Tap Dancing Nekkid Down the Street

You ever have a moment when you're just frazzled? Like "Holy shit, I have to be someplace by 6:30, and I have to stop at the grocery store, and I have to load up the car, and I have to pick up my sister, and I have to be all the way on the other side of town by 6:30, and dammit, what possessed me to answer my phone at 5:02, as I was shutting down my computer? That always leads to at least a 10 minute conversation! Shit, I'm never gonna make it by 6:30!" (I was still a few minutes late, but such is my life. I was actually a lot close to being on time than I thought I would be!)

So, as all these thoughts were swirling through the old noggin, I was walking into the grocery store (to get some snackums for a lovely ladies night of drinks, snacks, chubby baby cheeks, laughter and wedding craftiness. That's another post for another time ;-) and I'm relatively sure that I had a crinkly, intense look on my face and I am almost 100% certain that I was talking to myself. But in spite of my crazy lady persona, another woman was walking out the door and said a very simple sentence: "You look really pretty today!"

Now I had never met this woman before, and I'll most likely never see her again (or if I do, I won't recognize her, because I was so far into my frazzle that I couldn't pick her out if she went tap dancing nekkid down the street), but that one simple, unexpected compliment put me in a totally different headspace.

This morning I went to yoga and breakfast with my buddy Ru again (Apparently we have deep conversations. I guess that's what sunshiney yoga'll do to ya!) and we got to talking about how, as a society, we have stopped having connections with people. **This came about because we were sitting outside the North Market, where they have picnic tables that can easily seat 8 people. A guy walked by and seemed exasperated because there were people sitting at each table, but none of them were even close to full. Hell, he could have sat at our table. We were the only 2 sitting there, and while I know that we were two stone cold foxes in our workout gear, we clearly make awesome dining companions!

But when's the last time you actually spoke to a stranger? Do you text people for 2 hours to get the same information that could have been ferreted out with a 3 minute phone convo? When you're by yourself in public, do you bury yourself in the latest igaldroidberry gadget and have no clue what's going on around you, or even do it as a deterrent to keep strangers from talking to you? Guilty. Let's change that! The next time you see someone wearing a fly ass pair of shoes or you hear someone with a great laugh, tell them! You never know who you'll be breaking out of their frazzled brain cage :-)