Ring My Bell

Screw calories. It’s that kind of day. Pumpkin spice latte and pumpkin bread. I can feel the endorphines.

It is the gustatory pleasure to tomorrow’s workout pain.

Rain rain on my face
It hasn’t stopped
Raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become
One with the mud

Arlingtonian Women

That sounds like a Ken Burns documentary. Camera slowly pans around yellowed-with-age black and white photo of women on their way to the gym in scanty workout clothes despite the sub-freezing temperatures.

Ah, Arlington. When I worked in Washington I wondered where all of those fit, trim young professional women on the metro were going at the end of the day. A lot of them, apparently, go to Arlington. They seem to also shop at Harris Teeter’s.

I’m much more sociable when I got a good amount of sleep. Between that and exercising, almost approachable. Less withdrawn or enmeshed in my own thoughts. Non-bleary eyed. Shifted from the intensely introverted part of the spectrum toward the middle ground.

There are still things I work on. Things I have to consciously do. I have to consciously practice being … well, let me put it to you this way. Here’s something I do. When I see someone I won’t initiate a greeting. I wait. Then I respond.

It’s a pet peeve of mine when someone walks right by you and doesn’t make eye contact. Because when I am in initiation mode, I’m waiting for eye contact. The body language that confirms that it’s okay to say hello, good morning, or nod in greeting. Timing is everything. Why? I don’t know. There’s no sense to it.

A few days ago I saw a cute woman near the metro station, which is near the convenience/grocery/deli store and the Starbucks. She had on bright red shoes that matched her lipstick. Kind of an elvish look to her. Like the petite nymphish woman on Primeval. Or more like the chick on Demons. Yes, I said “chick” but only because I’m trying to vary my gender references.

My first thought when I saw her was that I liked her shoes. They reminded me of Dorothy’s shoes in the Wizard of Oz and she was kind of Dorothy-ish. Plucky. A few minutes later, getting condiments, it dawned on me that I could tell her that. So I did. Like I said, timing is everything. And in this day and age, when it comes to human interaction you are in competition with the ever present cellphone/smartphone. As I was turning to comment on her shoes, words already coming out of my mouth, she was simultaneously immersing herself — jacking into the Matrix. She had just enough bandwidth to almost look up and thank me.

Resonance

Have you ever seen or met someone that reminded you of a friend? It’s happened with me a few times. I come across someone and they’re like an east coast version of a west coast friend. You can’t help but project all of that history on to them. That’s the funny part. You already feel comfortable and you don’t even know them.

I saw a woman today in Starbucks. Good grief. She reminded me so much of a friend in California that faded away. I must have done a classic double take. You know, when you see someone and in your mind and you reflexively say a name.

Curly black hair, freckles, dimples, a little taller than me, thin but athletic. Sheesh. It was like a gong of nostalgia and recognition was sounded. I did make her laugh with my balls to the wall, no prisoners pumpkin spice latte with whipped cream, sprinkled with cinnamon, chocolate and vanilla.

She laughed, turned and was off like a shot. Poof. Aw. I was just warming up my clever. And that sensation was nostalgic as well. “Oh, she’s gone. Wonder where.”

As a slight — but only slight — non sequitur, I suppose that especially in the spring I’m going to have to up my presentation. No scruffiness allowed. You heard it here first, peeps.

The most awkward thing I’ve ever heard

I was listening to the Nightwolf show in WPFW. J. Winter Nightwolf, that is. 7pm on Fridays. It’s WPFW’s Indigenous People’s Public Affairs show.

He had on a woman whose name I can’t remember and they were discussing a book she authored. I think it was someone’s biography. Near the end of the discussion she says to Nightwolf, “I have something here for you.”

Then right there on the air she says, “You’ve done so much for our communities and I would be honored to tell your story. This is a contract for you to sign saying that you’ll give me the rights to tell your story.”

Right there. On live radio.

He was like, “Wow. I’m speechless.”

She kept pushing him to sign it. No time to read it. Can’t have dead air on your radio show. Can’t read a private contract out loud on the air. That’s a chess move, is what that is.

He kept talking around it. She kept talking and ended every statement with, “Will you sign it?”

Dude was caught in a run down. I had to go before I found out if he signed it.

Very awk.