Celebrity sighting! This guy:
(The guy from the show, not…you know, Hitler.) Yeah, I dunno. That counts as a celebrity.
Here are two stories, for you demanding motherfuckers:
Story #1:
Yesterday I’m walking down the fashion district, trying to buy muslin
[Not-so-brief side story: Saying that I'm in "the fashion district" isn't really nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Maybe other people are referring to something slightly different when they use that phrase – maybe, like, Betsy Johnson or Kate Spade or Vera Wang or somebody has their studio in "the fashion district" – but what I mean when I say that is about a block's worth of crowded, dirtyish fabric and notions stores along like 38th or 40th or something, between 7th Avenue and 8th. Some of these shops are quite literally the size of my kitchen, or a KS bathroom, and packed with elastics and zippers and embroidery hoops and row upon row upon row upon row of threads, stuff hanging from the ceiling, stuff spilling from bins, stuff literally all over the floors. On the other hand, half of these stores only sell wholesale. It becomes difficult, finally, to spend less making a skirt than you would spend buying one. 200 year-old Chinese women are running these stores. It makes me feel very competent to shop there, like I actually know how to sew. All I wanted to buy there was a couple of yards of muslin, but, first of all, I think I accidentally ended up buying denim instead of muslin, because I'm an idiot and was riding that wave of compentance into "not allowed to ask any questions"-ville. I still don't actually know that it's NOT muslin, for sure, but I'm pretty sure muslin doesn't cost $7 a yard, soooo….]
and ahead of me there’s this dude. Crazy? Homeless? Hard to say. He’s dressed causally, but not dirtily, in khaki-type shorts and a t-shirt. Also a fisherman- or bucket-type hat. Said hat heavily covered in feathers. Bird feathers. Apparently real ones. A good number of grey/white pigeon feathers. A couple darkly iridescent indigo blue ones. A single Corvette-red one right in the middle of the back, from a Cardinal, maybe? A decent handful of long pointed curled brown and green pheasant feathers. He’s loping happily along, you know, bird calling. Like you do. Really loud, realistic-sounding bird calls. Like this dude has practiced. Studied, even. Like at a school. I can hear it through my ipod, so I surreptitiously reach up and pause it to get a better earful. (Incidentally, one of my favorite things about the ipod: super-sneaky spying.) Dude’s good.
And approaching this guy is a woman. Middle-aged. In slacks and a t-shirty blouse. Stern or shy looking. Anyway, what I’m delicately trying to say is that she wasn’t any treat. She wasn’t UGLY, but she wasn’t anything to, say, whistle at.
Oh, but he did, my friends. He, ah, whistled.
Stood aside, leaned backward, looked her lasciviously up and down, nodded in approval, and offered up what I can only assume was a mating call. Body language might have been saying, “Ai, mami, I love the way you shake it,” but what was coming out of that throat belonged far deeper in the woods than any construction worker dared venture.
The woman, hardcore, stoically refused to acknowledge anything. Her face an impassive mask, she walked on. Impervious. I, however, giggled giggled giggled, and eagerly anticipated my own turn, as I was coming up on the guy now. And was not disappointed: I got a DIFFERENT call, even! Gosh, I wish I knew what it was!! But intricate, realistic, and so lewd.
Story #2:
This morning I’m walking from my house to the subway on my way to work. I’m am dressed superduper cute, in this late summer’s hottest bought-on-the-street-for-$4 accessory: the surprisingly neon belt.
Me being hot:
Proof from a recent NYTimes fashion spread that this is indeed hot:
(Eh…yeah…by “hot” I guess I mean the guy on the right there in the awesome, um…sunglasses, I’m going to go ahead and say they are.)
So I’m walking along. Some dude behind me shouts, “Whoa!!!” I turn, and the following conversation ensues:
Dude: “That’s a bright belt! Where’d you get a belt that color?!?”
Me: “Oh. Heh. I don’t know. Downtown?”
D: “Look at that! That’s a crazy belt!”
M: “Oh, I guess so.”
D: “I used to have a turtleneck sweater that color. Got it as a gift. Bright green turtleneck!”
M: “Oh yeah?”
D: “Thing was so ugly! I never wore it! Only time I think I could have was maybe St. Patrick’s Day, but the thing was so ugly I never even wore it then!”
M: “…”
D: *Grins proudly.*
M: “I’ll just go ahead and take that as a compliment.”
D: “Yeah, that would be easier.”
The whole thing was light-hearted and inoffensive until that last line, I think. Because otherwise it was all, “HAHA! Your belt is surprising!” but then all the sudden it turned into, “No, seriously, dude, that shit’s ugly.”
[Another not-so-brief side-story: So I'm trying to buy this belt, right, standing on the sidewalk pawing throug the street vendor's colors. He asks me, "What size?" I say, "I don't know." He sort of squints and tilts his head to the side and nods and says real low, delivering the bad news, "Large, I think."]
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