ask me

While I have never had my mother's superpower which causes every human she encounters to spill their life story, I have a related one. It is the "ask me" bubble which floats over my head. I first noticed it when I was a 16 year old, pedaling a barely functional bicycle along a country road in Lyon, France. A truck driver asked me (in French of course,) how to get...I don't remember where. And of course I didn't know, even if my direction-giving skills in French had been up to snuff. On the same trip people stopped me in the mall to ask for directions to "la librarie." I didn't know. But I did know it meant "bookstore." I don't look French. I just look askable. Same thing in London. Same thing everywhere.

Including New Orleans. Two different British people and an American couple wanted my advice on the St. Charles Avenue streetcar. A lady at Tulane wanted to know a good place to eat. And everyone, including the two guys in the hotel lobby, liked my shoes. So maybe it's the shoes. No, can't be. I didn't have those shoes in France when I was 16. Just the "ask me" bubble.