through the looking glass

people talk to me on the street. this used to happen in china all the time, old women taking me by the arm and dragging me around to meet their relatives was not an unusual way for me to spend an afternoon. but this, this is new york city. growing up here you had the thousand yard stare. no eye contact. period. ‘s just the way it was. now, people make eye contact. they’ve even been known to smile at each other.

sitting on the stairs of a brownstone after having seen the apartment I wanted, talking with my realtor and having a smoke. a girl passes us, but then stops and launches into this dramatic telling of her morning : how she went to register at new school, came back out and couldn’t find her car. thinking it’s been towed she heads for the impound lot, only to discover it’s not there. she comes back to the area, freaking out that her car is probably stolen, and as the cabbie’s taking her back to new school she realizes she’d been looking for her car on the wrong block.

I’m giggling like a kid. this makes me want the apartment even more. my realtor apologises, saying this sort of thing doesn’t usually happen in this neighborhood. too bad, I say.