A real live Haunting.

To this day, my parents tease me about what they say was an obsession with my dentist. What I still argue is that it wasn't an obsession, it was a sort of coincidental, cooperative, subconscious, chaos-theory, co-stalking. I didn't go around fantasizing about my dentist. I didn't even think of him until I would run into him. Since I was nine and couldn't drive, I don't think I was the one causing the serendipity and being that he was a full grown man and always had his clothes on I don't think he was pulling a Lolita. I truly think it was just some weird coincidence and for some reason I was the one who caught a glimpse of him driving by when we went out for pizza or picked up the dry cleaning. I even recall seeing him and his family at a grocery store and I made my parents stop and say hello. I had proof.

It didn't help my case much that I constantly carried around an updated list of all of the dates, times and colors of Volkswagon Bugs I'd seen...in my entire life. My parents had to have an intervention to get me to stop keeping track of them.

This Rainman twitch of mine started around the time my folks got divorced. If I could keep track of ...well...everything....then I could keep a tight ship on my own emotions??? I was nine. Not sure why I was doing what I was doing. The tight-ship theory sounds good now.

Today...I have a new subconscious stalkee/stalker and it is starting to really freak me out.

About ten years ago, I was living in Los Angeles and working at a little theater in Pasadena. I met this woman at a cast party and introduced myself to her...for the second time...asshole.... (I still don't remember her name...) All I remember, is this woman HATES me. Really. She rolled her eyes at every bit of small-talk I tried to force down her throat. And the 'charming' me just wasn't doing it. She could see right through me and seemed to despise what she saw. I would see her around the theater and we would politely avoid each other. Every once in a while at a party I would try to engage her in talk about the weather and...nothing...

I forgot about her...again...(I still don't know her name...), moved to New York City and lo and behold...one day, before 9/11, I'd been here all of six months, I see her on the street!

Holy Cow.

"Hello! I'm so sorry...I've forgotten your name again, I'm Jennifer, I....well...this is crazy...do you live here? I live here! Crazy! You worked in Pasadena right? The Knightsbridge? Do you remember? You live here?! Crazy!"

I honestly don't recall her saying anything in return.

We walked away after about 40 seconds.

I have NEVER seen her look any different than she does when I see her. She always has the same hair cut, hair color and same look on her face. I don't recall having ever seen her smile.

Inevitably after I run into her for the first time in NYC, I see her about six months later...different part of town...I wave as she walks towards me. She walks right on by.

Then I see her again in Soho.

Again in NEW JERSEY.

Again at Columbus Circle.

A year later, I sit down across from her on the train. And that seems to happen at least every couple of months or so until I just take it for granted. Even though I've stopped acknowledging her, I am usually shaken for at least a day after I see her. What does it mean?

It is Just. Too. Weird.

It doesn't stop there....one day a few years back in Harlem, I open the front door of my apartment. My 'neighbor' across the hall opens hers. Guess who it is? NO JOKE.

"NO WAY! Come On! You have to see this! This is too weird!! Come ON!"

She rolls her eyes and shuts her door.

I have actually thought at times maybe she doesn't exist. Maybe she is a figment of my imagination. My alter ego. She represents the side of me who hates what I stand for...or don't...who hates where I am in my life...or am not...the little voice in my head who almost always talks at me, not to me...and is almost always shaking her head and rolling her eyes. Maybe I have some sort of external schizophrenia and I am projecting her on strangers' faces.

Over a year and a half ago, I got my dog Stewart. I was living in Inwood and taking him outside for the very first time. My friend Lisa was with me. It was around nine o'clock at night, it was dark and we were in a very quiet, secluded area on a side street with a little patch of grass left. It was January.

"Do your business...do your business Puppy. Puppy-head, little puppy...do your business....OH MY GOD..."

This woman goes walking by. I point her out to Lisa and tell the story. At this point I can still list the 20 or so times I've run into her. Lisa gets it and freaks as much as I do. This woman HAS to live up in this neighborhood now. No one just goes walking around up here and she looked like she was coming home from work. Sure enough, I start seeing her on the train again.

Since that night I've seen her about eight or nine more times and I am usually with my brother or Greg. I point her out and make phone calls to friends who know the story. I have even seen her walking around Chelsea with a couple who looked like her parents.

But wait...there's more!

About a two weeks ago, I sadly dropped out of a play in order to focus on other things. I'm still close with the gals producing the show and plan to go support it. I offered to help with costumes or pitch in, in other ways. This morning I got an email from the Playwright and included is a cast photo.

Guess who is on the far left? It isn't my dentist.