WordPress featured my last post on their Freshly Pressed page earlier this week. Which means my previous record for hits had already been decimated by the time I got out of bed to pee Tuesday morning. Which means I definitely no longer regret purchasing those paintings. (One of them is actually a photograph, not a painting. This occurred to me only an hour ago).

Becoming the poster child for anxiety may not be exactly how I dreamed of rising to WordPress fame, but I ain’t complaining. I literally spent the day hitting refresh on my stats page. I’m not going to lie to you.

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(September 16th was my previous record).

There were only two times that day I was able to pry my wide eyes and gaping jaw from the screen long enough to carry on with my normally-scheduled, anxiety-inducing activities.

One was to go to HyVee for lunch at their salad bar, which was an enjoyable experience until I spotted my old boss at the soda fountain right when I was about to stand up to leave. Panicked, I pressed myself up against the wall of my booth (Like this would hide me? I dunno) until she sat down on the other side of the room. Phew.

Originally I had planned to fill a to-go cup but had to abandon this idea to reduce the risk of being spotted, figuring that I could just stop in at a gas station on my way back instead.

But as I was gathering my trash to leave, the unexpected happened. A customer situated himself right at the entrance/exit to the eating area, pulled out a violin (Out of his bag? Out of thin air? I don’t know, it seemed to just appear), and began to play a beautiful rendition of Bach’s cello suite no. 1 in G. All eyes turned to him.

Dammit.

This doesn’t have a dramatic ending. I just ended up quickly squeezing past the violinist (literally squeezing, he was much too close to the wall on my side) without looking back as an employee called out to warn me to be careful on the slippery floor.

The second and last time I left my screen was to go on an evening walk, which turned into what all my walks turn into: me swinging at a school playground while little children run circles around me.

A little boy was there with his mom, and his mom was wearing the most amazing pair of red pants. I could not stop staring at her pants as I swung, quickly looking away whenever she spotted me staring, and mentally making a pros and cons list that looked something like this:

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Obviously, pros won. Her pants are from Banana Republic.