In high school, I was a bit of an outcast. No, seriously. Stop with that smirk. In my grad year, I started to talk to a few more people and realize that they had at some point turned into human beings. Not many had, mind you, but a few. One of the nicest surprises was Wayne, a fellow who, it turns out, could sing. Really well. In fact, he and I and a couple of other guys worked together on putting the words to the class song, written by another cool guy, to music. It was fun. I felt like a bit of an imposter, really, because there were definitely better singers in the school than I, but somehow I got roped into it, and into singing it in front of the whole damn class (164 or so) of people who had never indicated that they'd ever thought me anything but a geek, in order to show off the melody that mostly the rest of the 'team' had come up with. And, if I recall correctly, he asked me to sing a duet with him at one point. I might be off my rocker with that one, though.

Actually, as an aside, I sang in most of the talent-type concerts we had, and in our grad concert, and whatnot. And in the yearbook, in the story made up about where we'd all be in ten years ("so and so parks your cars for you, while you walk down the street and see such and such in their stereotypical store") they wrote me in as the lead singer of a band. Called Irony. That kind of hurt. What hurt more is that my oldest friend supposedly was in on writing that piece. Not my best friend, but my oldest.

Anyway. The point has been dulled by the boring edge of my high school bitterness.

Right. Wayne.

One day last summer at Open Mic, a guy I didn't recognize, who was sitting in the corner, caught my eye, looked straight at me, and said, "Hi, Gayle." I was startled; more so because he looked very much like a friend I'd had who had passed away a while before. Being so inept in social skills (and a little freaked out), I may or may not have said hi back, and then scuttled off.

Three days later, it hit me: Wayne! It was Wayne. Not that I'm so blond that I didn't recognize him; no, his head was shaved, and he seemed to have gained about 2-300 pounds. I felt really bad that I hadn't recognized him and stopped to talk for a little while.

Fast forward to the past couple of months. I was uninterestedly 'watching' the news, when suddenly, there's Wayne! It was a 'feel good' story about how he had once weighed 500 pounds, and how he had lost over half of it back again! I was utterly delighted. He looked just like he had back in high school. I wished I'd had his phone number so I could call him and tell him just how happy I was for him. I didn't articulate it in my head, but I know how easy it is to let food take over control of your life, and I was just overjoyed that he'd taken back that control.

I had no way to contact him without seeming crazy, however, so sadly, I let it go.

Yesterday I walked into the gas station general store to wait for a friend to pee. I called Shauna to see if she was awake after backshift yet; I was just across the street from her house and I figured I'd just go over if she was up. She wasn't. I was in the middle of a sentence leaving her a message when I looked up and standing in front of me, saying hi to me even, was Wayne! I was stunned. I stuttered some kind of end to the message to Shauna, hung up and said HI!! I told him that I'd seen him and not recognized him at the bar so long ago; and that I'd seen him on the news and wished I'd been able to call him up and say how great it was. We had a teeny bit of chitchat; I'm awful at that sort of thing, but I did what I could. Curious as to how likely it was for me to run into him there, I asked if he lived in Sydney now; nope, he was just picking up his tv in town and was heading back home - he can't do karaoke without it, and there's no paycheck without the tv. Chances were slim, which always make me think it was Meant To Happen. He looked fabulous and happy. It was really great to just chat. And it wasn't until he'd left that I realized what he'd said about picking up the tv; it meant he was probably singing to make money! How lovely.

. . .

Oh! Hey. I got my hair cut again. This time it's radically different - all layered and wispy. I was sure I had said I didn't want wispy, I wanted chunky and uneven and random and asymmetrical, but apparently you can't have everything. It's kind of like a jennifer aniston look, circa the beginning of the show. I don't know if I like it yet. I can't really tell what it looks like. I need the opinions of the three people who really matter: Shauna, Phil, and Mom. Not that I need them to tell me what I like, but I need them to tell me that they don't think it looks stupid. Pictures when I get home, I think.