“If you don’t mind me saying so, I think you’re a bit obsessive,” she said with an air of finality, a certainty that was expressed with as much conviction as one might say that he thinks the sun will come up tomorrow morning.

I sat there for a moment as the words echoed in my mind; even though the restaurant was crowded, the weight of her words and the whir of the ceiling fan overhead were the only things that my brain seemed to be sensing in that brief span.

“Obsessive? You say I’m obsessive?”

Her shoulders tightened, and I could tell that she had gripped the edge of her chair with both hands, as though awaiting an attack, verbal or otherwise. Little did she know that I was quietly delighted.

She said nothing.

“That’s interesting,” I said, pulling out my little purple notebook and my black ballpoint pen. I opened the notebook to page 25 and began writing.

“Wh-what are you doing?” she asked, curious in part that I hadn’t taken offense at her remark, but also wondering why I was writing.

“Oh, I write down observations that people tell me about myself.”

“What are you writing right now?”

“Well, here’s what I have so far. ‘April 30, 2009: Obsessive, from Svetlana. She was wearing a jasmine yellow sun dress, white strap shoes, and a matching white bow in her hair.’ That’s what I’m writing.”

She stared at me as though I had just landed on the first ship from Mars.

“I’m wearing Janet Jackson No. 2,” she stated a little more loudly than she probably intended.

“What?” I asked.

“She said Janet Jackson No. 2,” said the guy sitting by himself one table over from ours. “That’s a perfume,” he explained. “She told you what perfume she is wearing. Don’t you want to write that down too?”

“Ha, you both are funny. No, I think that would be going overboard, don’t you? But I do think I’ll make an entry in my avocado green notebook.”

“Why?” the man and Svetlana asked in unison.

“Oh, I just keep track of when people sitting at other tables interrupt my conversations for apparently no reason at all.”

There was an awkward silence, other than the whir of the ceiling fan. Why was the fan bothering me? I wondered that very question. Then it hit me.