None of which were mine

This morning I saw Ani Difranco. At first, I wasn't sure whether it was Ani Difranco or not, but then I was certain. She was like maybe forty people ahead of me in the line for airport security, leading up to the metal detectors. We were all getting out of Buffalo. And I knew she had played a free concert in front of Buffalo City Hall on the 4th. It was Ani and the Goo Goo Dolls. The only two popular-music entities that the Buffalo area can be proud of, even though no one told them that they shouldn't be proud of one of them.

I didn't say "Hi Ani!" to Ani, or anything like that. Because it's not my style. And never has been my style. In fact, to say "Hi" to anyone at all has never been my style, unless the other person says it first.

So I just admired Ani Difranco from thirty or forty people back, and "Firedoor" ran through my head, instead of the hideous oldie that had been there before.

Ani was very short, with her dreadlocks, of course, and she bore an amazing resemblance to an ordinary disenfranchised youthful slacker. She didn't look too out of place, like I think that someone who's famous (to me) should look like. Like, 6-foot-five and encircled by a luminescent halo. There was none of that. And no one seemed to recognize her. But then again everyone in the line was old and crusty, just like all of WNY has been getting for years, now. And so they wouldn't have had the vague-est idea who she was. Except, there was one outcastic-looking girl who got the courage to strike up a conversation with her. The rest of us just stayed quiet and pretended not to care, I guess.

I also saw Ani Difranco wave a feverish goodbye to an older guy that was probably her Dad. Her Dad looked like a former hippie, like a thin version of what Ben & Jerry must look like, sort of, and so it all fit together.

Or maybe it wasn't her Dad, after all. What do I know?

I haven't seen a relatively-famous person in reallife since Elizabeth Dole, I guess, back in my Reidsville hotel when she was campaigning for senator a few years ago. And before that it must've been Sarah Slean, I guess, or Jeff Martin from the Tea Party, or I dunno, or John Tavares from the Bandits, or Dave Ellett from the still-mesmerizing 1993 Toronto Maple Leafs, who only scoffed at me as I asked the simple question.

Anyway, Ani flew somewhere, and I flew to Baltimore.

I sat next to a very old woman on the flight, and I'm sure she was letting loose some of the most noxious farts imaginable (they were horrifying), but I didn't let it detract from my new David Sedaris book, which is hilarious and hardcover.