I took tonight to take the car out and listen to the new CD I bought, but before this, I put in Mary Lou Lord's Got No Shadow. I was putting "His Lamest Flame" and "Lights Are Changing" on a mix CD, and these songs had been stuck in my head for hours.

So "His Lamest Flame" is playing. And if you don't know Mary Lou Lord, just think of a folkish sound with a slightly country voice. This is what I was listening to and singing in my head as I pulled into the 7-11. Suddenly, as I pull into the capacity parking lot, I hear, "I know him" and I see a finger pointing at me. It's a group of girls, and they're staring at me from the time I pull into the lot until the time I get out of the car.

"Hey, I know you. Did you go to East?"

"Yeah."

"I remember you." I'm standing in the doorway as she's holding the door for me, and I cannot recognize her. She only seems slightly familiar.

"I don't remember you. How do you know me?" I can't remember what she responded with, or even if she responded, but I went into the store, and watched as she and her friends still standing in the doorway and holding the door open, continued to stare at me.

"Wait until he leaves!"

As I walked out the door, she and her friends pushed past me, all saying goodbye to me. All in all, quite weird, made weirder by the fact that I had this folk singer blaring out of the speakers in the hip hop neighborhood.

So I then head to the grocery store, solely to park the car so that I can walk to the coffee shop around the corner. As I'm walking past the kids congregated on the lawn and outdoor patios, I hear my name being called.

The person was Scott, a student from WSU and the school literary magazine editor in 2001 who I interacted with in my two years of working on it. He asked me to sit down to talk with he and his friend Allison.

Talk about intimidating. These two were talking about poets and graduate programs and instructors and techniques and it's all going over my head. It's one of those rare occasions where I had to fake my way through the conversation, because I had no clue what they were talking about most of the time. They're both extremely bright people, and their talk about poets and philosophies I had no knowledge of was quite tough.

They are both very nice and engaging people. Allison made a lot of eye contact with me which is a plus. She also had those cute 50's'ish glasses, which adds another plus or two onto that. I could have swore she was in her early 20's, but she told me she was doing graduate school, and was nine years into her music degree. Nine years. She's probably almost 30, but she doesn't look a day over 22.

Scott has all of the attractive and smart female friends. Need I remind you about Nikolina? Both she and Allison are smart and attractive, but Allison is so intimidatingly smart it scares me.

And what is it with WSU literary students remembering my name? Last time I checked, there isn't a sign above the Metaphor office reading, "Cheers". He remembered it after a one minute general chat more than a year ago. The adviser for the mag not only remembered me reading a poem the previous year, but also recalled my name and my poem and had never met me. And last year's editor? I met her once for the length of time it took to read my poem, told her my name once, and weeks later at the author's gala, she remembered me by name. I think it's something in the water in that room. Either that, or they're all on that ultra fast memorization course.

I'm remembered. From high school, from college, from plays and such. And it felt nice. And even though Allison and Scott had a conversation with me that was ridiculously over my head, that was nice too.

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