The people I met today

A brief study.


Exhibit A: Brian
Not much to tell, except that he was gorgeous. Mega gorgeous. Insta-jelloid gorgeous. It's been a long time since I've seen anyone that beautiful. Up close, I mean.


Exhibit B: Bella
I'd say she was probably two, two and a half. I was waiting for the train, when all of a sudden a very small person is practically in my lap, saying "hello" and a bunch of other things in toddler jabber which I couldn't understand. I responded with a "hello" of my own. I made a bracelet about a week ago, and she was interested as soon as she saw it. "What is that?" she asked. "I made it," I said. I suppose technically I didn't actually answer her question, but she seemed perfectly satisfied with my response. The next thing out of her mouth was "I want it." "You want it?" "Yes." "Okay." I took the bracelet off and gave it to her. "It might be a little big," I said. It was. In fact, even pushed all the way up to her shoulder, it was much too large. Ah well. She ran off to show her mother, and I picked up my pen to continue work on a story I've been writing. Her mother must have chided her, because the next thing I know she's holding the bracelet out to me, declaring simply, "I don't want it anymore." Well then. I guess I'll take it back. Suddenly she climbs up on the bench next to me, takes my pen and paper, and starts to draw a picture. Most of what she says is unintelligible to me, but as far as I can gather it's a picture of the ocean. She keeps going on about the bubbles in the water and "you can't just jump in." Well, we sat pleasantly until the train arrived, at which point I told her that she should probably go back to her mother. As I stepped on the train, I realized that the two of them were not coming, and Bella seemed very distressed about the fact. I don't think I've ever made such a strong impact on someone in such a short time. I was rather touched.

Bella's Picture


Exhibit C: Bernard
Huzzah for skeezy old men. ("Old," in this instance merely meaning "too old for me." He was probably only 40-something.) They fill a very important societal niche. Namely, the niche that skeezy young men fill when the get old. Less huzzah is their need to express their skeeziness by hitting on young women. Me, for example. I was waiting, of course, for yet another train. This time I was already in the middle of writing when the interruption came. "Excuse me, miss, do you have the time?" It was 12:02 pm. Excellent. I have done my duty to a fellow citizen (even though we are citizens of different countries). I thoroughly expected all interaction to stop there, but I was mistaken. A standard question followed: "Are you from around here?" Ok, so first of all, If I am from around here, I would probably be slightly annoyed with the question. He undoubtedly heard my accent when I told him the time, which means he probably knew that I am from somewhere else. In fact, I very much doubt that he would have asked the question otherwise. "No, I'm from Seattle." Not true, technically. This is the answer I give when I'm not really interested in the conversation. Though follow-up questions are inevitable, "Seattle" has fewer of them, mostly because people have actually heard of it. "Olympia" or "the Seattle area" are consistently greeted with "where's that" or "what part" type questions. So I kept it simple. "Seattle!" he sounded so amazed. Why, though? I have an American accent. It stands to reason, therefore, that I am probably from America. In which case, I live somewhere very far away. It really doesn't matter what part of the country I'm from; it's going to be far away. And, as previously discussed, since he probably already knew I was from the US, the amazement seemed entirely unnecessary. Perhaps he wanted to impress me with his amazement. Maybe false awe is a flirting technique I'm not familiar with. At any rate, the next question caught me completely off guard. "So are you single?" Um... what? I thought the point of flirting was to be subtle? I was so surprised by the directness that I simply said the first thing that came into my head. "Uh... I guess so." He laughed and said that he liked my answer, at which point I added some (entirely false) details about a budding but failed romance back home. It seemed like a story that would fit my rather strange statement. His next question ("Do you have a phone number?") was so obvious that I said "No" out of reflex. This is absolutely untrue. In fact, when he asked the time in order to initiate conversation, I checked my phone. It occured to me that he might have seen this, and while I didn't want to encourage him, I also didn't want to seem like a complete ass. So I fed him some waffle about having a phone but no SIM card. I'm pretty sure that without a SIM card you can still see the time and make emergency calls, so it seemed like a plausible lie. I was very pleased with myself. After lecturing at length about the best places to get a prepaid SIM, he gave me his phone number, which I dutifully wrote down (though wouldn't it have been funny If I had forgotten myself and put it in my phone?), again so as not to appear as an ass. Finally the time came for us to part ways, at which point I said, "It was very nice to meet you." He responded with an epic "Yeah, see you later then." Hmm... I know I wasn't entirely truthful. The real question is, did he realize how wrong his statement was?


So there you have it. A nice diverse sampling of the Brisbane population. I suppose I should mention at this point that I've changed everyone's names. Except Seattle and Olympia. I left those ones the same.