Sometimes a Text is Just a Text

Today three strange men talked to me. And unfortunately, the first strange man motivated me to call this boy I met a few weeks ago and it ended up being just as awkward as the strange men. So in total, I had four extremely weird moments all involving men. The first was an older black man at the shops at Columbus Circle. He walked up to me, took one look at my giant yellow rain boots and the following dialogue occured:

Man: Those are some nice boots...man...where'd you get those boots?
Me: Huh?
Man: You got it goin' on! Those are some great boots.
Me: Er....
Man: You the prettiest girl I've seen all day...come here (**note: at this point I wasn't going near him, I was trying to get away, but the man steps up to me and takes my hand and kisses it) ...now you have a lovely evening.
Me: Gah! Huh?!?!

Ok! So that is weird and awkward conversation number one. Unfortunately, strange awkward conversation number one lead to strange awkward conversation number two...tonight, I had been planning to call a boy that I'd drunkenly hooked up with because, out of the blue, three weeks after the fact, he texts, and I answer with a text, and more texts ensued. The text messages were kind of inane, so I was confused and following the advice of a friend who said, "Jesus, just call the boy - either he wants to talk to you or he doesn't," I called the boy. For some reason after a strange older black man kissed my hand I thought "Whelp, seems like a perfect time to call strange younger white man!" And so began awkward conversation #2 - a brief section for your perusal:

Boy: So on top of all that, I'm writing the score for this porno-
Me: What? Crazy...well, you have to do it so you can put it on your resume.
Boy: This way, when I'm in a bar and someone asks me what I do, I can say "I write the score for porn."
Me: Yeah...there you go!
Boy: Well, it's not really hardcore, it's soft...and it's set in the twenties. This guy does this conceptual stuff, so yeah...it's kind of a silent movie porn and I'm writing the score. I mean this guy has done a lot of work, he's won- uh, he's done a bunch of things... I mean...
Me: You were going to say, "he's won a lot of porn awards, weren't you?"
Boy: Yeaaaaahh....
Me: So who gives these porn awards?
Boy: S and M magazines and things like that. I looked it up.

To make a long story short, nothing came of the phone conversation except that I learned about porn awards and how this boy apparently just got into text messaging, and basically that sometimes a text message is really just a text message.... I may have kind of over-analyzed that one.

The second encounter with a stranger was on the subway, but this one was kind of nice in that New York moment way....

(I sit down and start to read my new book Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert.)

Man: I just finished that book!
Me: Did you enjoy it?
Man: I loved it. It was recommended to me by a friend and...oh wait have you read any of it yet?
Me: Just a few pages.

(We ride a few stops...I pause and look at the signs)

Man: That book was completely different than I thought it would be. I thought it would just be a hoot, but it was so much more than that...I hope you enjoy it. (Man leaves train.)

So that encounter was fine. The third one occured at the grocery store in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Man: So how are you with your cheeses?
Me: What?!?
Man: I need to find the ricotta...for my stuffed shells see.... (gestures to pasta in basket) but I can't find the ricotta.
Me: Oh...there it is! You can mix herbs in it for flavor.
Man: I know, I already got the parsley.

The man proceeds to tell me about what might be his two famous dishes - his stuffed shells and some sort of spinach pie - had this man not been such a queen, I might have wondered if he was hitting on me.

Sigh....another day in my life.

Still to come:
Pulitzer Prizes
Irony
Optimism in extreme situations
Where I should live in New York and why

I know...you can't wait....