Eminem had to start somewhere too.

I plopped down (unbeknownst) to a Smirnoff sipping, sweatpants swaggering, aspirational rapper on the Orange line the other day. His arc of rapping gestures nearly took my face off, but I kept my mouth shut in fear of the glass bottle he was swigging. When he caught my eye, all I could do was nod in agreement to the blasting lyrics of Nas.

Pudgie gets a pedi

In her attempt to compliment me, the pedicurist told me I looked better with a little more weight on. Um, American women don't want to hear this. Even in broken English, it's still hard to forgive. And I think I look the same sans a week of dining in the North End. Anywho, the conversation went something like this:

"Oh my Gahh... you look gooo.... little moh weight.... So skinny befoh...." - Lucy

Ha ha! "You mean to say I'm fat, now?" - Me

"No, no! Just a little mooh. So skinny befoh! Look gooo now..." - Lucy (you're skating on thin ice, Lucy)

"No tip for you!" (I thought this, didn't say it, and still tipped her, because I'm a nice person.)

:-(

West Nile

I ran out today to pick up a piece of fruit and rather, I found myself standing in the middle of the sidewalk, staring down at my feet. I was oblivious to what I was doing or how long I had been standing there until a man approached me in a suit and asked me twice if I was ok. I think it took two times to break from my reverie.

Without thinking, I loudly blurted out, “Yeah, I’m just covered in mosquito bites!!!” He paused and stared at me, confusedly and rightfully so. “Um, ok,” he replied as if I had Asperger's.

But it's true. I was staring at 10-12 fresh mosquito bites painting my ankles and feet. Where? How? When? Why? Ahhh! They itched like hell. Enough to raise public concern on the sidewalk. And to leave me embarrassed, confused and blood-sucked.

Lonely Leslie

Saturday was a beach day. A beautiful beach day. My Mom and I were blissfully reading our books in the hot sun when the woman under the umbrella near us proposed question #1 out of 1,546. She wanted to know if we preferred spray lotion to cream. Fair enough. But this simple question & answer turned out to be nothing more than a thinly veiled segue way to learning all about her daughter moving to Raleigh, her psycho ex-boyfriend and the growing concern of where to find a Costco.

Even with my nose planted firmly in my book and a sudden feigned interest in the clump of seaweed at my feet, I remained a fixed target of her questioning. She wanted to know our family's story. And possibly if we had room and board. It may sound unsympathetic of me to speak this way of um, a stranger, but like I said, it was a BEAUTIFUL beach day. And this lady interfered. Over-shared. And talked about Pier One.

Again, weird shit happens to me. My Mom and I were sitting quietly. Books in hand. Minding our own biz. And still, she clung on. Like the seaweed to my foot.

Scrotum

Nothing quite wakes you up on your morning commute than getting stuck behind a dangly ball sack. The black SUV driving ahead of me (it never fucking turned) had a sparkly pink scrotum hanging off its rear bumper.

Eat fish.

Typical Monday:

I rode the elevator up with 3 other women this morning. One of them was telling her friend that her grandpa lived to be 102. When the two of them got off, the third one turned to me and proudly said,

"Well, my great uncle lived to be 106."

"Oh, wow. Really? (awkwardness ensues) Good genes." - Me

"Yep, it must have been the whole 'early to bed, early to rise, no booze, eat fish thing.'”


Happy Monday.