For the first time in over a decade, I’ve looked up, and noticed people looking at me.

What incredible inherent shame or fear I’m used to feeling upon the impact of their eyes. Sometimes it still comes on with the quickness of a small turtle seeking refuge beneath the surface of a pond when threatened by a suspected predator (or me, simply fancying a glance). Sometimes I feel differently. Amused? Bewildered? Sometimes I feel like barking. Sometimes I feel like laughing. Sometimes I feel like smiling.

They came all at once on a day spent outside. I suppose like-minded folk tend to flock together, and the heat was getting to everyone. I wore shorts and a shirt I sometimes tied to free a strip of belly. Not too modest, but not too erotic either, given the 100°+ temperatures. For fuckssakes, I refuse to see what I am wearing as overly provocative until they ban topless dudes on the sidewalk.

I don’t recommend you stand shirtless on the sidewalk, but I don’t recommend banning it, either. Just so we’re clear.

First the E-bike guy. I have spent a lot of time observing people, even if I generally avoid eye contact, so, it was pretty clear he was staring directly at me, and not in front of his bike, as he approached.

I kinda wanted to clock him. That was definitely my first instinct. But I wouldn’t clock someone. So, I wanted to grimace. But that kinda didn’t feel like me, either. Not today, anyway.

I started to notice something I hadn’t noticed before—something I don’t usually notice about people—his body. He was tan, lean, and shirtless with strong, toned arms holding his bare upper half high above the handlebars in an unseated pedaling position.

And for the first time in my life, I had the confidence, or the unblind faith perhaps, that his stare was not in jest of me, or even casual curiosity. I had something.

So instead of a clock, and instead of a look of other disgust, I just nodded. Just nodded I say, but I felt cool doing it, like, leather jacket cool. I jetted my tilted chin in his direction. He’s veering slightly and does not know it.

He was pretty quick to return the gesture. We were near passing one another now, and a lot of time was wasted on this multi-second staredown when I thought long about how to react. But when his head raised to greet me, either in suave reciprocation or simply out of politeness, his tire twisted left and he unexpectedly turned in correction, yanking the handlebars in a precarious effort to not slam into the flowerbeds decorating my husband’s workplace.

There were a handful of others, a glance here, a smile there, but mostly casual, mostly polite, mostly desired.

Then there was Lobster-shirt, or I think they were lobsters. His whole image was incredibly loud.

He had this swagger about him as he eagerly traversed the boardwalk with a few others in his company. I was staring at the back of his horrible shirt, because it appeared to have some sort of layered lapel that was both confusing and off-putting, like the design of the overpriced polyester shirt was copied from a very nice leather jacket and made in the image of something much, much less cool.

Yes, on that 100°+ degree day, he would have looked cooler in a real leather jacket.

He had this huge brown hair that reminded me of Andrew Garfield, but severely like the exaggerated version portrayed in Bojack Horseman. His sunglasses? Plain. Square. Black. Probably $300.

I’m sitting under a tree by the water, feeling pretty quiet and reserved with my legs pulled close to me, and I’m utterly baffled when he fully turns to me, lowers his glasses like he’s going to make some kind of Horatio Caine CSI Miami opening bit line (YYEEEAAAHHHH!!!!!) and like, drinks me in. He really thinks he looks cool to me. My God, he thinks he’s wearing a leather jacket.

If he wasn’t such a fool to me, I probably would have been weirded out in a completely different way, but I was already in my own head thinking about how silly he was before he even looked. As he turns back, I notice the tips of his collar are obscenely long, and they alone, not the collar itself, are pointed upwards. How? Starch? Antigravity? A curse placed on him by a witch? I have no idea what I’m looking at. I blame myself for looking so closely at his shirt to begin with.

Later was Hatman, and this felt the weirdest, but that was probably because of my own position. _{(Editor’s note: Naw, that sounds like something a turtle would say.)}

God smiled upon this redhead and sent me a hammock, just beginning its time in the shade of a heaven-sent tree. I walk calmly over to it, but I am sick with excitement. If some punk ass kid runs up on this hammock right now, I’ll… I’ll…

Doesn’t matter, I plop in the hammock and start to rest my eyes. Sunlight barely peeks through the small leaves in the young tree, and I am feeling perfect. I am the golden hour. I am…

Being looked right through.

Hatman is walking sloooow, directly in front of me, from my right to my left. My feet are pointed toward him, and I am suddenly aware that so are my ankles, and calves, and thighs. He’s got a light colored charter hat on with a strap loose under his chin and dark sunglasses I can’t see through. He’s looking through me, and it’s not to find out what I had for breakfast. (If you’d ask, I’d tell ya.)

My glasses? Sorta dark, but not entirely. You will see my open eyes if you look for them, and as he moved across my eyeline, my head started to follow. He jumped. He scurried beyond, where I could not see.

Writing this out makes me realize why Hatman was the weirdest—and it wasn’t anything I was doing. He didn’t wanna get caught looking. When I was direct with E-bike, he reciprocated. Lobster shirt was comically blatant to the point of total disarmament. But this Hatman? A scurrier. Weasel. Weird.

We all get caught staring sometimes, pretty people, ugly things, or just into the void.

I close my eyes for a minute. Two. Maybe I doze off for three.

Suddenly I feel surprised, and I open my eyes, and there’s Hatman again, staring directly at me, now walking from my left to my right, and he’s walking crazy, crazy slow. And he is not looking at my eyes—because if he was, he would have seen what I felt, and stopped immediately. Instead, it goes on from my left eye to my right, until I feel absolutely forced into shifting my legs closer to myself. He spins out like E-bike, only on two feet, and carries on. To my left, shielded by the bushes, are public restrooms, and I trust that is the only reason for the double pass, but now I am alert for a third, and know if I see him again, I have to leave.

He doesn’t return. Or if he did, I didn’t notice. I fell asleep. Still weirdly confident. Still too hot in the blazing fucking sun to care. Too blessed by the tree to give up my hammock. Protected by a big, invisible leather jacket.

My night ended in the air-conditioned safety of a rather calm bar when a motorized scooter appeared beside me. The Big man using it for mobility assistance was clearly looking at me. He positioned his scooter so he could use the bar from his low position and order to-go food, and he’s practically at eye level with my bare thighs.

I feel eyed, but not picked at. Noticed, alerted, but not cooled or weirded out.

Servers pass often and greet me. I get hugs from many people. There’s talk of the upcoming holiday, and when I am alone and quiet, he asks me where the events are being held. We talk casually, even laugh and joke about a few things. A good bartender I know sees us chatting and comes to complete his transaction. She eyes me knowingly, something like, you probably wanna be left alone, girl, and I try to let my eyes do some talking, too. They put on a pair of cool leather jackets and try to convey, I’m good, thanks for checking in.

He gets his food and leaves without finishing his drink. Before he goes, he thanks me for chatting, and says I’m very nice, and I look really great. I thank him, wish him a nice evening, and smile, and every bit of it was real.

I don’t want to be a turtle. I’m a leather jacket.

^{Sunday, July 5th, 2026}