Sweat Stain
This morning I gave a talk about Kyrgyzstan and Peace Corps and what not. I know, my use of the English language shows how I'm meant to speak in front of people. I didn't realize till half way through how bad I was sweating. My armpits were soaked but I didn't even notice those till later. I had a random sweat patch on my side. I'm always classy. I ended up giving the second half of my speech with my arm pinned next to my side to try and hide the huge sweat stain as best I could.
I always find giving little speeches or talks about yourself so revealing. I enjoyed that after the talk I was able to go to the library to get some reading done and be totally anonymous. However, my anonymity got blown. One of the ladies from my talk happened to be at the library with her grand daughters. She brought them over to meet me and started telling them all about how I had been in Peace Corps in Kyrgyzstan and where that is. The girls asked me some questions, I answered, it was all very polite. Afterwards is when it got weird. There had been a real Alaskan type gentleman- long white hair, scraggly white beard, leathery face, big boots and standard issue flannel- sitting across from me for a few hours before this interaction. He hadn't taken any notice of me, because there was nothing to notice I was just some girl reading a book. After, however, I apparently became the most interesting thing in the place. He just stared at me. I made the obligatory stare back, the kind of stare where it says say something or stop looking at me. He did neither. I eventually just got so creeped out that I left. I normally don't let on lookers win the battle of the creepy stare, but I had a a book to finish and some anonymity to reclaim.
2 comments :
Oh, I hate it when people stare. This happened to me in Washington, D.C. last year at the hotel. This man was watching me as I ate my breakfast and chatted with a friend. When I stood up to get some more coffee, his head turned, and he stared at me while I walked to the coffee, poured the coffee, walked back to the table, and drank the coffee. He then stared at me when I walked back to grab an orange. I got weirded out when he also started staring at my friend as she toasted a bagel, so I gave him a NASTY glare. He stopped staring. I felt like a true asshole when he came to my table later and started chatting about how he loves watching people and their interactions, and that he thought we looked nice, and he was just people watching since he was alone at breakfast. He turned out to be really nice and we had a great conversation. Wow, this was a long comment.
Hey Carol- Happy Bday! I think you should see if you could make it up to Anchorage on Saturday March 7th (I'd still come down to Homer later). There are festivities downtown for the start of the Iditarod. I've not seen the start of a dogsled race yet. We'd have a place to stay at my friend's house, too, so no cost of lodging at all and she has 4 cold-weather dogs. A Samoyed, a Malamute, a Siberian Husky, and a sled dog (=Alaska husky/mutt). I'm not sure what plane ticket prices are, but I'm sure there'd be someone coming up from Homer... not sure how you'd hook up with them.
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