it's not really paranoia

Paranoia, paranoia
Everybody's coming to get me
Just say you never met me
I'm running underground with the moles
Digging in holes

Hear the voices in my head, I swear to god it sounds like they're snoring
But if you're bored, then you're boring
The agony and the irony, they're killing me

I'm not sick, but I'm not well
And I'm so hot, cos I'm in hell

I'm not sick, but I'm not well
And it's a sin, to look this well



but, it's not really paranoia...if everyone really is staring at you.

Well, not everyone, but ... I swear, I thought I was imagining it, but I found myself in a social situation yesterday where this one person kept staring at me.  I don't know this person very well.  Read that - at all.  I see them once in a while around town at various running junk.

I thought it was because this individual is a very hard core very serious nearly elite runner and I'm a squishy momof3 who looks a lot like... a squishy mom of 3 in tall socks and short skirt.  So fine.  I get it, I'm not elite, and I wear a short skirt, and maybe you think I am mocking your sport.  I'm not.  I happen to like tall socks.

Except that then I saw them at the Pasta-thon... and... more awkward staring.  Needless to say, in my plain back T-shirt and jeans I was not "standing out".

So, yesterday I engaged the person in direct conversation - half expecting them to say "You look like my kid's piano teacher." or "Did you know your headlights are turned on.... your car".  Or anything.  But nope.  Instead I just got this intensity and weirdness, like they didn't know what to say since I'd gone on the offensive (I was UBER polite, even "smiley", I swear).

It's not like complimentary staring, it's like... if I found out I looked like the person who kicked their cat when they were a kid, or like the girl who broke their son's heart in highschool... well... let's just say I wouldn't be surprised.

I swear, I am not THAT self centered that I think everyone is watching me.  I do my own fair share of people watching at social events.  There are a few people, men and women, who I particularly enjoy watching....

Of course, maybe that person is staring at me because I'm paranoid now and watch them out of the corner of my eye.  Somewhere, another person in Richmond is writing this same blog post about the crazy woman in the short skirt/tall socks who was watching them out of the corner of her eye....