Photographs: June 2008 Archives

One of the surprisingly lovely things that can happen in NYC is sudden camaraderie among strangers.

Usually it's due to being stuck waiting for something (which can dull the pleasure somewhat, since that something generally involves public transportation not behaving as advertised), but occasionally it's something a little more offbeat, and more interesting.

To wit - playing with strangers. I mean "play" here in the strictest sense of simple fun, rather than in the online dating sense of a dumbass euphemism for casual sex.

It doesn't happen terribly often, but once in a while I find myself having a mute conversation with someone I've never met.

Or, as happened with a couple of fellow photographers at the parade, playing a game with them. The guy with the Nikon (which appears to be the double of my own) started it, I swear, but I was right there with him.

The dashing fellow atop the phone booth spied me snapping him at the last moment, but seemed content to play along. I'd love to see some of the photos he got up there; it was a great vantage point.

I'm not sure whether the guy with the great rings knew I was taking his picture, but when Annabelle and I were comparing notes on the train home, it turned out we'd both photographed him.

Anyway, there's always a moment where your eyes meet and the message of the game is telegraphed and understood. It's a kind of magic.

I don't normally go in for advertising slogans, except to notice them in a professional sense (I sometimes have to analyze them for work purposes).

But there's one that's coming to mind today because it slots in neatly with what I wanted to talk about here. It's that USA Today tag: Characters Welcome.

I love people who are odd, unusual, unique, maybe a bit off-kilter - just thoroughly themselves. I mean, I don't love every crazy homeless person who bangs into my knees with a pilfered shopping cart full of their prized bottlecap collections.

But my favorite humans do tend to be those who have their own way of thinking, perceiving, talking, dancing, two-step shuffling down the street. Those who favor rare nerdy-looking bicycles whose frames are constructed like airplane wings.

Those who wear clothes they dyed themselves because they really like the way the fabric takes the color a little unevenly, as if it's been waving about at the bottom of a coral reef for a while.

I like crazy cat ladies and men who paint their fingernails blue, artists who make elaborate virtual pieces in Second Life that cleverly piggyback on the environmental programming that rules the movements of clouds, in order to create slow color changes in their "sculptures."

I like people who talk to themselves, especially when the conversation looks interesting.

I liked the guy with the crab codpiece whose skin was not only painted blue but also precisely stenciled with a ghostly white webbed pattern.

So why, when I'm newly dating somebody, in the phase where I am certain that I like the person but it hasn't yet moved into the boyfriend stage (and may never do so), do I fall prey to the fear that the guy (one of whose proclivities is mentioned above) won't be similarly enchanted with my own unique character?

I mean, there are objective signs that he's down with at least aspects of my particular idiom (to borrow a Pythonism).

He didn't bat an eyelash when I introduced him by name to my bicycle (and vice-versa).

Our conversations typically rank fairly high on the geekometer, and he doesn't seem put off when I do my deep sea diving act.

But I can be really, really earnest, and I suspect there are times when I resemble a large, enthusiastic dog, and, well, that can scare some boys off.

I dunno. It's just nervous-making, that early time. And I don't have much of a strategy for surviving it.

A friend was advising me today to try and just stay in the present, which is funny, because I'm quite spectacular at doing that - in every other area of life.

Sigh. I am trying. Somebody pass me the Zen.

PS. Shut up, Boywich, I know what you're thinking, but I have become spectacular at it in the past couple of years. Really.

PSdeux. Aren't they wonderful, these faces? Click to embiggen, of course.

Here I sit with a cat on one side of me and an upended, rear-tire-less bicycle on the other.

The former is business as usual, but the latter, well, there's a story behind it. It's a pathetic little story involving three blown tubes (the last exploding in an impressively loud boom which caused my right ear to ring for about two minutes afterwards), a pump that seems to be on the fritz (unless I am a lot clumsier than I think I am), and two closed bike shops (drat!).

Anyway, that has no relation to the photos I've gathered here for your amusement, risking a severe jostling, a bit of overheating, and a tendency to become irate (see item #1) while trying to make my way back to the subway.

Luckily I did make it back without incident, and when I got home and looked at what I'd gotten in the Nikon, well, I felt it was worth a little heat and hassle. The colors really looked like that. I love that camera.

And I did manage to get in a smallish bike ride before the whole tube-explosion incident, and I did have a rather nice date, again before the tube-explosion incident. Life was different before the tube-explosion incident. Okay, it wasn't. I'm making that bit up. But I did get a flat in my apartment while I was about to leave for said date and I did have to make that funniest of phone calls. "Um. I have to fix a flat before I can come see you."

Doesn't strike you as funny? Well, perhaps you are less of a bike geek than either I or my date. I thought it was damn funny. Especially since I didn't (thankfully) get another flat while pedaling over there. Whew.

But of course, that was before the tube-exploding incident.

You know what else was before the tube-exploding incident? The Mermaid Parade. Which, if you ask me, is best enjoyed through photographs rather than in person. But then I am biased. I hate crowds. Shut up, I know that I live in one of the most crowd-filled cities on earth.

I have coping strategies for that. Most of which involve the aforementioned bicycle currently lying on the living room floor flashing his bottom bracket at all and sundry. Sigh. Damned exploding tubes.

PS. Click on any of these to see bigger and in better detail. Oh, do it this time. It's worth it.

PS2. Yes, I know you want more details about the date. I am trying to be circumspect here. I like the guy; he is sort of my type in a way I didn't know I had. So let's allow him a little privacy, ok?