Unwanted Public Conversation & Street-side Interrogation

So listen, it’s time to get back to our scenarios. With any luck, we can squeeze a few good ones in before it becomes winter, when men’s lustful passions are cooled and women’s shapely forms are bundled beneath layers of puffy down and scratchy wool.

Just kidding! This is the city that never sleeps, which is to say, never hibernates, and absolutely never ceases to be a hotbed of teeming, steaming wildlife. The subway stays warm all winter, as it is underground and therefore closer to the burning magma at the center of the earth. There will be ample opportunity for unwanted public conversation and subway interrogation in our frigid winter months.

Just recently, when it was still warm outside, I was making my way home from an evening yoga class. For those of you who partake in this ancient form of exercise, you are familiar with its inevitable sweaty aftermath. I was slick, sticky, and slimy. I won’t get into the hygienic nightmare that is a shared yoga mat, but I am both lazy and cheap, which is to say, I will not heave around a giant scroll of polyurethane on my back all day, nor will I rent a locker. So there I am, covered in the product of my own exertion and the grime of countless other yogis; I am unseemly.  I am unpleasant.  But, readers, what is the defining characteristic of street-side interaction? IT IS UNEXPECTED.  And what is the central unexpectedness of said defining characteristic?  The more hideous the object, (you) the more likely you are to to be subject.  The wilder the your hair, the more likely that you are to have a history of mental instability, THUS, increasing the chances you might agree to speak with said offender.  The tighter your yoga pant, well, ass:thigh ratio is, in my experience the most prominent mathematical indicator of potential UPC/SSI. Being covered in a sheen of sweat also leads to potential effervescent pheromones/a reminder of sexual activity to men on the street, and, last but not least, the less attractive, the more of a “hot tranny mess” you appear, the more ultimately approachable you seem, the instigator’s fear of rejection being at an all-time low.

The condominiums down the street were finally completed, they are bus-seat blue and white and have clever plastic hanging lights in the entry way. It is inevitable that all the advertised accouterments will snap crackle and pop within the first year. It is doubtful that many will be sold, but either way, they were having an Open House that evening, with balloons and sandwich-board signs. A young man hung out of the second floor window of the show apartment, like an eager young three-toed sloth. I saw him. He saw me. Dusk was falling; his vision was obscured. I’ll admit that from afar, my black yoga tank and leggings could be interpreted as an effort in svelteness. Peering, raising my eyes just a millimeter up towards my sweaty brow, I met his gaze.  I could see the wheels in his head turning, the screws screwing, the cogs jolting and the chain oiling, or whatever it is that machines do. He opened his mouth just so, closed it, opened it, and then, and then, his moment of genius struck. He leaned further out the window:

“Juliet! Oh, Juliet!”

Now I think he may have architecturally misconstrued his stage directions, but, gender is a construct, no?  Romeo can be upstairs, Juliet the suitor, it’s a new age.  I’ll tell you, I actually smiled. Only because I knew if he tried to jump, he’d break a leg.

Arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. . . .
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.

Arise, fair maid, and kill the envious knight,
who is precariously dangling from an open window.
That thou knight, the maid’s previously unbeknownst mortal enemy, should impugn so!
The dampness of her cheek glistens from your perspective on high,
but from afar you miss the foul nature of her workout gear.
As night falls on the city,
so doth the blackness in thine heart
Let the knaves of the kingdom gain wisdom, and purity.