Ever been in the situation where you run into someone on the street and you kind of have to say hello because they're probably going to see you and if you don't you'll be the jerk? That was the story of my day.
This is how it went. L and I wake up and decide it would be a good idea if for once we went somewhere and actually did all the reading we need to do. We decide that it would be really cool to go hang out at the Broadway Roastery for a few hours and read like madmen/women. But it took us 4 hours to leave the house. Yes. Four hours. Why? I DON'T KNOW!!! For some reason we are the absolute slowest people ever; we woke up at 10 and by the time we had breakfast, checked our email, showered, L played the accursed Civilization, I blogged, I talked to my mom, we made the bed, L did his hair ........ you get the picture....by the time all these various and sundrie tasks were completed it was 2pm.
Anyway. We leave the house and start walking up Broadway. And whom do I see but the prof I TA'd for this past year. I always feel weird around her because I'm not sure if she likes me or not...sniff sniff. But she was like 10 inches away, so I had to say hello or forever be a jerk. I tapped her on the shoulder and said hello. She told me and L about a good shoe sale (which we later checked out and, of course, I bought new trainers, hee hee) and introduced us to her friend. And then I suddenly felt extreeeeeemely uncomfortable. Like I was interrupting or like I didn't know what else to say or like I was a general dufus...so I kind of blurted out "well, see you around!" and took off. L claims that she was about to say we should hang out (she's only like 30 something so she's at all the grad parties), but I cut her off and ran away. Why all the weirdness? Who knows.
Not 15 minutes later I run into two more Eng. Dept. types. By this time I was at the afore mentioned shoe sale trying on some trainers. When we run into the English Dudes-- C and S. After a minute or so of small talk, I start to remember the last time C and I hung out...the infamous last day of exams on which I and a few of my other classmates drank for 12 hours, belly danced, threw up, and skipped home singing the Smurf song. (Yes, sadly, all that really happened). Then we ran out of things to say to each other, so S started saying something about the cross trainers I was trying on. Meanwhile, the sales lady started to inch up behind us...quietly observing as I handed the trainers to S...her eyes widening as S turned them over to explain which parts of the sole will absorb impact...then as we started to walk toward the intersection she climbed on L's back and pulled his hair.
No, that didn't happen. As you might've guessed. But she did think we were gonna steal the shoes.
Anyway, after the sales lady followed us around I decided things were weird enough and we should say good bye. But just before I actually initiated the good byes there was the awkward, silent moment when we or they should've said something like "hey, let's go get a coffee". But we didn't because our original purpose was to go and do our reading for our blasted theses!
So, finally after buying myself a pair of shoes, a t-shirt for L, and a dress for me (I got carried away...sidewalk sales do that to me) we finally made it to the Roastery.
Once there, we read for about an hour. Then one of my most hated things happened. I overheard someone's conversation about a trip to Guatemala and my reaction was to leave and fast because if I had to listen to this girl say "baina" instead of "ballena" one more time...I might've had to pour my nutty vanilla late on her head.
So. In conclusion, today I very narrowly avoided total jerkdom.
