stories :-). And: chameleon?

I felt like the Pied Piper yesterday - my aura was amped up to some radiant rainbow brightness. People, of all ages, shapes, sizes, stripes, seemed to be unusually friendly to me. Maybe I was just being more 'out there' than usual? Maybe all this work with boundaries, etc., is finally beginning to pay off?*

*meaning that I'm less afraid of people *crossing* the boundaries, because I'm getting better at protecting them. So maybe I'm more open, again, more free? Like I used to be when I was younger.

Story continued:
Two little boys - one, possibly Nigerian? who had marginal English - and another, smaller boy, whose nationality I couldn't guess - were kicking a soccer ball in front of the library. As I went in, the ball escaped and rolled toward me, and I kicked it back, which seemed to both please and surprise them (or at least the older boy, whose age I can't really guess, but, while he *looked* quite small, he *seemed* a bit older. Maybe somewhere around 13? No clue.) When I left, they were still playing, and the older of the two boys said, "Want to kick it?" (or something like that, and no, he was not being hipster - I think his English was just minimal.)

So I stayed and kicked the ball for a while, but the younger one seemed less excited by my presence, and though the older one consistently kicked the ball my way for me to have a try, the other boy didn't. So after a while, maybe five minutes or so? I said, "Thanks," and went on my way.

And later in the day, as I was on the homeward leg of my run/walk loop, two little kids were sitting on their back porch and yelled at me, "What's your name?" as I went by. I stopped, put my hands on my hips and yelled back, "What's *your* name?" And they told me. I told them mine, but with the distance and the wind I think they were calling me some other name altogether. *shrug* If I see them again some time, maybe I'll correct it.

And then I was going around the back side of the park, and there were some kids and a dad kicking soccer balls into some nets. I came over and asked if I could kick some, too, and he said sure. So I kicked into the second net that they weren't using for a while, then decided to try being 'part of the gang'. I turned and asked if I could get in line, too.

They didn't seem to know quite what to make of me, but they were accepting and open. And there was only one little girl in the bunch - quite the livewire, full of life and energy, and she kept looking at me, sizing me up. I think she couldn't figure out what category of 'grown up' I fit into, or whether I was actually a 'grown up' at all. And one of the boys, who seemed maybe - East Indian? He was darker-skinned than the others, who were all latino - was really friendly to me and chatted me right up, and I overheard him say to the others, later, "I really like her." :-) Grasshopper's face lights up again :-)

That's what was funny: Kids, all day yesterday, kept treating me like I was one of them. It's cool, because I've long felt (as per a recent writing) that I missed out on much of my childhood, somehow, what with the reading and being cooped up alone so much, and moving constantly, and my anti-social parents.

So I'm getting to make up for it now!

Walking home from the park, I was feeling good and not really ready to go home, but it was getting dark and I was near the house, so I was sort of bouncing, trying to figure out what I wanted to do, and these teenagers came up the street toward me, carrying skateboards. The first two were a boy and girl (couple?), and they seemed to be a mix of goth/emo/punk/whatever.

And they WAVED to me. Like, all casual and friendly (best California surfer girl voice, there.) It was the damnedest thing. I don't know if the near darkness made it look like I was a lot younger than I am? or what. But I waved cheerfully back, feeling slightly idiotic. "All life's a stage," or some such thing.

All day long it felt as if I was the same age, status and social class as whatever person I was near. The ultimate social chameleon, maybe. I don't know if this was 'good' or 'bad', but I sure had fun! And so did everyone else, or so it seemed.

Oh yeah, and I gave a guy at the grocery store my phone number! Out of the blue! I've NEVER done that before.

But I just felt like it - he was really friendly, and we ran into each other three times in the span of 10 minutes in a way that made it seem, well, karmic or something. Like we were destined to meet, and what the hell, why not?

So I finally worked up the nerve to give him my phone number. I'd thought of doing it in the store, but there were too many people and it didn't feel right.

Then I was sitting out in the car, wondering if I'd see him one more time, so I wrote my number on a scrap of paper, thinking that, if I saw him a third time, it was meant to be; and if not, not. So I was getting ready to start the car and back out, and looked one more time in my rear-view mirror, and lo and behold, there was a woman I hadn't seen in years walking right behind my car! So I jumped out, managed to remember her name before she got too far away to comfortably catch her, and talked to her for a bit.

When we parted ways, I remembered the guy, and thought, Well, he's probably gone by now and I've missed him.

So I got back in my car and started to back out, but it was really crowded and busy, and there were lots of pedestrians and cars passing behind me.

As I sat there and waited for a clear spot, lo and behold, who do I see walk out, but The Guy! And of course he walks right behind my car and over to his truck, which happens to be parked almost opposite mine on the other side of my same row of the parking lot.

So I watched for my window of opportunity, and when the mob had cleared enough for me to back out, he was still there, just trundling his empty basket back to the store.

He didn't see me in my car, but I kind of called to him, and he turned and walked back over.

I stuck my arm out the window with the number, and said, "Here, I've never done this before."

He glanced at it, said, "____, huh? My name's _____." And we shook hands, he was very friendly! And I was so shocked by the smoothness, ease and simplicity of the whole thing that I just smiled at him, said, "See ya," and drove away, as he continued walking toward the store to return his cart.

There were lots of little thing I liked about him in that insanely brief encounter: He was friendly without being aggressive, in that almost-shy-but-still-confident-enough-to-speak-up way that I really like :-)

And when I first spoke to him, he was standing in front of the dairy cooler, where I wanted to get some whipped cream, and he was loading his cart up with little cartons of chocolate milk!

First, I was delighted by the chocolate milk, and then I had to tease him about getting so many, so I said, "I think you need more chocolate milk." He said, "Well, there just aren't any big ones!" So I said, "I'll just look the other way while you take them all." He laughed.

Then we met again over by the cookies/frozen food, where he pulled the classic, "We've got to stop meeting like this," or one of those lines. He was endearingly - simple? Or so it seemed - if we meet on Saturday as planned, we'll see how that 'simple' looks in a longer-playing encounter.

***
The red flag that's struck me so far is that, in his message (he called me a couple hours after our meeting, which seemed fabulously perfect timing! Not too long, not too short, but JUST RIGHT!) he said something about "being really busy right now." And then when we talked (I called him another hour or so after he left his message) he mentioned being 'busy' again, and further reinforced it by saying something like, "I'm a busy guy." Or something like that. I remember being a bit puzzled by it, frankly. Why would a person say that, when they're just getting to know you? And yet seem not to be in any hurry, or have any trouble scheduling time for you? Another one of those 'split personality' moments that I'm beginning to really hate about people, especially when they seem to have no awareness of their 'alter egos'. Which, I guess, is kind of why it's called 'split', isn't it. (One then has to ask: Why are you, Grasshopper, so consistently attracted to this sort of person? Are *all* people this way, to some degree or other? [And I would answer, "Yes, we're all this way to varying degrees."] But the *degree* to which they're split - maybe it's something to do with being raised by two people who seemed especially out of touch with, or even frightened by, their own emotions? And who seem(ed) to have ridiculously few resources for dealing with same?