Proximity

There I sat, about ten at night, headed towards Cambridge on the train for the first of many dance events that my dear friend Brandon is DJing.

I had an entire row of seats to myself and I was sitting at the second of five.

Now, there's sort of an unspoken rule on the T that one does not sit directly next to a stranger when there are more open seats in other places. This is naturally the exact rule that seems destined to be broken by the general population when I am concerned.

The train stopped, letting passengers on, and the only one to pass the front car chooses, naturally, the seat directly next to me.

To explain the mechanics... I've created a diagram.

_______---____M_____---_____S_____---____I_____---_________


I am, of course, "M", "S" is the stranger and "I" was his previously unmentioned bag of Indian food takeout. You'll notice that if he and his Indian food had switched, then he'd be next to the empty seat. Or that if he'd taken the seat on the end or the fourth seat, all three of us would have had more personal space.

Happily, sitting too close was as far as this particular interaction went, though I imagined that if he hadn't been on his cell phone all bets would have been off.

When he got up to leave I felt a little silly, thinking that this was really harmless and that perhaps I really do overact to these sorts of things. Therefore I was surprised (unsurprised, really) when the seat was immediately filled once again, and this time by a mass in a large poufy jacket whose body was actually touching the entire side of mine.

'Alright Universe, so this is how it's going to be,' I thought to the higher forces that govern, steeling myself for what appeared to be one of those nights.

My peripheral vision was sending alerts about the fact that my neighbor was not only resting against me but was also gazing at my face. I prepared myself for the strange conversation that was sure to follow and peeked to see the face of my antagonizer for the night only to be greeted by chubby cheeks, clear blue eyes set a little too close together, a head of curly blonde desperately in need of a cut and a familiar evil smirk.

'Oh, ok,' with a sigh of relief, 'you know that really wasn't very nice of you.'

The Enchanted Marble

Story to follow...

"Hello darlin'

"I'm looking for a girlfriend," he said in the red sox hat at the post office.

Sorry, I'm unavailable right now.

Why are you looking so sad?

Asked the man walking towards me.

I flashed him a grin.

"Now that's a beautiful smile." And he left it at that.

Rather than being disturbed by this I was thankful because it alerted me to the fact that I was thinking about not-so-nice things on such a beautiful day.

Friendly...

Waiting outside the liquor/grocery mart down the street from my house, I was minding my own business.  My sister and her friend were buying things like juice and bagels.  Hoping to avoid being called sweetie by the guy behind the counter, I took a few moments outside to mind my own business.  

This, of course, is the exact thing that most attracts people to me, I think.  I glanced up, met the eyes of a boy (college boy=20-25), and received a pat on the head as he walked by, headed for the entrance.  What the hell?

This was unprecedented and has yet to be repeated, although I did get a high five from another one in almost the same location during the day the following week.

On a more distressing note, a homeless man tried to bite my friend a couple of days ago.  Her comment about the incident?  "That's what I get for being nice."

"Forgive Me...

for interrupting," said the grinning man standing directly in front of my sister and I, "but have you ever been to Turkey?"

Karen and I were riding the green line into Park Street, on our way to Shalimar of India for a delicious lunch.  Sitting in the middle of the car, where the seats are higher and face each other, we had been discussing the plight of a friend of ours who is Korean and is interested in a boy from a very wealthy family (oh dear, gossip).  I noticed the man across from us when we first sat down, only because of his enormous presence.  I don't think he was an enormous person, but he had on very shiny glasses and a giant green coat, a striking color next to his dark skin and his large white, white teeth.  As Karen and I were talking he kept looking at us and looking away, smiling.  I thought perhaps he enjoyed the thought of Asians, or the terrible gold-digger type comments that were coming out of our mouths, or, of course, the quite likely possibility that he thought Karen was the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.  As we closed in on our destination, it became apparent that he, too, was getting off.  He stood up, rather closer to us than was comfortable and started looking purposeful.  That's when he leaned in:

"Forgive me for interrupting, but have you ever been to Turkey?" he asked me.  

"No..." says I, "I'm sure I'll make it there someday."

"I hope you don't mind my saying that you should go sooner rather than later, while you are young.  You won't return."

(confused silence)

"You see, in Turkey, a woman of a certain... type... is highly desired in certain social circles.  You, my dear, are a delicacy." 

(shocked, amused, taken aback)

"You should go to Turkey, maybe take your... smaller... friend.  She will come home, you will not."

So wait... are the Turkish going to eat me?  This is not, thanks to my terrible memory, an accurate transcript.  But he definitely said delicacy, and he may have said luscious.  I felt like a pudding.  

Karen summed up the event quite nicely "He looked at you and thought to himself, 'I have knowledge that will change her life,' and was compelled to share it."

So now all I've got to do is come up with the money for a plane ticket to Istanbul.    

Dream, dream, dream

Well, now's as good a time as any to record the particularly strange dream I had during the nap I stole today.

I was standing at a McDonalds counter with my family, at least my sister and my father, and we'd all placed our orders, having been in line behind a young woman with particularly curly hair. Kathryn and Dad, both served, went to find a seat. Dad had a monkey with it's arms wrapped around his neck sitting on his shoulders. I think it may have been a spider monkey, but I'm really not sure. As I waited, I realized that the woman in front of me hadn't been served yet and had been waiting for about 15 minutes. They had tried to give my father her food, but he wouldn't accept it and I thought they must have thrown it out. At this point, I found myself fondly wrapped in the embrace of a tall smiling black man with spaces between his teeth. I smiled my best "I really don't want your attention, but I want you to feel good about it" smile and talked to the very harried looking man behind the counter. "She's been waiting, hasn't been served" etc, sort of thing, and he, being the manager said, "I'll take care of that right away, we're going to make it for her again" and left his post at the register. My duty being done, I accepted the dance invitation of the man with his arm around my shoulder and was promenaded into an open area of the building. We started boogy-ing and he was very impressed with the way I spun. (I don't think he was a swing dancer). I ended up wrapping my leg around an MVU style pole in an attempt to stop turning, and realized that I was, in fact, facing him over a large group of cats and kittens. One of the kittens jumped up at my hand, in retrospect a sort of kitty-high-five. It was grey on one end and white on the other, although I don't remember which. In the middle of the felines were some vague and undefined red objects and one very large yellow object. And my recollection of this particular scene ended as I watched my dancing partner, crouched, snap once, west side story style with both fingers, smiling all the while.

Well Dr. Freud?