Deconstructing the moment
I'm sure someone has flirted with me in the last ten years but I'm damned if I can remember when or under what circumstances.
But it happened this morning. It's so odd, and so unusuaal, that I am a little unsettled -- not in a "whoa, I'm a smexy broad after all" sort of way, but in a "what was he really thinking?" way. And I'm trying to piece together who and what this man was from the details I saw as Truff;le dragged me along.
Saturday mornings Truffle and I take the car to Emma at seven in the morning so she can go to Monterey and scrape otter crap off the rocks of the exhibit there. Then we walk back. After next Saturday we'll have to do tjhis differently because she won't nbe living in walking distance anymore.
Anyway, so Truffle and I are walking home and we're passing Zachary's which is a steak-and-breakfast place from the old days. By nine o'clock in the morning you can't pass on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant because there's so many hipsters and yuppies standing around there. But it's not at the "good" end of Pacific Avenue. It's perilously close to the bars and the tattoo and piercing parlors and the head shops. So you get some street louts hanging around there too.
This morning there are two people lounging in front of Zachary's door. One is a young hispanic man in a hoodie, who has slumped down with his hood over his face -- 7:00 is too early for him! The other is a middle-aged blond-and-tanned-and-obviously-exercises kind of guy in white jeans and a white tee shirt, stirring a paper cup of coffee.
I tend to make brief, brief eye contact with people I cross on the sidewalk. I don't like extended eye contact ever, but I feel like it matters to acknowledge people on the street even when I don't want to engage them in conversation, and over the years I have tuned this so I mostly successfully do just that: acknowledge people in a respectful and respectable way, without engaging them unless I want to.
In a town with a lot of people in it that don't get a lot of respect, I feel this is really important. A moment of shared dignity, that's all.
However, instead of the usual brief nod or maybe "good morning," I got waggled eyebrows. That was a bit unsettling, but maybe he's practicing to be one of those old guys that do that. Then, as I passed, he stood a bit taller and said "looking fine," which is of course a definitive flirtatious greeting.
But seriously. I've gained twenty pounds since the nice fellow died (more or less: I have to go by my clothes as the third scale I bought in a year varies by twenty pounds depending on how I stand on it -- I got a sptring scale this time because the digital ones died so fast, but it's worse than not having a scale at all because if I didn't have one I might think I could buy one): I'm wearing clothes that are way too big for me since I can't wear the ones I bought last summer (and there's nothing in between, I promise you. The size I ought to be right now is a myth. The clothes are all either as bifg as the next size up or as small as the next size down. I won't fit into anything until I lose these twenty pounds again, or more): I'm a month late for a haircut and seriously shaggy and I barely brushed my hair because I was in a rush: and I haven't had my bath, which means stubble on my face, yes, stubble. And I've caught my expression in the mirror, and lately it never stops looking sad, even when I'm happy about something (which I am, often, the world is full of beautiful things). Like a damned Pieta or something.
So, while I may look like a pleasant little old lady, I am not fine in the usual flirtatious sense of the word. But it wasn't a serious flirtation anyway.
So I started wondering about him. All the way back, I tried to recall the details of his appearance and analyze them. Since that block is often inhabited by street people, that thought did occur to me. But his white clothes were immaculate (I think), and his skin didn't have the coarseness that comes from living rough (not everybody on the street has it, even at his age, which is about mine). So who wears all white in Santa Cruz?
Capoeristas: "village" drummers: sometimes, for some reason, yacht bums. All of those were possible. Silly me, though, I didn't think of it until I got home: both the men lounging on the street in front of Zachary's work there. Of course. Some chefs like to wear all white to work. (I guess it advertises the cleanliness of their operation)
So I guess I got flirted with by weekend Zachary's breakfast chef.
I kind of laughed and said good morning as my dog pulled me along, because my discomfort is my problem, and not his doing: he was just being friendly. But it is a measure of who I am that I spent the rest of the walk reconstructing his story and deconstructing the moment.
But it happened this morning. It's so odd, and so unusuaal, that I am a little unsettled -- not in a "whoa, I'm a smexy broad after all" sort of way, but in a "what was he really thinking?" way. And I'm trying to piece together who and what this man was from the details I saw as Truff;le dragged me along.
Saturday mornings Truffle and I take the car to Emma at seven in the morning so she can go to Monterey and scrape otter crap off the rocks of the exhibit there. Then we walk back. After next Saturday we'll have to do tjhis differently because she won't nbe living in walking distance anymore.
Anyway, so Truffle and I are walking home and we're passing Zachary's which is a steak-and-breakfast place from the old days. By nine o'clock in the morning you can't pass on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant because there's so many hipsters and yuppies standing around there. But it's not at the "good" end of Pacific Avenue. It's perilously close to the bars and the tattoo and piercing parlors and the head shops. So you get some street louts hanging around there too.
This morning there are two people lounging in front of Zachary's door. One is a young hispanic man in a hoodie, who has slumped down with his hood over his face -- 7:00 is too early for him! The other is a middle-aged blond-and-tanned-and-obviously-exercises kind of guy in white jeans and a white tee shirt, stirring a paper cup of coffee.
I tend to make brief, brief eye contact with people I cross on the sidewalk. I don't like extended eye contact ever, but I feel like it matters to acknowledge people on the street even when I don't want to engage them in conversation, and over the years I have tuned this so I mostly successfully do just that: acknowledge people in a respectful and respectable way, without engaging them unless I want to.
In a town with a lot of people in it that don't get a lot of respect, I feel this is really important. A moment of shared dignity, that's all.
However, instead of the usual brief nod or maybe "good morning," I got waggled eyebrows. That was a bit unsettling, but maybe he's practicing to be one of those old guys that do that. Then, as I passed, he stood a bit taller and said "looking fine," which is of course a definitive flirtatious greeting.
But seriously. I've gained twenty pounds since the nice fellow died (more or less: I have to go by my clothes as the third scale I bought in a year varies by twenty pounds depending on how I stand on it -- I got a sptring scale this time because the digital ones died so fast, but it's worse than not having a scale at all because if I didn't have one I might think I could buy one): I'm wearing clothes that are way too big for me since I can't wear the ones I bought last summer (and there's nothing in between, I promise you. The size I ought to be right now is a myth. The clothes are all either as bifg as the next size up or as small as the next size down. I won't fit into anything until I lose these twenty pounds again, or more): I'm a month late for a haircut and seriously shaggy and I barely brushed my hair because I was in a rush: and I haven't had my bath, which means stubble on my face, yes, stubble. And I've caught my expression in the mirror, and lately it never stops looking sad, even when I'm happy about something (which I am, often, the world is full of beautiful things). Like a damned Pieta or something.
So, while I may look like a pleasant little old lady, I am not fine in the usual flirtatious sense of the word. But it wasn't a serious flirtation anyway.
So I started wondering about him. All the way back, I tried to recall the details of his appearance and analyze them. Since that block is often inhabited by street people, that thought did occur to me. But his white clothes were immaculate (I think), and his skin didn't have the coarseness that comes from living rough (not everybody on the street has it, even at his age, which is about mine). So who wears all white in Santa Cruz?
Capoeristas: "village" drummers: sometimes, for some reason, yacht bums. All of those were possible. Silly me, though, I didn't think of it until I got home: both the men lounging on the street in front of Zachary's work there. Of course. Some chefs like to wear all white to work. (I guess it advertises the cleanliness of their operation)
So I guess I got flirted with by weekend Zachary's breakfast chef.
I kind of laughed and said good morning as my dog pulled me along, because my discomfort is my problem, and not his doing: he was just being friendly. But it is a measure of who I am that I spent the rest of the walk reconstructing his story and deconstructing the moment.