So I was walking along Royal Parade this morning, stomping on piles of autumn leaves and contemplating (a) a recent Judy Blume-esque embarrassment and (b) the therapeutic effect of stomping on piles of autumn leaves, when I noticed a man walking towards me. He was older, balding, dressed in black and without a coat. There was something in his coatlessness, the expression in his eyes and his proximity to Royal Melbourne Hospital, aka that place where the crazy go to be crazy and the old and sick go to die, that told me he was perhaps not right in the head. When our paths crossed, where the wall around Melbourne Uni is no more than ankle height, he looked me in the eye, said 'hello,' and body checked me violently. I spilled into that patch of lawn next to the medical building, where the nurses take their cigarette breaks.

It's funny the things you think sometimes. Rather than feel hurt, or bewildered, or confused, I immediately felt deeply insulted. I've mentioned before that, often, it's the little, daily indignities that pile up day by day and drag you down, make you feel sad and tired. I feebly called out 'hey!' at the man's retreating back. A cyclist at the lights asked me if I was okay and I said, indeed, I was. I felt a wave of sorrow descend, the kind of sorrow you feel when you're five and the big kid has just pushed you over and everyone saw and you look stupid.

Needless to say I got up and walked home, ears burning with embarrassment. Sometimes I think the universe doesn't have much time for personal dignity.