Sorrylar

OK, it's one thing to be a bitch when I want to be a bitch. I put so much energy into ignoring people I don't like, that it's almost as good as paying them a great deal of attention. But not. You know what I'm saying?

But it's another thing to be a bitch totally by accident, when my mind is a million miles away and I see someone without seeing them, and so, don't smile or wave or acknowledge them, although they smiled and waved and acknowledged me. And I actually kind of like them.

It's like this. I saw the lady I go to facials on a lazy Saturday morning when Mary Z and I were lingering over our English breakfast at Sri Hartamas. I was busy delighting in the fact that this kopi tiam served real bacon (rather than its strange and halal proxy beef bacon) and we had just had excellent coffee and kaya toast. Full and contented I was leaning back when I saw this babe alight from a car with two guys and a cute little boy. I checked her out and whistled in my mind. She was hot.

I didn't see her smile and wave at me (I wonder where my eyes were focussed). Then Mary whipped around and said, isn't that Sherene? At which point I realised, that yeah, it was. Thing is, Sherene is my beautician and not Mary's. Mary has seen her all of twice. Yet she recognised her. And I didn't.

When we finished our breakfast, we left. I didn't say goodbye. Not deliberately. My mind was a million miles away. Lost in some alternate reality where silly girls have sex in the Backyard at 2 in the morning, sullying the name of that family pub. I was busy bugging Jerry (who joined us for breakfast by accident) about it. Jerry kindly offered to ban me from the pub instead. I felt mildly indignant as I don't get up to no good there. I don't get up to no bad either. So I walked out without saying goodbye to Sherene.

She told me today that she thought I was mad at her for some reason. What with one thing and another (she moved shop from the middle of Bangsar to Pantai Panorama) I haven't been to see her for more than two months. Yikes.

What could I say? I apologised profusely and said that I am sometimes very blur. Then I wondered surreptitiously how many other people I have offended similarly by walking around with my mind on a hundred other things (usually the latest book I have read or a conversation I had or some abstruse problem that nobody but me would give much thought too).

I don't mean to be stuck-uplar. I really didn't see you. Or I saw you without seeing you. Yes, it's possible. They don't call me Silly Nut for nothing.