Earlier this evening I experienced my first anonymous recognition, and I'm geeky about it. I went to Mr. Tiki's Mai Tai Lounge downtown to meet up with a friend and one of my editors. Before they arrived, a cute waitress approached to take my drink order. She looked at me and furrowed her brow, said, "you look really familiar..." As I was saying, "Maybe you saw my column?" she said, "You're the DIVA! Oh wow, I love your writing, my girlfriend has a sentence of yours written on her mirror, she looks at it every morning, it's so empowering! Wow, this is great!" We chatted a bit about my last story, about her favorite items on the menu.

I don't think she realized that I was just as excited as she, if not more, by this little encounter. She told me her name, and I gave her a card, urging her to have her friend email me (I want to know what words she found so inspiring). She told me her friend would be "jealous" that she got to meet me. ME. I was honored, humbled, stoked, ecstatic. Yeah, ecstatic.

Word got around the restaurant that a "VIP" was there. Is that me? The delicious dessert comped by the ever fabulous Mrs. Cohn (much more hip and kind than I had imagined she would be) was answer enough. Wow. You just... you just don't know how fucking cool I think this is.

I hope they email me. More on the happy hour another time, I may tell you in a column to come. But I'm way too giddy to wait that long to share with you how wonderful it made me feel not only to be recognized by a woman I'd never met, but that she actually liked my stuff. I'll sleep well tonight.

-Barbarella

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