Did you happen to notice that man at the grocery store the other day? The one with the Sharp Irish Cheddar and the bundle of celary and three Yoplait yoghurts in his cart? There was a moment where he stopped what he was doing - weighing a plastic bag full of chocolate dipped pretzels - to stare at your back and wonder if he knew you or not. You probably didn't notice. You were too busy wondering if your boss caught you looking at that nasty web page when she walked in on you, when she was supposed to be in that meeting until noon and here it was, eleven. You were wondering while simultaneously maneuvering your cart around an ancient, wrinkled dwarf woman wearing huge sunglasses and a purple paisly scarf wrapped around her course black hair.

That man stared at your back and could have sworn he knew you, that maybe you were Greta the file clerk in the downtown branch who worked the swing shift. The same Greta who spoke Spanish and German almost fluently and who could sing Beatles tunes like she was Paul. Same pitch, same tone. Greta used to occasionally smile at him when he clocked out, saying something like "Sure glad Monday's over," or "Well, at least it's Wednesday-humpday!" and always "TGIF, George, TGI-fuckin'-F!"

But you weren't Greta. You were the same stress case overly processing know-it-all with a superiority complex and a serious case of sexual addiction. The kid who in 4th grade always had to be Captain Kirk when playing Star Trek during recess, never Spock. Not on your life would you be caught dead playing Scotty or Bones. Never one of those dispensible red-shirts who would get killed every episode.

It was this same dominant style that lead to you being so preoccupied with your own trip that kept you from seeing the love of your life. Yep, that's right. Breezed right by you at the car wash and you were too busy talking loudly into your cell phone about how little sleep you've been getting. The love of your god damned life. You'll never meet another person - or come close to meeting another person - who would have been so perfect for you, but you were busy. Busy busy busy, wondering what the caterers were serving for lunch today, whether you should have the salmon with a mango-avocado relish or the stuffed chicken covered in a sun-dried tomato cream sauce.

You eventually choose the chicken, though you justify that sauce by staying way too long at the gym that night, and no, not because you're cruising the hottie working his abs on the sit-up machine by the water fountain. He didn't even know you were in the room. He was too busy reciting the monologue he was performing in about 2 hours down at the dinghy black box theater on Santa Monica and Cole. He was practicing his diction, performing the exercises that were supposed to help strengthen his esses, not sound so lispy. Queer, to be precise. His agent didn't say it, but he got the distinct impression that his agent thought he was gay. He wasn't, he just had this lisp since he was four years old and by god if that wasn't a hard habit to break.

Of course he got the lisp from his mother baby-talking to him well past the time when that's cute or safe. No wonder he had a lisp. No wonder he couldn't pronounce his r's any other way than "aw", like he was Elmer Fudd or something. Can you blame him? With a mother like that, who talks to her son as if he were a daschund or a parakeet?

But she was a freak. If you'd known her, or saw her picture even, you'd think "that woman needs to get laid." You'd wonder if she was harboring some kind of grudge, or whether she had a painful canchor sore on her tongue. That was the kind of expression she went about her day with. Like she accidentally drank the cooking oil thinking it was apple juice. Her forehead was smooth, not due to lack of worry, oh no, but because her bun was pulled so tight it broke all the tiny hairs at her hairline.

But back to you.