magicbeans. nothing if not awkward.

It was a little bit rainy and overcast this morning and when I called Chris to enquire about brunch he was depressed and didn't want to leave his house. In my opinion, the weather was about perfect, grey, breezy, warm, and so I set out for a walk. Six or seven blocks south, along the foot of Fort Tryon Park, I realised that today would have been a good shot at walking the length of Manhattan along Broadway, something I've had on the back burner for more than a year. I waffled for a while, but decided to continue on south, although I tool a path up through the park and then down Fort Washington, leaving as much of Broadway as possible for it's own particular trek.

By the time I got to 180th the clouds were breaking apart and the sun was coming out and my phone was ringing. I stopped and talked to Cybèle for about half an hour, for the first time in over a month, about world traveling, graduate school, and the surprising emergence of careers.

I continued on, past the George Washington Bridge, through Washington Heights, and after Fort Hamilton met back up with Broadway I stopped walking and got on a downtown 1 train.

I got a snack. A phone call from Marie. 'Dan's planning a vegan intervention for a friend of his who's thinking about giving up being vegan. We're meeting at Digital Society at 7:00 to go out to eat.'

'Is it actually an intervention? Or is it just a meal with some vegan kids.'

'He didn't really fill me in on all the details, but I think it's more of the latter. It sounds like she doesn't have very many vegan friends and so he just wants to get some people together and have some good vegan food.'

'Okay. I'd be up for that.'

We went to a restaurant called Soy, which sounds as if it would be vegetarian, but is actually just a small home-style Japanese place. Although, of the two vegan options they did offer, the one I had was really quite good.

After dinner, people were heading off in separate directions, so I gave Chris another call, and he was actually ready to get out of his house and head into Manhattan. We ended up walking from the Lower East Side all the way up to Midtown, where he was planning on meeting up with Liza later in the evening, after a Broadway show and dinner that her aunt and uncle were taking her to.

---

We walked and talked. 'You should ask out Liz's friend, the structural engineer.'

'Kristi? Who knows when I'll ever see her again.'

'Well, I could ask Julia to ask Liz..'

'That's not in any way awkward.'

'I'm sure Julia would put in a good word for you.'

'I'm sure she would. But, me to you to Julia to Liz to Kristi, that's all just a little high school.'

'You could find her on Friendster.'

'Actually, I already did. She has an account, but she's one of those people who signed up and put up a little information, but has never uploaded a photo and hasn't logged in in "more than 3 weeks", which could mean months, or more.'

Along the block of horse racing themed bars on 7th Ave, we passed some other kids, who like us, were not at all dressed up to be out on the town on Saturday night, and Chris of all people, who I've never known to be particularly self-conscious about his clothes, brought this fact up.

'Anyway. I might have sat next to my perfect match on the subway this afternoon. She had a patch just above the left knee of her jeans, but stitched to the inside, while mine's stitched to the outside. She had a little bag, about the same size as mine and held it in her lap and held her hands the same way that I hold mine.'

'What stop did she get off at?'

'We both got off at 14th, which is as far as the 1 is running this weekend. She got on at the Columbia stop. I didn't talk to her of course and will probably never see her again.'

'Did she have glasses? Of course she had glasses.'

'Actually, no. But she did have a kind of dumb-looking hat.'

We eventually made our way to Collins Bar, which despite being small and right off of Times Square, has a really great selection of beers, and I've never found to be too crowded or too noisy.

'I walked through Marisa's neighbourhood today. Near Columbia Medical. Looking up at one of the buildings it kind of rolled over me.'

'Have you actually seen her in forever?'

'I haven't even spoken to her in something like a year. I called and left a message for her on her birthday. Told her I'd try again, but never built up to doing so.'

'You should. Just do it. You keep thinking about her.'

'Yes I should. But..'

'. . . I read on Stef's Friendster profile that she's engaged. There was a photo of her and some guy and a caption that said something like "It feels so right to finally have the ring on my finger."'

'I've sort of very purposefully avoided looking at Stef's profile.'

'I shouldn't have said anything.'

'No, that's all right. It's not really all that much of a surprise.'

Although, surprise or not, the knowledge of it still stings a bit.