Walk On By

Last week I was in downtown Petaluma for an interview--an interview for my music column, not a job interview. This very nice musician named Kirana met me at the local non-Starbucks coffee shop. Afterwards, on my way back to my car, I passed a few spots where I used to cat around a little bit, like Gale's Saloon. I once caused a drunken scene there and had to be dragged out of the bar. It's not a thing I'm proud of, but it did happen (only once, thankfully)...Those emotionally corrupt times are past me now, and thinking back on the loutish wannabe I was back then and the self-involved people I hung out with makes me uncomfortable. I think I needed that part of my life to happen, but I'm happy it's behind me. So I usually get squirrelly in Petaluma, thinking I'll run into someone I used to know but would have no idea what to say to now...and then I did pass somene. It was this crazy guy who used to be in this sample-based band/music project. We went out on a date once, and in the middle of the thing he informed me that we were not on a date. But then he said that he was too drunk to go home and he should stay with me, so we talked in my room all night long. I was super horny and wanted to engage in some physical contact, but out of respect for his "let's just be friends" position I retrained myself. It was terribly awkward...He revealed to me that he was into submissive S&M stuff, and throught the lens of retrospect I can now recall that my cone-breasted, black-corseted Madonna costume was hanging in plain view in my closet, which had no door. Perhaps he had read me the wrong way, pegging me for a dominatrix type--if he saw the Madonna costume, that only could have confirmed it! But, being a shy dork with no dominatrix skills or desires, I could not and would not deliver. He didn't know that the Madonna costume--albeit sexy and domineering--was only dress-up for Halloween. We went to Denny's and had a very early breakfast, then I got dressed and went to work, where in a drowsy haze I retraced the steps of the evening and tried to make sense of it all...I really did like the guy. He was cute and talented and unavailable and mentally unstable, a combination I always fell for. For a good few months I fixated on him, but, save a few cryptic phone messages, he made himself scarce. Then I met the man who would become my husband, whose kindness and unspoilable goodness and honesty quickly erased the spectre of this manic-depressive, sexually submissive sampling musician from my brain...But then in Petaluma the other day, I saw him walking down the sidewalk in these 1960s throwback rocker sunglasses. What should I do--pretend I didn't see him and walk on by? No, that never works; people can sense the effort you out into not looking at them. So I looked right into his eyes (or rather, directly into his sunglasses) and smiled as we passed each other. He nodded kindly, but didn't smile much. And we both kept on walking and that was it...I was overjoyed. He he not recognized me? Had he recognized me but not known how to react with my own superior looking-directly-in-the-eyes manouver? It didn't matter--I was long ago released from the chains of doting on idiotic man-boys, and I was overjoyed to realize that I didn't really care what this guy thought one way or the other. I thought of that Burt Bacherach song "Walk On By," which is a great song, especially the Dionne Warwicke version. But the melancholy sentiment of hearbreak in the song was gleefully inappropriate for the situation, so intead I just thought about how much I liked that song, and where Joe and I would go for dinner that night.