Safeway. I’m buying salad materials with a friend to make dinner. He’s off in another aisle. A woman stops me, tells me she likes my hair. I blush and respond with a mumble of thank you. She asks me if i work in Oakland. I respond no, i don’t live in the East Bay; i live in the city.. i’m just visiting a friend. She expresses disappointment and says that she’s looking for a job and when she finds individual looking people, she asks where the work, in the hopes that she can find a good place. I say that i’m sorry, still too dorky and caught off-guard to actually communicate meaningfully. She says that she used to live in SF for a year and NY before that. I say that i just moved here from out east and spent a chunk of my last year in NYC. She noted that she actually lived in Buffalo, worked for Righteous Babe. I told her that i ran a website for many years of Ani’s lyrics. I told her that i worked for V-Day. She told me that she was in New College’s production of V-Day. I told her that i saw that production. I introduced myself, she did in return. And then something clicked in her head. She recalled my website, knew that i was into girls, knew a few other things and then reported that her friend was in love with me. The blushing, dorkiness and mumbling returned. And i nervously said goodbye and shuffled off with my friend, too uncertain of the appropriate response to that interaction.

::sigh:: As i grow older, i get less capable of dealing with situations that catch me off guard with any level of grace. My complete dorkiness emerges.