Kindred Spirits

"You are twisted and wrong, and I love you so much right now."

I was charging my phone at WordCamp Atlanta, and a fellow attendee was showing me pictures of her cosplay group. Starship Troopers was next, she said. And she held up her phone to so I could see her playing Carol Burnett as Scarlet O'Hara. Oh, and she was a retired engineer. And she was the oldest one in her group. And she loved every bit of it. We were giggling over the details of her costume, and I told her how much I loved her twisted sense of humor.

I love unexpected little moments of instant kinship. My sense of humor is fairly immature: I like a good dirty joke. I love the shock of a well-placed non-vulgar swear word. I laugh at myself and appreciate people who don't take themselves too seriously.

So when I meet people who get me and I mean They. Get. Me....well, I feel understood. And even if we never meet again, these people are my momentary best friends.

I wrote this poem a little over a year and a half ago, as part of my A Poem Before Breakfast series. This is me. This is my life.

I write because

sometimes I go

to museums

and notice the

cool sandals

on a statue

so I take

a bunch of

picture with

 my phone

and then I go

straight to the 

shoe department

at Saks and show

the salesperson my

phone and point

to the pictures and

say I want sandals

just like these

but with slightly

thicker straps

please, because

Rome was the center

of the art world

but they never once

mentioned a thing

about durable shoes

at least as far as I know

and the salesperson sighs

because she

is going to do her job

and do it well

but she hates me a little bit and

she's so not in the mood

for any of this shit

but instead of

saying anything like that

she just says

those crazy Romans

and then we make eye contact

and we both start laughing so hard

we actually reach out and grab each other's hand

two strangers

holding hands

and giggling

over tiny absurdities

and if I don't write

about stuff like that

then who will?

This post is part of a Blogging A To Z series where during the month of April, I write a new, personal story almost every day (except Sundays).

illustration: Ilse Valfre