a little worse than normal

I began talking to this cute young lady tonight at Books-a-Million. Turned out she was just a couple of years younger than me, and we had a decent amount in common. Certainly the cuisine chat was great, although I had to say that I felt that the South Beach Diet cookbooks I had in my hand sort of cramped my style. Not sure why diet books do that, but methinks it has to do with admitting that you need any tweaking at all. Smacks of underconfidence in some weird way...

After, we ventured together into the Christian books section. It suprised me to some extent that she had a working knowledge of theology. Apparently she went to a Christian high school, yet her knowledge of real THEOLOGY writers was more adult than that would suggest - more NT Wright, less (fill in inspirational writer).

At last it was time to gather my guts and do what must be done - ask her out on a date. So I asked where she lived. She said "Memphis". Damnay... I inquired as to whether or not that was her hometown. "No", she says, "Fort Smith is where I grew up. I hope to move back here soon, but my husband is in optometry school in Memphis."

A brief contemplation of suicide, and then I began the long march of re-channeling the converation towards inevitable dismissal.

"Nice to meet you", she said. "Really nice. It was so random and interesting. Wish I could talk to you more often, but we're just visiting family for the weekend. By the way, I'm Sara."

I replied in like words and then we parted.

Normally that sort of thing doesn't get to me. Why did it this time? She did seem like a particularly classy, informed, like-minded and quirky sort of person. Cute, in a deceptively youngish-looking and somewhat coffee shop way (my favorite).

It effected me more than usual. I've been blaise all evening.