Things are going well for me. I no longer feel crippled by solitude. It seems like only a few months ago when I wasn’t able to talk to strangers — or to friends for that matter, especially because I had no friends.

When I did happen to say something, I went over the conversation in my mind for hours or days afterwards. That was torture in some cases, especially when I had lashed out.

The more people you talk to, the less significant each encounter becomes.

I’m not saying things are going perfectly. There was the restaurant encounter. By the way, I have to confess that I wasn’t really kicked out of the restaurant. I liked the idea of being kicked out of the restaurant for getting angry, but I only made a couple of snide remarks to the hostess, who didn’t understand me anyway. And then I threw down my paper napkin and stormed out. Oh, and I waited a long time for Richard and his stiff manservant. That much was true.

And then there was the encounter at the ATM. An older woman decided to take care of all her banking at the ATM. She was signing checks and filling out various deposit forms while a line formed behind her. I decided that instead of either being silent or blowing up, I would be politely assertive. Like a normal person.

“Excuse me, lady. Would you mind stepping aside and letting us go through while you apply for a mortgage elsewhere?”

“Lady? Did you just call me lady? Thank for you taking away my sexuality.”

I honestly have no idea what she meant by that. So I clammed up.

Of course, the fact that I’m writing about an encounter at the ATM instead of what happened at my sister’s last weekend probably tells you something about how well that trip went.