It was Friday, I went to the gym at about 6pm, something I had not done for a long time. I haven't been to the gym for ages because I've been away but I also always try and go at times when it isn't so full, so on Friday I was reminded how self-conscious I am when I do.
There are lots of mirrors in gyms, and something perhaps about the fact that everyone is not interacting as they would normally in a room with people at such close quarters, semi-clad and sweating, makes for a weird combination of, in my experience, uninhibited looking and equally as uninhibited and brazen reporting of what they see to others not there.
Do you get what I mean? Maybe it's just me and past experience. Maybe the fact that someone wrote to Gawker.com and told them I was next to them in a boxing class makes me a little leery when I see a boy at the free weights section clock me and do a cartoonish double take in the mirror then immediatley grab his Blackberry and start tapping away. Who is he suddenly writing to I wonder? Is he tweeting that I am sweating away next to him? Is he texting his friends? Maybe he just suddenly remembered he had to write an email but, as I am sure you get by now, that's hard for me to believe.
I have been in a bar talking to someone, a friend of a friend, and later realised that they has excused themselves, gone to the loo and tweeted about the fact that they were talking to me and that I had bought them a drink! Last year I in was in a fender bender in L.A. and people very close to me heard about it because someone outside the bar where it happened tweeted about it before I had a chance to tell them. And then of course there's the cameraphones and the videophones and, oh hooray, the new camera that can stream instantly to youtube.
I suppose what I am getting at is this: when people ask me about my life and being recognised and people sometimes freaking out and screaming on the street, I tell them that I understand and accept it for what it is (I certainly prefer that to feigned insousciance and immediate grabbing of an electronic device!) and I just live my life with a huge level of self-consciousness. And on Friday, I guess I just forgot. I was back home and getting back into a routine and I didn't have all my force fields fully fired. That's all.