uh... Do I know you?

Have you ever walked down the street and noticed someone looking at you? I mean, like some guy walking towards you with a kinda-perma-grin on his face, looking right at you like you are supposed to know who he is?

That happened to me while I was in Austin. I was on 2nd Street (downtown) just kind of wandering. Wandering and thinking, "For fuck's sake, it's hot here. Where's that damn shoe store?" (I was looking for a shoe store that turned out to be closed. I was, as a friend said, "looking for girl stuff.") These thoughts were interrupted by, "Do I know that dude? Why is he smiling at me? Uhhhh..." And as we got closer to each other he said, "Are you having a nice day?" And I said, trying not to laugh, "Yeah, sure." And as he walked past me he said, "I hope you continue to have a great day." And that was it. Weird.

I was telling a friend about it (on the phone while I tried to catch some shade under an awning at a closed Mexican restaurant while he ordered a double cheeseburger and water at some drive through). Me: "Dude, he had that total perma-grin thing going on. I swear he had to be stoned." Friend: "He probably was. Did he look homeless?" Me: "No, he looked like your average 30-something going-bald-but-shaves-his-head-hipster-type guy." (Kind of like my friend.) Friend: "Oh."

I wondered if I knew the guy walking towards me from ALA. Why? Because I was wearing my "What happens in the library stays in the library" t-shirt. And a t-shirt like that may scream "I'm a librarian!" to other librarians, it is meaningless to non-librarians. It's kind of like a secret handshake that isn't very secret. And on a t-shirt.

So, I don't know. Either he was some hipster-guy librarian or he was some stoned dude wandering downtown Austin. Or both.

But you know what, it seems that whenever I go to a city some random guy talks to me. I don't know why, but it is happening more and more. Strange.