Let's Get Awkward!

So here was a nice Let’s Yes moment.

Last Monday I’m at La Guardia airport, heading home to Florida for the Thanksgiving holiday. And as I walk down Terminal D (D stands for Delta!) I see a semi-familiar face. Like, semi-familiar, as in, I probably met this person before, but for the life of me, I can’t quite tell where. And I have no idea their name or anything like that, but I AM sure that they’re someone I’ve met face-to-face, and it isn’t, say, Lisa Loeb.

This isn’t all that unusual, because with the fancy lifestyle I lead, I’m always meeting tens - if not dozens - of people on a weekly basis, but I’m terrible with names and not much better with faces (unless it’s Lisa Loeb). And I like to say, “It’s not who you know, but who knows you” as a way of assuaging my guilt about this, because I don’t know them - they just know me. So that makes it OK, right?

We half-notice each other, and we're on the cusp of greetings and official recognition, but I keep walking. And I literally take two steps, stop mid-stride, think for a moment, shake my head and go, “Nah,” and keep walking to my gate, which is always at the very end of the terminal. Always.

But that was a very cinematic moment, I tell you. It might not translate so well to blogspeak, but it was one of those crucial points in the movie where the main character almost, almost, ALMOST could’ve solved everything, but then he kept walking because there’s still another hour of wacky highjinks to deal with.

So then I sit down at Gate 6, eat my sandwich, and think I might not have actually ever met that stranger at Gate 3, I might have dreamed about them. Stranger things have happened. And if they WERE some companion from a long-forgotten dream, then I really ought to reconnect with them, right? And, damn it, what’s the point of having this blog if I’m not gonna go up and talk to some semi-stranger and then blog about it later?

I finish my sandwich and walk back to Gate 3. I walk by, we half-notice each other again, but this time I make the greetings and the sign of recognition, and proceed to have a bizarre and pleasant conversation.

How are you doing? Where are you headed? For how long? Where do you live, again? How do I know you? What’s your name? What was it that we talked about the last time we met that I thought was interesting? Are you real or someone from the Dreamworld? Am I crazy? Do you actually know me, or just recognize me?

That sort of thing, minus the ridiculous questions. But I tried (and failed) to find out how I knew this person, and then when some very specific statements were said (“Did you go to the bar after French Stewart's show?" - thusly, we both know French Stewart, and more importantly, this stranger knows that I know him), I still couldn’t figure out how we knew each other.

Luckily, I called ____ afterward and was able to get the scoop, but hearing those details (“You met last month. We were sitting talking about old-fashioned card games.”), it was all news to me. Worse, Sarah remembered meeting this person, and yet I didn’t. That makes me a lame-o, right? Wrong! It makes me an awesome-o for even being recognized at the airport... and by Lisa Loeb, no less.