you know that one person you know youre bound to run into because they live in the same city? the run-in you hope to avoid, but know will happen because life is like that (but secretly hope WILL happen so you can tell all your friends)? i had my 'incident' this weekend.

quick, relatively painless, but oh so awkward. knew her back in college, had a bit of a sordid past. like a moth to a flame, i couldnt avoid the occasional facebook stalk to see what she was up to. lo and behold i find out she ALSO moved to dc, ALSO working at an environmental NGO. hhmmmmmm. mostly i just go about my business not really thinking about it, but every so often i wonder, staring at the masses of unfamiliar faces on the metro or walking down the street, if ill ever see her again. what would i say? what would she say? on a scale of 1-10, how awkward would it be?

last sunday, a particularly lovely day otherwise marked by a trip to my local farmers market, took a turn for the awkward. mid sentence i looked across the street, and saw her waiting at the other end of the crosswalk. no heart palpitations, no beads of sweat, just a kind of resignation that i had to say something. and it would be weird.

we passed eachother. i wasnt sure if she was playing coy or truly hadnt seen me, but i was going in for the kill. like pulling off a bandaid. i called out her name, quick and breezy. she looked up, gave me an "oh hi" in that lets-pretend-were-still-friends-and-make-plans-to-coffee-together-even-though-we-both-know-thats-not-happening kind of high pitched tone. to avoid actual conversation (and not get runover) i responded with the obvious. "were in the crosswalk." she shrugged. and that was that. we both turned our respective directions and walked away.

a little anticlimactic, no?