a thing that happened

I was walking to my car after class, making my way over the 10th street bridge that goes down into the 'Bottoms (which, by the way, has a trés assez and extremely random plaque-and-bench area explaining the historical and cultural interest of the neighborhood right across from the computer/magic store where I used to work [i.e. not a place of particular beauty]).  

So you see a lot of joggers huffing over this fairly abrupt bridge, which is exactly what I saw, moving toward me on the opposite side of the walkway. He was an older man, tall and lumpy, bobbing along in that shuffling heart-attack pace.  

And then he's looking at me, which I can see because I mostly wear sunglasses for the specific benefit of being able to see who's looking at you, not to see who's "checking me out" or whatever but because humans are just so fucking curious about each other that when they think someone is not looking they will just stare and stare and stare, drinking the other person in in that instant when it is polite to look without seeming like a dick, then using their own personal method of looking away quickly to avoid awkwardness.  My method when I get caught staring at someone is the "Oh, I am looking in many different directions!  See how I look here, and now here, and you just happened look up and into my eyes at that precise moment when my head happened to face you directly!"  There are also methods such as "I was looking at the thing behind you," but my body does not prefer them in that primal moment of terror at being seen. 

Except sometimes people do check you out, which is what this guy seemed to possibly be doing.  Staring.  Right.  At.  Me.  And running closer, huff, huff, until he was nearly parallel with me, at which point he loudly hissed "CONCENTRATE" and yanked his gaze away, continuing by.  

And then I spent way too much time thinking about those queer few seconds of my life, and then I wrote a blog post about them.