The know.

President Reagan died on a day when I didn't watch the news or check my e-mail. And I feel bad that he died and I dared to find out about it later than the rest of the world. Because I was a journalist once, I kinda like to be up on things, and it bugs me that a president can go and die ... and I've escaped journalism enough that a whole day can pass without me finding out. It seems disrespectful of me. I mean, I shouldn't be out-of-the-know.

I was putting a copy of the New York Times back on the shelf when I read the headline. The newspaper, as I tried to both read it and put it back, fell apart on the shelf, and the New York Times Magazine in it fell to the floor.

I'd been at work about a half-hour. I didn't notice the small display of Reagan books, let alone question why they were there.

I walked back to the information desk, trying not to make eye contact with Poli Sci Guy, who was standing at the registers. My crush is over, I thought to myself in my head, My crush is over.

Another co-worker whom we'll call Mr. Glasses was standing at the info desk.

"President Reagan died on Saturday," I said to Mr. Glasses, an fiftysomething, jolly, withered, swishy-yet-inexplicably-married clerk. "That's so weird. He died on Saturday, and I didn't even know."

"Yes," Mr. Glasses said, sounding genteel, smooth yet understanding, as though he should be sipping iced tea on someone's veranda. "He died from complications of pneumonia, I believe, but, as you know, his mind had been going for years."

Everything Mr. Glasses says, actually, sounds like that, like he's a society gossip out of Tennessee Williams. I keep expecting him to call me "dear" and put a hand on my shoulder.

But instead of wearing a sundress or flowers or being a woman, Mr. Glasses wears Izod shirts untucked with unbuttoned collars. And he wears glasses. And his red hair always looks just a little big and a little messed up.

I was more than a little surprised to meet his wife. But I wasn't surprised to hear that they have a well-decorated house. I think he's sorta neat.

"He died ...," Mr. Glasses continued, pleasantly to me, about President Reagan. "And you went a whole day without knowing it ... and it didn't matter to your life at all ..."

"I know, but it's weird to me," I said.

I tried to name all of the living ex-presidents now. You know, the ones who'll likely line up at the Reagan funeral for what someone will use as a photo opportunity.

When I named both Bushes, thinking more about the photo than the designation of "ex-," Mr. Glasses corrected me.

"That one's not an ex-president yet," Mr. Glasses said. "But we can hope ..."

I didn't say anything, and I think he took me to be a Republican.

It wasn't that, of course. It's just that I want to know a lot about Mr. Glasses' story, and the store isn't the best place to hear that.

And I don't know how to ask him all that stuff yet. I figure it'll start one day when we're talking about politics or, maybe, I'll just ask him, "So have you read any Truman Capote?," or something else it may be better not to ask.

I almost didn't make it to the bookstore today at all. In fact, I called them and told them that I wasn't feeling well.

I was prescribed new pills on Thursday by the psychiatrist. And I called my managers before I was supposed to go in this afternoon, and I told them I wasn't sure about the effect the pills were having on me. For some reason, which probably has more to do with me staying up until 3 a.m. the night before than anything else, I kept falling asleep and waking up from 8 a.m. until 2 p.m.

I didn't want to go into the bookstore today because I wanted to concentrate on my life being a mess and feeling bad about it. I wanted to hang my movie posters on the wall and make sure they didn't fall down, even though I really should pick up the piles of clothes from the floor. I wanted to just mope for hours and hours. And maybe see a movie.

But I knew calling in sick was wrong and irresponsible. But I wanted to do it.

So I sorta halfway did it.

I called the manager at the bookstore, I said in one breath, "Um, I don't know how I'm feeling. I'm on this new prescription, and it's had a weird effect on me. I keep collapsing. But I'm awake now. But I don't know what to do. And I don't want to call in sick, of course, and I know it's probably too short notice. So I thought I would just let you know."

"O-o-okay," the could-care-less manager said on the phone back to me. "Why don't you call me back in an hour and tell me how you feel?"

When I called back within the hour, showered, clearer and fresher, I only said to him, "Hi. I'll see you in a half hour."

"O-o-okay," he said, hanging up the phone.

He thinks I'm a freak, and I don't really attempt to appear otherwise because I am, to a degree, one.

At my cubicle job on Friday, I almost cried in front of my supervisors. I was reading a "scorecard report" in front of them, and I got frustrated. My voice wavered, and I got choked up.

It was weird and emotional and, though it only lasted a moment, was noticed.

I blamed that, too, on the prescription. My cool supervisor suggested that I go outside and get some fresh air.

It's time to leave my job. Not because I'm doing it badly, though there is that. And it's not because I don't care about it most of the time, though there is that.

It's because once you've almost cried over a job, it's likely ceased being worth the stress.

Change is occurring. I'm going along with it. But, and this has become a troubling mantra, I don't really know what to do.

Before going in to the store, I put on my best new outfit with my striped shirt. And I shaved, gelled my hair and wore my cosmetic glasses that make me feel cool. (I rushed getting ready, though, so I looked sweaty and unkempt when I got to work. But I got compliments on my outfit.)

The bookstore was a strange yet likely beneficial environment for me to be in today, particularly because Poli Sci Guy - I don't have a crush, I don't have a crush - kept using moments when we were alone at the registers to ask me questions about weight loss.

He wanted my weight-loss pointers because he heard me tell some customer that I lost 20 pounds through the South Beach Diet.

And I have. Sorta. I was at 185 last August or so. Now I'm around 167. Part of it was me using the South Beach Diet, and part of it was me cutting out French fries, eating salads and going to Blimpie every weekday for lunch.

I don't talk about it much. I try not to. My weight loss, though it did happen and I did work for it to happen through changing what I eat and how I eat, is something I don't want to get caught talking about. I don't want to become one of those weight-loss people among people that I actually know, though I don't mind being seen as one by people buying diet books from me.

But Poli Sci Guy wanted to know. And he was asking me questions. And he would wait for the exact moment when I was done with a transaction so that he could continue our conversation.

Such attention - I don't have a crush - is hard to ignore.

So I was talking about my weight loss. My weight loss that I treat as incidental.

When he found out that I didn't know all about the South Beach Diet, he sounded a little annoyed, like it meant that my lack-of-knowledge meant that he'd have to break down and buy the book.

"You look fine," I said. "You don't really need to lose weight."

Poli Sci Guy's been running at Piedmont Park. Poli Sci Guy's already done what I did to lose weight, and it's not working for him.

When I discussed trying to feel better about myself, he sorta smirked.

"What did you do?" he asked me. "Did you used to feel bad ... but now you feel like traipsing downhill through a field of daisies?"

I thought of an essay I once wrote and laughed at him.

"No," I said, "I'm a medicated depressive. I'm not all happy."

Which is why I thought it weird that he, a relative stranger, was looking to me for advice on anything.

I so didn't want to talk to him about weight loss. But I wanted to talk to him.

I previously stated that I don't think Poli Sci Guy is gay. I think he's just friendly. Poli Sci Guy is tall. And he has brown hair. And brown eyes. And he talks with a little bit of a lisp. And he uses his hands to talk. And he's goofy. And he reminds me of one of the nicest people I've ever known, a boy I ignored in college named Christopher. And Poli Sci Guy has his own idea for a book.

But everytime I tried talking to Poli Sci Guy today - or when he actually tried talking to me, some damn customer would walk up to our registers. Like we didn't have anything better to do. It was like getting to the really good part of a TV show, only to have them cut to commercial.

Poli Sci Guy noticed my glasses at one point when we were behind the registers. He told me that I was trying a different look today. He didn't actually say I looked good, though.

"Look at you, you're rockin' the glasses today," he said in a tone that could be considered playful mocking. "I couldn't stand mine. I had to get Lasik."

I offered the glasses up to show him they were cosmetic. (I am no longer ashamed.)

When he discovered it, Poli Sci Guy asked me why I chose to wear glasses that I got for ten bucks at Hot Topic.

I may have blushed when I admitted, "They make me feel good. I think I look good in them, and I wanted to feel better today."

"You should get a lot of attention today from people who like glasses," he said to me.

Forgetting for a second that I didn't have a crush and that I know I'm thinking about this way too much, I sorta sighed to myself.

And we changed the discussion to how weird it is that Hot Topic is a popular mainstream chain of mall stores selling suburban families somewhat-sanitized, counter-culture punk-death-metal-fetish attire.

Because we kept getting interrupted at the registers, I asked him if he'd be willing to talk to me elsewhere. He replied that I'd let him know all he wanted to know about weight loss.

Later, though, when we started chatting about other stuff, he said we could talk sometime.

But then I seemed to myself to be a little too obvious, particularly when we were cleaning the store at the night's end and I ended up asking him questions about his stories and offered to read them. He was shelving and didn't really look up from that.

So I stopped talking to Poli Sci Guy. I talked to another clerk, a quirky, hip Asian guy named Henry, about diabetes and blogging.

After work, I went to a movie, using the time to summarize how I felt about my weekend in general.

I called Vic after the movie. I walked around in my apartment complex parking lot with my cell phone, telling her how I felt about everything short of Ronald Reagan.

On weight loss, Vic reminded me of how often I mentioned her waistline when she went through a dramatic change a couple years ago.

Regarding Poli Sci Guy, Vic said at times that he sounded uninterested in me. But then, I'd give her new context, and she'd change her mind about his lack of interest.

"It's weird," I said. "If he likes me, then I don't know what to do. But if he doesn't like me, then I know exactly what to do."

So I don't have a crush.

In all my situations both amusing to deal with and not, I'm jumping to conclusions that I'm comfortable dealing with. Disappointment is familiar.

But this is all happening too much inside my head, not enough outside of it. It's distracting me.

I'm so busy doing something other than what I want to do. I'm so busy thinking about thinking, talking about risking, analyzing without doing, just spinning and spinning.

A president could die, and I wouldn't even notice.