March 25th, 2009

Always highlights

On the macro, today sort of sucked, but on the micro, there are always highlights:

1) On the bus, the girl to my left starts to cry. Guy to my right watches with increasing concern, nudges me, makes meaningful eye-contact, then glances over at the girl. He wants me to ask if she’s ok, I guess, which I am loath to do, because I tuned in slightly earlier than he did and caught the cellphone conversation that preceded the tears. The tone of that chat (“He did? The fuck? No! I don’t want–No! Man, I really wish you had told me. Well, fuck that. No, seriously, I can’t listen to you–well, fuck that.”) indicated that these were more tears of rage than sorrow, and that intervention would not be welcome. After few minutes of both me and the guy trying to catch her eye, our girl dries her tears, takes her cellphone out of her bag, and gives somebody hell with nary a quaver to her voice. We the peanut gallery nod approvingly.

2) I have been sending out stories to be considered for publication for two and half years now, always with the same formatting (taught to me by Professor Pyper, which includes my phone number. Never, in creeping up on double-digit submissions, has anyone ever called me…until today. Thanks, echolocation!

3) echolocation‘s back. And my story, “Night Flight,” will be in their spring issue around the end of next month.

4) I swear the following dialogue is true, verbatim, and happened around 12:45 pm today in Scarborough, Ontario, Canada.

Me: Did you know that John Cheever was gay?
J: Yeah. Didn’t you see that episode of Seinfeld?

My mind is officially blown.

New York was great / I loved it all
RR