mandalay

hi and lo and in between

a few strange things have happened today, no more strange than happens on any other day, but for some reason today i was struck by them. i just got back from the grocery store, had to pick up some Lone Star for joanna's potluck and such. anyway, i was in the express lane waiting, and i kind of glanced at what the guy behind me put down on the belt. in a neat row were four items: an avocado, a can of sardines, a banana, and an odwalla food bar. they were all perfectly aligned across the width of the conveyor belt. does that strike anyone else as just completely bizarre? it took every fiber of my being not to turn to him and say "is that your dinner?!" ok moving on.

now i know people who have told me that i often come off as standoffish, that they can't get a read on me or what i think of them. but i also know that a lot of people tend to trust me very quickly and often end up telling me things they don't tell other people. i'm a good listener. well i went to costco this morning to get a couple of things (some chicken salad and cheap salmon). mind you, i think i was the only person in there spending less than $100. it was exactly what you'd expect the weekend before thanksgiving at a discount family food emporium. i ended up in a long line in front of a woman whose basket was brimming with pre-packaged sustenance. she asked me about my chicken salad, said it is soo good, she'd searched all over for it and couldn't find it, i said i'd done the same thing and eventually asked an employee where it was. we talked about how they'd changed the packaging and the fact that it was next to the spinach dip now. she said she had gotten the spinach dip and the artichoke dip, and i said i tried to avoid those, and she said that she could eat as little or as much as she wanted, but it would never go to waste because of her kids. she looked about 30. she had brown hair and was kind of plain but pretty, and had a kind of fragile edge to her. we ended up talking about the fact that she had to work on thanksgiving, so she was doing thanksgiving this weekend instead. i said that it was really too bad she had to work on thanksgiving, and she looked at me and said "it's not that bad. at least i have a job." then she went on to say that on thursday, she'll send her kids off with a thanksgiving dinner in bags to spend the day with their father at his house. about that time, the checker asked for my card and i turned to take care of that. after i'd paid, the woman called out to me and i turned around and she said "it was really nice to talk to you. have a good weekend... and a great holiday." i thanked her, wished her the same, and then left. i was really struck by her and have spent a lot of the day thinking about what her life must be like and the fact that, if i didn't have a job, i have family who could help me out, i have no one depending on me. too late i thought about what an interesting person she would be to do a documentary on. i wanted to know if she would have said anything if it had been someone else in front of her. and i wanted to know if she was sad.

sometimes i wonder if there are strangers out there that i've made a lasting impression on. there are a few that stick with me: a girl who was friends with my ex's ex, who i met only a handful of times but always felt like we should be friends; a british firefighter who was too nervous to talk to me last year and got his friend to come up and ask if they could sit with us. he later asked if i'd go out with him the next night, his last night in town, and he gave me his london number, with an open invitation to come visit him; a girl at a party who i talked to about the band "olive" and spent the whole evening with, even though we were both there to see the same guy; then there was a guy i met in an elevator that wasn't working real well in cleveland when i was 17. he worked for an airline and liked my blue mascara and when we flew out of cleveland, i hoped and hoped i would see him at the airport - i had grand visions of walking up to him again, talking and arranging to meet in another city. it'd be interesting to know if any of those people remember me.

posted by amanda @ 6:19 PM