The thing with the electrician really bothered me. More than I thought it would. My anger grows, bitter and fetid in my chest, like a rotten grapefruit.

Is it all in my head? I can't tell.

Standing in the tiny closet of a kitchen in my house, a tall can of beer in hand. The thought of the electrician makes me quiet.

I tell my housemate about it.

~

As I'm returning from the washroom, I see the MDF order has arrived. Everyone nearby has come out to lend a hand getting it inside and into the rack.

One of the commandments in the Bible of Rosie says: Only assholes walk by the plywood delivery and do not help.

So I stop to help.

There are lots of people, so no one pushes themselves. I am careful to take just as many sheets as the people around me, no more, no less.

I take three sheets of quarter-inch MDF with the help of one of the carpenters, just as the teams before us had done.

As I head inside, I hear:

"Rosie!"

With the tone of delighted surprise at discovering a woman can lift.

"David," I say flatly, to the tiny Asian commenter, "I am twice your size."

I am careful to keep my muscles from shaking, my breath from coming heavily. I am used at this. I manipulate the sheets from long practised ease.

I am angry.

~

My house mate listens to me with eyebrows crumpled with concern.

When I am done, he says:

"Are you sure it was a gender thing?"

Maybe those eyebrows are crumpled with kindly doubt.

"I'm sure," I tell him, and take a mouthful of bitter beer.

Later, as I'm laying in bed, I begin to get angry.

Bad enough I doubt myself, without doubt being the first reaction from those I tell.

I'm not crazy.

I'm not.

I'm angry.

.

Rosie.

Before&After