CAUGHT!
This, my friends, is why I don't go out. And if I do go out, I go out to large, anonymous places where I won't meet anyone I know or knew at any time. This does not, I repeat NOT, include going to see one of your most favorite artist/cartoonists in a small venue in the basement of the East Quad.
When you go see Alison Bechdel, who turns out to be, like the funniest person you've ever seen on stage (and really nicely dressed, I must say), and your partner who you lured out with begging and "this is really important to me"s points you towards the back corner of the packed auditorium, and you stride confidently forward in the floral skirt your mom made you and the pair of biker boots you scored thrifting, and on the way you make eye contact with the one person in Ann Arbor you really didn't want to see - that woman who stalked you through high school 300 miles away, who you competed with for top marks in Physics and is now a Physics PhD student, who you saw one evening buying a six-pack of Kalamazoo's best beer and biking off and you thought "Oh my god, that is really not possible," and who wins the races you run in but you hope to god she doesn't recognize you puffing in at, like, 80th place, and who lives about 3 blocks away what are the odds of that...
And you drag both of you up to the front row where you can look away, and you twirl your hair nervously and shift in your seat, and you spend half the evening thinking about whether you can make a break for it and bolt up the center aisle at the end, except there's a woman in a wheelchair and you'd have to hop partially on stage to get around her, but you'd do it...
And somewhere towards the end she hobbles down on her crutches, taps your partner on the thigh (the thigh!), leans in and looks you in the face, and the expression you give her makes her say "I'm sorry, I thought. You look like someone" and start to shake her head and back away and you sigh and grimace and say: "No. You're Catherine. I'm Shana. I know you from ACS," and you reach out and...and...shake her hand. Shake her hand! And give a curt strained nod to say you've caught me, I am not surprised, and no, I don't want to get together for coffee. She stands up, hobbles away, and you actually relax enough to truly enjoy the rest of the reading, and you feel terrible but also sort of glad that it's over, that you won't actually meet her for the first time when you're running around the neighborhood in your pajamas and no bra, calling for your escaped dog.
When you go see Alison Bechdel, who turns out to be, like the funniest person you've ever seen on stage (and really nicely dressed, I must say), and your partner who you lured out with begging and "this is really important to me"s points you towards the back corner of the packed auditorium, and you stride confidently forward in the floral skirt your mom made you and the pair of biker boots you scored thrifting, and on the way you make eye contact with the one person in Ann Arbor you really didn't want to see - that woman who stalked you through high school 300 miles away, who you competed with for top marks in Physics and is now a Physics PhD student, who you saw one evening buying a six-pack of Kalamazoo's best beer and biking off and you thought "Oh my god, that is really not possible," and who wins the races you run in but you hope to god she doesn't recognize you puffing in at, like, 80th place, and who lives about 3 blocks away what are the odds of that...
And you drag both of you up to the front row where you can look away, and you twirl your hair nervously and shift in your seat, and you spend half the evening thinking about whether you can make a break for it and bolt up the center aisle at the end, except there's a woman in a wheelchair and you'd have to hop partially on stage to get around her, but you'd do it...
And somewhere towards the end she hobbles down on her crutches, taps your partner on the thigh (the thigh!), leans in and looks you in the face, and the expression you give her makes her say "I'm sorry, I thought. You look like someone" and start to shake her head and back away and you sigh and grimace and say: "No. You're Catherine. I'm Shana. I know you from ACS," and you reach out and...and...shake her hand. Shake her hand! And give a curt strained nod to say you've caught me, I am not surprised, and no, I don't want to get together for coffee. She stands up, hobbles away, and you actually relax enough to truly enjoy the rest of the reading, and you feel terrible but also sort of glad that it's over, that you won't actually meet her for the first time when you're running around the neighborhood in your pajamas and no bra, calling for your escaped dog.
posted by shagreen at 10:27 PM
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