasn't going to, and that I was quitting. G wanted to go threaten my (now-ex) boss that G would cut off Bob's testicles if he ever touched me again, but Bob isn't in the shop on weekends. G later decided not to threaten him, because that will only end in G getting in trouble. I sent my boss an email that I got a new job and I'm moving to Portland. I don't want to tell him the real reason why I quit, because then he'll know he had power over me and I am not going to give him that satisfaction. I didn't even get a good night's sleep last night because I was kept awake thinking about all the things I have to do now that I had to quit my job. So now I have to find a new job, and either two new roommates or a new place to live, because my roommate informed me that she's moving out at the end of the month. And now I have to call my mom and tell her what happened. It sort of feels good though, that I've taken away Bob's power and now I'm safe. G thinks Bob chose me as a victim because I look young and because I'm shy and quiet around people until I get to know them. An easy target. I Facebook messaged one of Bob's former employees to see if Bob had ever done anything like that to her and she said he hadn't but she's sorry that happened to me. I just feel sorry for the next girl Bob inevitably hires and I hope that she doesn't have to go through what I did. And I'm very lucky that it didn't escalate, because it could have been a lot worse. And I'm also lucky that G loves me so much. He even bought me muffins that evening, because I had been craving them but didn't feel like baking. We also watched another Lakers playoff victory last night. And I made a delicious, if not sort of disjointed, meal of broccoli and salmon and nachos. G comes up with meal ideas and sometimes chops stuff up and then I actually cook them. He loved the salmon, which is something that I have never cooked before and he raved over how perfect the texture was, which made me feel good about myself. I have a busy day/while ahead of me, so that's all for now.
