Friday, July 18, 2008

magic in the city


the other day while i was sitting out front of my new apartment on the stoop a butterfly slowly drifted its way down to my knee and rested there for atleast 10 minutes. i think he was confused by my dresses floral pattern. what he really thought was ooh nice theres a bunch of giant flowers to sit on. sweet! but what he got was a giant piece of flat cotton. whatevers. isnt it good luck for a butterfly to land on you. well i just decided it is. and you want to know the best part of this story. about 5 minutes into my butterfly experience a homeless man dragging a giant trash bag in one hand and holding like 8 new baseball caps that he was obviously selling in the other walks (well more like drags) himself over to me and tells me:

"girl if i were a butterfly id land on you"

oh wow thanks? nothing makes a girl feel prettier than the idea of a homeless butterfly man dragging junk landing on her.

its really nice how homeless men will talk to you here. they wont even ask you for anything they just like to tell you things. like yesterday i was walking out of an elevator in a pretty fancy building and a scruffy looking 80's gutter punk kind of guy walks passed me into the elevator and stops me to tell me this:

"you have a really good haircut. and your red hair is really great. this means alot since its coming from a fellow redhead. were rare."

yes he did tell me that in those exact words. not quite sure if he was even trying to impress me or just share with me the fact that he indeed did also have red hair. what i can really learn from this is yes ex punk rockers still like girls with short wavy hair that look a bit like a doll. interesting right? but wait theres more.

and to top it all off yesterday i was sitting on my stoop (once again) and out of nowhere, right in front of me a messy ass scruffy homeless dude falls flat on his face and all of his bags go flying around him and his 40 (of course) shatters and there is glass really close to his face on the ground. so i ask him if hes okay because i mean come on hes human - but i dont really want to help him up. does that make me bad? and for about the next two minutes hes just laying on the ground groaning and i have no idea what to do. then he just gets up, grabs all of his things, and then stands in front of me and says this:

"the reason i fell is because i was looking at you. you are the reason i fell"

seriously. i felt like telling him it probably had a little more to do with that 40 in his hand and his overall crazy demeaner but i took my compliment and wore it well. see the thing is when you live in new york you pretty much look like a sweaty mess all summer long but homeless guys will compliment you so you wont feel so bad?

new york - a magical city.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read once in a flyer a real estate agent left on our doorstep when I was twelve a list of silly things and proverbs.

One of which said. "If a butterfly lands on you, you should get a new dress" as if you're entitled to one because the butterfly landed on you.

B.Rem said...

One evening, I saw a drunk hobo crash his (stolen?) bike and shatter a just-purchased frosty 40 oz. He laid there and groaned for awhile too while I asked if he was ok. I felt bad because he probably spent all day begging to get enough loot for that 40. When he got up he just stared at the broken glass and wet asphalt, as if the overwhelming sadness was too much to comprehend.