Strange day...

Mr. Ameliabee and I went to the Mayfair Mall in Milwaukee to hide from the heat. We were there for a few hours, and the emergency broadcast system (you know, the "Breep, Breep, Breep, this is a test of the emergency broadcast system..." thing that you hear on the radio? They apparently have them in malls too.) kept sounding about some guy they were looking to arrest. It gave the whole afternoon a sort of Department of Homeland Security feel to it. At least I felt like my threat level had been raised. Definitely felt more Orange than Yellow.


Anyway. We were also in Milwaukee to snap a photo of yet another great sign--from a 24 hour restaurant in West Allis.
When are they open? I don't know. I suppose we'll ask Mr. Alway, he owns the place, after all.


So a good portion of the day spent in Milwaukee. When we got back to Madison, we decided to go to the Culver's in Middleton. Which is where I ran into someone from my high school class.

This might not sound remarkable, but keep in mind that I attended a very small (about 350 kids) school, in a small-ish town which is located approximated 450 miles from Madison. Of my graduating class of 100 I'd say about 40 left town after graduation. Also, that I graduated 2o years ago.

It was the weirdest thing. We walked into Culver's, and I noticed him as I was going in to wash my hands. This is a fairly distinctive looking guy--we always thought he looked like David Letterman--so I was stopped dead in my tracks. I tried not to look like I was staring while we ate, but I finally got my nerve up to go say hi. He recognized me right away, and said that I hadn't changed a bit since school. All those years ago, we weren't friends really, but it was a small school so you ended up being kind of friendly with everyone by default. He has lived here for about 3 years now, and his parents were visiting from home. We chatted briefly about jobs, and classmates (neither of us really kept in touch with much of anyone) and then we both went to eat our custards.

Of course, my crazy brain started in the moment I sat back down.
This is so embarrassing...you don't have any makeup on, your hair looks like Nick Nolte's, and you have no fewer than 3 spots of ketchup on your shirt. You look like you crawled out from under a truck stop. Haven't changed since school? What did he mean by that? Is he trying to say you were fat in high school? Cause you are fat now, darlin. F-A-T. You know, that reunion is this summer...and you better start working on it Right Now if intend to weigh less than a baby rhino by August. Let's see, if you could lose 5 pounds a week by the reunion you could probably lose enough to look like a single person instead of triplets sharing a dress. And how are you going to get your Ph.D before August?

And then, I stopped myself. I realized he might have actually meant that I looked good, and that he was glad to see me. He might not be, at this very moment, on the cell phone to every single person in our class, wheezing with laughter at what a fat loser I was, and sending them a cameraphone picture of my ass waddling back to eat my custard. He might have just been glad to see me.

For about 15 minutes, I managed to stay right there in the moment and enjoy the weirdness of the universe that brought us together in Culver's. And I was glad to see him too.

I am proud of myself for making this much progress, and for being able to step out of the crazy cycle this way. I hope that it is a sign of mental health to come. To come in baby steps...