Peoplewatching

Two occurences that brought me joy and great amusement today:

Firstly, walking back from buying my lunch, I spot a man walking down the street towards me. He has slicked back black hair, a white button-down shirt, tight red pants, carefully cultivated facial hair and a self-satisfied look on his face. Not my usual run of male companions, but there’s something about him that is remarkably familiar. I rack my brain, trying to place him.

As he draws near, he shouts to an acquaintance across the street, “Ciao, Dani!”

I don’t know him at all. He’s just stereotypically Italian.

————

The second one doesn’t have a story behind it, but this person was just so remarkable that I had to pay attention. I was getting a spoon for my yoghurt (ah… what remarkable encounters I am brought to because of my lunch…) when I found myself confronted with the sort of individual that you only find around universities– similar to the weird guy with muttonchops who sits in Lamont all day reading newspapers and looking at girls while breathing heavily. Anyway, this guy was a treat, mainly because of the complete normalcy of his face. Ordinarily the more eccentric members of the population have at least something to distinguish them, but… no. Anyway, he was a completely non-descript man. In his late forties, graying brown hair, vaguely paunchy. He looked vaguely stressed, as though he were doing some work in this fine library. Ordinary. Except for the stereo headphones, on his head, the three strands of Mardi Gras beads– complete with peace signs!– around his neck, the Hawaiian shirt, the safari vest, and the pants tucked into his socks.

I’m going to miss these characters so much.

Stylin’

It is raining today. I brilliantly went out wearing jeans and ballerina slippers, no tights or anything to shield that delicate little patch of skin on top of my foot from the evils of early Spring in Boston. My bus was 20 minutes late, and I was at a stop without a shelter, so I stood there, clutching my umbrella and watching my fingernails take on a bluish tinge (I’m not good with cold. More thyroid fun.) stupidly convinced that if I just… waited… a second… more it would come and I would get to class on time.

So anyway, I ended up missing about half my class (always a great way to make a nice impression, I say) but the main thing was that the damp cold had worked its way in and I just couldn’t get warm, and the worst of it was in my poor, cold cold feet, all naked and exposed to the ravages of the outside world.

A-ha! Gym bag. Gym socks! I pulled them on, and… bliss.

Problem is, I have a weakness for cheesy novelty socks, since noone will ever see them. Particularly ones from Asia or other countries with funny motifs and writing on them. The uglier the better. Sometimes, though, you absentmindedly wander about for a couple hours, and then look down and see yourself confronted with… a large watermelon motif, split green and pink across the foot, going down into the shoe, with the words “FRUIT AND JUICE” plastered across them, edged in yellow flowers. Beautiful.

Maybe I’ll start a trend? I’m not taking them off, and I refuse to wear my gym shoes. I can be the Agyness Deyn of socks. (In the sense that she wears hideous clothing and is hailed as a style icon, not in the sense that I will be the current supermodel of socks. Though that would work quite nicely as well.)