There I sat, cross-legged at the edge of the lawn at the northwest corner of Spruce and West 11th, early for a studio visit, my bike beside me, head down as I wrote in my palm-sized dollar store scribbler a question that occurred to me on the ride over, when a figure approaches, diagonally across the intersection, her voice a piercing scoff, "Creepy!" she says, and I look up: a woman, mid-30s, dressed in practical 9-to-5 black, skirt, heels, a handbag over her shoulder, staring at me, non-stopping. "What's creepy?" I ask, and she says, "You sitting by the roadside writing a note to yourself." She veers to her right, onto the sidewalk to my left. "What's so creepy about that?" I ask, and she turns again, this time from anything resembling a civilized conversation. "You approached me!" she says passing by. I tell her I did not, and she says, "Yes, you did! And I am within my rights to tell you to FUCK OFF!" And then, over her shoulder now, "Watch your face!" And I think about this as I return to my scribbler and add to it our exchange, hoping I can make sense of it as writing.
