Who am I to you?

At some point along the way, I completely lost track of how I appear to other people.

For example, I know when I look in the mirror that I am wearing my best pants, I am about 15-20 pounds above HWP, I am 25 years old and semi-employed, and that my glasses are a bit too small for my face.

I have no idea how much of this someone meeting me for the first time knows or cares about. Who do I seem to be to other people? Do I seem too old for my clothes? Can they tell what I've been eating? Am I attractive? Is it my imagination, or do girls notice me more when I'm tired and a little unshaven?

The last time I felt like I knew what strangers were thinking about me was when I put on a suit (for a business meeting about a bank loan) and people started opening doors for me and smiling at me a lot. Okay.

The last time I remember getting an impression like that before was sometime in my mid to late teens when I noticed everyone I talked that was older than me, men and women, seemed to summon some sort of nostalgia for when they were a young man with limitless potential. I became, quite without any effort on my part, the embodiment of some particular ideal of youth.

Since then, I really have no idea. Perhaps because I dress poorly and live in New York, I am mostly ignored by strangers.

Okay, there was one other time when I knew for sure how I looked to other people. It was late one night (really early morning) when I was working on the feature - I think maybe the first day we were upstate, when I was responsible emptying the bowels of the RV. Maybe it was week three when a bag had broken and I'd had to clean up a bunch of trash with nothing but my hands and a pair of gloves. Doesn't matter.

Anyway, when I got back to the city, all I wanted was breakfast, the use of a bathroom, and a place to wash my hands. Every part of me was sweaty and dirty. I had also, inexplicably, worn a white shirt that day, which exaggerated the effect. Plus I think it rained. Oh, and I was also wearing khaki shorts and sneakers with black socks, so add that to your mental image.

I walked in to the Bus Stop Diner, a place I knew from when I worked nearby. Bus Stop is a small, no-nonsense place that I'd developed an affection for over that year. I sat down and asked for coffee.

"There's no coffee."

Huh. Okay. "I guess I'll just leave my bag here and use the bathroom."

"The bathroom isn't working."

What? "Oh. Well, then, I'm going to leave."

I didn't know what was going on, and at this point I was too tired to focus on anything too complex. I decide to head for the Times Square McDonald's. Fast, anonymous service, bathrooms, and burgers for breakfast - it was just enough to bring me back to baseline.

So I haul my exhausted carcass up to the Times Square McDonald's, but as I approach the bouncer walks up to me, sticks out his arms and shakes his head as in "no, there is no question in my mind that you are not entering this McDonald's."

I walk on. This was surprising for several reasons: 1) Time Square McDonald's has a bouncer, and 2) Apparently I was so dirty, nasty and (presumably) homeless-looking that I had just been refused service at a McDonald's.

At that point, I decided to take a cab home. I bought a New York Times, working on the premise that if I covered my shirt with a newly-purchased NYT I would look sophisticated and disguise my dirty clothes enough that a cab would stop for me. I guess it worked - thank god cab driver's aren't too good to take my money.