1. Nothing particularly good, or bad, has really happened to me.
2. Weird stuff has been happening to me.
3. I haven't found any blackberries, and I don't think I've done anything to f with my karma, which means it is something cosmically out of my control, which is only slightly more terrifying.
I think the most notable instance of this weirdness was today in a Dunkin' Donuts. I don't particularly enjoy DD; to tell you the truth, I prefer the side-of-the-road coffee cart with the pleasant Indian man who talks to me and always asks me if I want a medium coffee as if it's a question, or as if my order changes, ever. But today, I went to DD. It was really cold, and I wanted to be inside.
So, I'm standing there in line. Just minding my own business. And this guy kind of steps into my bubble. My personal space bubble. And then he started talking. I wasn't entirely sure it was directed to me, and then I realized it was.
"Well, hello." (very booming, enthusiastic voice)
"Hi." (me
"How are you today? Are you shining?"
Now I should probably let you know that "shining" is not slang or anything up where I work, as far as I know, and I was pretty sure I wasn't glowing or emitting any sort of UV rays in any way.
"Um, what?"
"Do you know something?" (blank stare)
"No, what?" (I'm confused)
"Every day is a present."
"I've heard that," I respond genially.
"Every day is a PRESENT," he continues, "from GOD."
I considered at this point saying, "God?" or "Who's that?" or maybe "No hablo ingles." But instead, I could only stare blankly, like him.
"You see," he went on, undeterred by the ten or so people now watching him speak to me with rapt attention, "God gives us each day as a gift. Especially you. He gave you that...that..." (he pointed, haphazardly, to my neck-ish area, where I was wearing this weird scarf-thing. It wasn't really a scarf, it was more a long tie-ish thing that I'd draped around my neck, but I'm getting off track. It apparently confused him, and God).
"Scarf?" I volunteered.
"It's not really a scarf," my new best friend offered. "It IS beautiful." He proceeded to stare at it complacently, for a good two minutes, awkwardly. I ordered coffee.
"So you like coffee?" he asked.
"Sometimes."
"You LOVE coffee." He seemed to enjoy making declarations. "Every day is a PRESENT."
A close friend of mine once mentioned that only in New York can you be completely out of your mind and just...exist. One in about ten people you encounter on the street here is just nuts. Not just a little touched, or tweaked. Like strait-jacket material. I'm talking like, the guy I saw last night running down 14th street with feathers on his head, squawking in peoples' faces. The guy thought he was a bird. That is not normal (insert existential pondering here: What IS normal, then?) and no one cared. Any other city in the country, people might at least turn and look. But not birdman. And not DD man.
Now, I do love coffee. But this was getting strange.
"Yes, I do."
"America runs on Dunkin'," he quipped.
-a minute of silence-
He begins again. "Your scarf is beautiful..." and, at this point, he reached out and touched it, literally grabbing me the way a girl might grab a guy by the tie or the lapel. I have to admit I felt a little strange. It wasn't even 7:30 in the morning. "I like it." He then started to finger the material, with me standing awkwardly tethered to him, in the middle of a Dunkin' Donuts. Even the salespeople were at a loss.
"You can...have it?" I offered, asking it almost like a question.
"You are a child of God." He pronounced me, as though it removed his need to take my clothing.
He grabbed his own coffee and chatted with the DD people, who clearly saw him as a regular. They talked to him the way you might talk to a small, deranged child holding a knife. Then, he followed me to school, chatting the whole damn way about everything from day-presents to how beautiful everything was. And, you know what? As crazy as he was, he certainly changed my outlook on the day. I wish I saw every day as clearly (or unclearly) as he does. Then, he gave me an unsolicited bear hug, and I haven't seen him since.
So maybe, after writing this, my karma's not so f'ed after all.
Top songs to download right now:
"strangers" - the kinks
"oh lately it's so quiet" - ok go
"you're all i've got tonight" - the cars
"you know what it is" - wyclef/t.i.
