Echo

I’m sure tonight should be fun because my status tonight is: Rampage.

Final Thoughts on March 26, 2004:
This work week has been really rough…just a lot of work to do. And it doesn’t help that I’m on this kick where I want to just about finish a book every two days (read Da Vinci Code and A Lesson Before Dying in the last three days). So after work, I’m going crazy about wanting to go out tonight, but most people don’t feel like it. I realize that I’m feeling a little bit lonely, which usually prompts me to stay home. So I take a book (of course) to Doughboys and have a leisurely (freezing) dinner in the outdoor patio and read/people watch. I see Ethan Hawke walk by and he’s in a deep conversation on his cellphone. I catch a snippet that sounds like, “–I’m an alcoholic and Uma–” We make steady eye contact when he walks back and enters the bar next door. Later, I see a guy standing outside, having a cigarette, talking to a really loud, obnoxious girl with teased hair. When she runs to her car to get something, I notice that he’s come over to the restaurant side of this plastic divider and is full on staring at me. It’s a bit unnerving. So we’re just staring at each other so finally, I smile and he smiles back. The girl runs back and he’s talking to her with his back to me, but he keeps turning around and looking. They go inside the bar and I finish dinner and want to go because it’s cold, but then this thought procession flashes through my mind:

That guy totally wanted to come talk to me but he’s tied up with the girl. So I’m going to read one more chapter of this book, which will be exactly enough time for him to have one more drink and then come back out again. After which, as I’m packing up, he’ll be leaving the bar and he’ll find a way to talk to me and I can have this in play if I want this.

So I’m sitting there, struggling through another chapter even though I’m freezing, and then I start to feel stupid for my compulsion to always follow these little psychic flashes I get. So I decide to pack up and go. As I’m packing up, I feel like someone is watching me so I look up and I see that guy has come out of the bar. He looks away quickly. He’s with another guy now and that same girl. I’m thinking, that must be his girlfriend (dog!) and they’re waiting for their car. So now it’s really pointless and my experiment is over; I get ready to leave when he walks by with the other guy, staring at me. He says, really stiffly, “Hi” and awkwardly keeps walking. I watch him go, grinning, so he comes back and asks me what my name is. He introduces himself as Matt and asks if Doughboys is any good. We shoot the shit about the food and I ask him if they’re going that way, motioning towards the direction they had been walking in. I tell them that I’ll walk with them because my car is parked down that way. So we’re talking and he’s really friendly, down to earth and attractive, probably 5-6 years older than me. We talk about Dallas, where we’re both from (him more so than I) and what we’re both doing out here. As always, I was vague about my purpose in LA, answering, “A little bit of everything.” At the stoplight, I tell him that I’m going across the street. He says, “Well, it was nice meeting you,” hesitates, then looks panicked. I say, “It was nice meeting you, too,” smile, and then cross the street.

He should have asked for my number. I knew he wanted to. And when I was standing there, I knew I could have offered it, but didn’t. Because sometimes it’s more fun to have a missed connection, you know? Something that you can look back at and wonder, what if?

My psychic antennae tells me that I could run into this guy again if deep down, I really wanted to. Because I’m always running into random people. Way too many strange “coincidences.” And it’s fun. I think it’s so interesting just to see what life surprises you with– the people who come into your life for just a few lines, who sometimes return randomly and occasionally, leave so abruptly.

I realized today. We begin are lives trying to establish ourselves as individuals. Then we learn what it is to be a woman or to be a man. Then we learn what it means to be just a part of the whole, that universe, that group soul that we are only a small piece of. And as I was thinking about it today, I realized that it’s really all a learning process, and that I can make a shitload of mistakes as a person and it’s okay because I’m learning and I’m truly trying to become the best person I can be, and there’s a freedom to that. A freedom to knowing that failing is as equally okay as succeeding and in the end, it all adds up, balances out and equals growth. Life is really amazing if you’re just very very still and let yourself FEEL the Present being created around you. It engages and enraptures all six senses.