NTKOG Year Two, #18: The kind of spontaneous romantic who, when presented with the culmination of astronomical odds, wagers her heart (and a potentially awkward two-hour train ride) on the chance that it might. be. fate.

I am: continuing the story I started here, if you missed the first installion.

I am not: buggin’ if you don’t want to go back and read it.

The Recap: Spent a while flirting aggressively with a cute Canadian in a grad student bar in New England College Town. Afterwards, realized, whoa, he was actually kind of into me? and I was kind of into him? and I didn’t know anything except his first name? Went to New York (ie: the biggest friggin’ city in America), and in that city of seven million people, of all the trains at Grand Central, and all the cars on the train — he chooses mine.

We lock eyes. I blush and offer him a seat. He accepts. Okay, back to…

The Scene: The Canadian takes the seat across from me and my eyes stay snapped on him, looking for words like digging through a snowbank. Justice and Kiss-Ducker carry on their own conversation, like mama lions following from a respectful distance, keeping a cautious eye on a cub attempting its first kill.

TKOG: So I forgot to ask you the other night: you’re at Badass University, right? What do you study?
The Canadian:  Architecture. I’m in the second year of a three-year masters program.

He slides down a few inches in his chair, his knee grazing mine. An architect. I’m always drawn to men who live in quiet, orderly apartments inside their own minds. But architects, they think with their hands, don’t they? That’s something altogether different. His knee grazes mine again, more deliberately.

He asks what I do, and I explain that I’m a writer, sort of, and went to school for Russian literature. His eyes light up.

The Canadian: I double-majored in studio art and comparative literatures! I love Russian literature!
TKOG: Who’s your favorite?
The Canadian:  Totally Gogol. That guy’s awesome. He’s so hilarious.

We chat about The Overcoat for a few moments, before The Canadian exclaims:  Yeah, that story’s so funny! It reminds me of that show Curb Your Enthusiasm! Do you watch it? No, I tell him, and he launches into a five-minute reenactment of a scene, laughing a bit too slowly at his own recreated punchlines. I pull my knee away from his and he switches gears.

The Canadian: What’d you do in New York?
TKOG: Oh, we had a great day! Went to the Met for a bit, saw some German Expressionism — that’s totally my art jam. Walked around Central Park, then went to a cool Belgian beer bar and got classic cocktails at Pegu Club. You?
The Canadian:  Man, it was epic. I came up on Friday and spent the night with a high school friend. We smoked a lot of pot. Then hung out with a college friend. We smoked a lot of pot. Then I hung out with another high school friend. We didn’t smoke any pot.

…epic indeed. But — but he goes to one of the best architecture graduate programs in the country! He’s just one of those weekday Type-A personalities who relaxes intensely on the weekends! Besides, there’s nothing hotter than a man with a concrete talent, who works toward it with great ambition.

He digs through his backpack for gum and I see a sketchpad. Hey, I tell him, my friend has a National Draw A Dinosaur Day coming up on January 30th [click that link, y'all!] — you’re an artsy dude. Can you draw me a dinosaur I can submit and pretend I drew? He gamely produced the following masterpiece:

Architect! Artsy! Sort of! I pursue this.

TKOG: So, I like architecture but I don’t know anything about it. What’s the best building in the world? Like, what’s your personal favorite?
The Canadian:  Uhhhhhhhhhhhh. I don’t — oh! Yeah. There’s a building I like in Toronto. It’s this big brick building. It’s pretty cool.
TKOG:  Cool. What kind of building? Like a bank or an old library or…
The Canadian:  It’s made of brick.

That thud you hear is not the beating of my feverish heart, just to clarify. It is the thud of a conversation dying forever and, with it, any interest I could possibly lather up in the human being sitting across from me.

TKOG: So, uh, how much longer ’til we get to New Haven?
The Canadian: About two hours.
TKOG: Oh. Okay.

Justice, Kiss-Ducker and I spent the rest of the trip in an animated discussion of the social networking model of internet search and writing captions for New Yorker cartoons, tolerating his awkward intrusions  with conspiratorial smirks at one another.

When we finally reached the station, dead-tired and happy to be rid of him, he bolted out of the train ahead of us, then slowed to a walk so we could catch up again. Hey, he asked, are you taking a taxi, or…? It was the kind of wintry New England night so cold that your scalp constricts to shrink-wrap your skull and roman candles go off behind your eyes.

So Justice, gracious goddess that she is, dropped him off at his apartment, then took us back to her place where, exhausted, I crawled into the guest room bed alone alone oh god so happily alone.

The Verdict: To this tale of urban dating woe, I see three morals:

1) You know all those times you have sultry eye contact with a stranger, walk out of each other’s lives, and spend days wondering, by god, WHAT IF?! It’s okay, dude. You probably didn’t miss the love of your life.

2) But SERIOUSLY?! I meet a grad student. At one of the best universities in the free world. We instantly like each other. Then happen to meet him again, days later, in a city of seven million people. And he’s read Gogol. And he’s STILL a kinda-dumb stoner? How is that possibly the end to this story?! I’m not even disappointed in the universe — I’m mad at it.

3) Disappointing though this was, we can all agree that dinosaurs make things better. Draw A Dinosaur Day is Sunday, with submissions accepted today through then! You should submit one! I know I am.

[Edit: A few hours after writing this post, got an email from Justice:

"So I'm sitting on a bus right now on my way to the grad student ski trip and guess who's sitting next to me? Yup, the Canadian. Destiny."

Hmmmm. Maybe he's HER soulmate...? Too bad she's already engaged!]

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, some issues on which I can’t even get started in polite company.

NTKOG Year 2, #17: The kind of moxious seductress who, seizing an opportunity, more or less throws a guy up against a wall and demands what she wants.

I am: good at: long epistolary courtships, slightly saucy wordplay, middle-school confessions and the occasional discretionary skulking.

I am not: good at: talking to humans in bars. I leave that to the experts.

The Scene: The graduate student bar at Justice’s name-brand university in New England College Town, on a weirdly hoppin’ Thursday night. Kiss-Ducker and I are in town, celebrating Justice’s recent engagement. In magnanimous bride-to-be fashion, Justice has transformed into a total yenta, offering herself as wingwoman while Kiss-Ducker breaks a few hearts and I grudgingly agree to make a total ass of myself.

To this end, we whip out a little game we perfected in undergrad: Napkin Lists. The gist? At the beginning of the evening, I pulled out a Sharpie and a bar napkin, and we took turns coming up with challenges to complete before the end of the evening. Yeah, yeah, it’s truth or dare. We’re adults. Get psyched.

It's fair to say that whenever the three of us get together, we make a bit of an impression on the dudes around us. Largely by doing things like asking them to pluck single hairs from their heads, then defeat us in dance-offs.

After a few awkward starts and a heroic effort on Kiss-Ducker’s part, we’d managed to cross off about about a third of the list. With half an hour left before the most convenient shuttle home, though, we had to whip through five more items or admit defeat — a risk I just wasn’t willing to take.

So I brewed a plan to cross off, in one fell swoop, three items: 1) try on a fellow’s hat with his permission; 2) get someone to striptease off one article of clothing; and, if all went according to plan, 3) get someone to tell you what brand of deodorant they wear.

Scoured both levels of the bar to find a man wearing a hat — curses! they’d all disappeared! — then, clock ticking down, watched a guy push toward the bar followed slightly by his friend, a mid-height, sleepy-eyed dude with hurricane hair and, bingo!, a red plaid scarf.

And before I relate the following dialogue, a little context. Men are always asking what women want; what this woman wants? A restaurant recommendation, then for you to leave her alone. Oh, and to never ever ever have to have sex with you. I cemented the impression with baggy khakis, smeared day-old make-up and a slept-in ponytail. Hot stuff.

As red scarf walks by, I hail him, “Hey! Yeah, you! Can you settle a bet?” He sweeps the three of us with his sleepy eyes then smiles. I ask where he’s from; he says Toronto. A Canadian! I rather like Canadians.

TKOG: Okay, so the thing is, this is my friend Kiss-Ducker. She’s from Alabama, and she thinks guys look stupid when they’re taking off their scarves. Can you prove her wrong?
The Canadian:  What do you mean?
TKOG:  Well, I mean, you look like a guy who knows how to take a scarf off sexy. Can you do that for us? Just like really super oh-my-god sexy?

To his credit, he only looks confused for a moment before shimmying out of the scarf and — oh my god, tucking the end of it in my shirt? Ack. Foul. Still, one item down and two to go.

TKOG: See, that’s the thing about guys from Toronto. They know how to take off scarves. This one’s really nice, actually! Kiss-Ducker, it would look super cute on you! Can she try it on?

I toss it to her while he mumbles his consent, and she wraps it briefly around her neck. There are no hats in sight, so this is a fitting substitute — second item crossed off!

At this point, I expect him to run. It’s significantly the weirdest bar interaction I’ve ever had; heck, it’s lasted longer than most of the conversations I have with guys when I’m actually trying. Kiss-Ducker hands back his scarf and I wait for him to shuffle off, but he puts his arm around me. I look to the girls for help, but they’re talking to each other and pointedly ignoring me, those jackals. Still, a challenge is a challenge and I’ve still got one item left.

The Canadian and I chat for a while, and have a surprisingly pleasant conversation. Still, time is ticking away, so finally I lean toward him and exclaim:

TKOG: Dude, you smell fantastic. What brand of deodorant do you wear?
TC: I actually don’t wear deodorant.
TKOG: Wait, so that’s…
TC: Yup. That’s all me.

At which point I do what any normal girl would do (if she were to stop being normal and start acting like me, anyway): lower my face into his armpit and breathe deeply. And son of a gun, he does smell good. And furthermore, all three challenges crossed off. NAPKIN LIST BLITZ: ACHIEVED.

After which, I immediately lost interest. He continued talking and I stared at him in confusion. He wasn’t of anymore use to me! Why wasn’t he leaving? Oh, weird, did he just put his hand on my elbow? I stood in awkward silence until he disengaged; we made eye contact a few more times, but didn’t speak again for the ten minutes before my friends and I left the bar.

And now that I tell the full story, it sounds so obvious, but here’s the thing: it wasn’t until we got back home and my friends started teasing me mercilessly that I realized, holy shit, he might have actually kind of liked me. Justice and Kiss-Ducker patiently explained and rexplained the signs of his interest (arm around me, waiting hopefully for the conversation to continue, ignoring his friend at the bar), and the subtle signs of flirtation that I sent off (like, oh, I don’t know, using the word “sexy” nineteen thousand times before burying my face in his armpit). Because I can read in Russian and do stoichometry, but apparently can’t wrap my head around the fact that an actual Earth human might display boy-girl interest in a friggin’ bar.

The idea of meeting someone had literally never entered my head. Once I realized how thoroughly I’d missed it? Regret. Instant, crippling regret that I hadn’t even tried to extend the conversation or find out more about him. After all, he was darn cute, and he did smell awfully good…

The next night, Kiss-Ducker and Justice joked that I’d lost out on the love of my life, and mostly-teased that we should go out and try to find him again. The day after that, though, we went up to New York and completely forgot about him. After all, there are there are three billion men in the world, and even if he were the one that got away, the odds were less than zero that I’d ever meet him again.

Dead exhausted, we boarded the train home from New York a bit before midnight, in a four-seater on a packed train car where a few last stragglers stood to find seats. One of them was a guy with messy brown hair. “Hey,” whispered Kiss-Ducker, “wouldn’t it be funny if–”

He turned. Red plaid scarf. Locked eyes with us. “Well,” he smiled, “I certainly recognize you guys.”

“Want a seat?” I squeaked, clearing my coat from the one across from me.

“Absolutely.”

Oh snap, y’all, this blog post got SUPER EPIC LONG. To be continued on Friday.

On the beginning of this glorious Thanksgiving weekend, my company rewarded the worker bees with a 1pm “Early Release” — that’s what they call it, too, like we’re being paroled for good behavior.

Like the glamorous jet-setter I am, I took advantage of the early start to the long weekend … by going grocery shopping, doing some laundry, sorting my recycling, then spending six hours obsessively YouTube-ing clips of Rachel Maddow.

On which, can we sidebar for a moment? HOW DID I NOT KNOW THAT RACHEL MADDOW EXISTED?! Aside from being unbearably attractive, she’s witty, brilliant, incisive, composed, and just about the only political commentator I’ve ever seen actually listen during debates. Plus, being a butch woman (yeah, I said it), I’m inordinately drawn to out lesbians in the media, and the way that they shape the public face of gender. But, y’know, mostly the witty and brilliant part.

Yes. The first day of a four-day weekend, I am twenty-four years old — the first bloom of youth still in its most fragrant hour upon my cheeks — and of course I spend my whole night holed up in my apartment, watching years-old MSNBC clips.

Around one, following a discussion with Justice about the draft of my latest story, I’m hit with editing inspiration and run outside in my pajamas for a shadow-boxing and brainstorming session. As I’m pacing out front of my apartment, a (sober) guy walks up to me — good-looking; not like a movie star, but like the extra that the director moves to the front of the group scene — and asks if I have a lighter.

No, I tell him, then he reaches in his pocket and says it’s okay, he actually has his own. I weak-smile him away, but he doesn’t leave. He keeps chatting with me, about the city and the weather, his eyes not breaking from me.

And before you think anything, no, I’m not one of those girls who looks amazing in her pajamas, braless, ponytail and no make-up. Lots of girls are goddesses that way, trust, but me wandering around jabbering to myself on the street, frizzy hair, dressed in hobo-layers, chlamydia of the friggin’ forehead — I looked like a borderline recluse. Which, to be fair, is basically what I am.

You smoke weed? he asks me, and I tell him I don’t. That’s cool. But you drink, right? Yeah, I drink, I tell him, and he gestures to the bar next door, so I tell him I don’t have a wallet on me. Let me buy you a drink, he says, I promise I’m normal. Can we just hang out for a little bit? I thank him and say no, then we have the following exchange:

Weirdly Interested Movie Extra: Can I give you my number?
TKOG: I don’t have anything to write it down with.
WIME:  I could get a pen from the bar and write it down for you. We could hang out sometime.
TKOG: I — that’s really nice of you, but — [long pause] – I’m just a really boring person, you know? I’m trying to be a writer. I work a lot. Like, a lot. I don’t really go out.
WIME: You have to go out sometimes, though. Do you go out and have fun?
TKOG: I have fun sometimes. What month is it? November? I had fun sometime in October, I remember that. I went out October 22nd.
WIME: October 22nd, that’s my birthday.

And he gave me that look that you give people sometimes when you fear you’ve been too subtle, but the thing about that look is, if you’re giving it? It’s already too late. You’ve already made your point and it’s just not going to happen.

I thanked him again, ambiguously, then went back upstairs, flattered and rather horrified with myself. I know that by the age of 13, most girls have already gotten sick of being approached by sweet, sober guys, but I’m not the girl that that happens to. For some reason it’s been happening a lot lately — more often in the past month than in the rest of my life combined — who knows why. But whatever, I shrugged it off and went upstairs to watch more news clips.

One of those strange moments that can only happen after one in the morning, I guess, but it felt like a fitting little microcosm for what’s going on in my life right now.

Over on Life As A Human, I reveal the rogue sixth stage of break-up grief: putting down the imaginary dog.

NTKOG Year 2, #11: The kind of vivacious, breezily social cafe-hopper who, when beckoned to the next table over, figures, “What the hell?”

I am: notoriously picky about the people I spend my time with. All I ask is that they be smart, cool, socially aware, and capable of making me laugh so hard my stomach cramps.

I am not: asking too much, am I?

The Scene: Borders Cafe in Copley Square, at 8pm on a Saturday night. I’d been working on grad school applications since 10am and, dudes, let me say that while in the best of times I’m no pageant queen, duuuude, I was A Situation. For starters, I hadn’t showered since Thursday, and my hair was pulled into a fifth-generation ponytail. And as for make-up? Ha! Not since October!

At some point, realize I haven’t used the restroom all day, so catch eyes with the guy at the table across from me and point to my computer. “Hey, can you make sure no one steals my computer? If they try, maybe rough ‘em up a little?”

He nods and I leave. When I come back, I give him the thank-you wave, but instead of turning back to his own laptop, he takes a step over to my table.

Cafe Dude: Hey, are you good at punctuation?
TKOG: Uhhh, yeah, I’m really good at it.
CD: I could tell when I first saw you!  You’re an English major or something, right? The second I saw you, I was like, “This girl looks like she knows about punctuation!”

Weird. I don’t remember putting on my “I brake for Oxford commas” t-shirt this morning. Although I was wearing my “I said anarchy not MANarchy” pin…

Walk over to his table, where he pulls out a chair and pats it; I resist and look at his screen to see the punctuation query — then he closes the computer altogether and proceeds to tell me a lengthy, intricate story about his med school experience, the residencies he’s applying for, and the philosophical convictions shaping his particular phrasing of the last sentence of the first paragraph.

To this, two immediate reactions: 1) whoa, this guy’s friendly; 2) but he’s a doctor. If I leave the table right now, my mom will KILL me.

So I open his computer back up and set to work helping him redraft the thank-you letter he was writing, attempting to rein his rather fractured grammar and add some concrete language to his uncomfortably flowery prose style. Between every sentence that I edited, he would spin me tales about the unpleasant environment at his current medical school, the backstory to the academic strike blemishing his record, the qualities he valued at the hospitals where he’d interviewed.

After half an hour, I’d reworked the first of three paragraphs and he blinked up at me in surprise: “Whoa, you’re actually a good writer.”

Um, yeah, obviously. Why else would he have — oh. Oh. Is this that thing that the kids sometimes do? That flirting thing? It all started to make sense: the subtle way he’d coaxed my name out of me, the casual allusions to facebook, asking how long I’d been in the city, why I was spending Saturday night hunched over a laptop.

But whatever, dudes, we had a botched thank-you letter to finish editing.

I moved my things over to his table, and we worked on the letter for another hour, mixed in with conversation on just about every first date topic you can imagine. He told me about his moral opposition to the institution of pet ownership; I teased him pretty ferociously about it; he admitted he’d only joined Facebook the previous day, but would I friend him?; after he whipped out his laptop I, after some deliberation, agreed.

Eventually I looked up and realized that three hours had passed and the cafe was closing around us. So we packed up our things and he walked me back to the T station, told me he hoped I had a nice night.

Only when I was walking down the stairs to the station did it dawn on me: wait a minute, did I just accidentally go on a date?!

Except it was better than a date, because where most real dates leave one with nothing, this one at least resulted in a pretty exquisitely rewritten thank-you letter. Plus, I didn’t have to shower first.

The Verdict: Though I have less than zero interest in this guy, I’m always pleasantly mystified when interactions like this crop up organically in nature. While I sincerely doubt that I’ll meet the Great Love of My Life randomly in a cafe or bar (unless said bar is across the street from MIT, obvi), this was a good reminder that there are pleasant people out there, and it wouldn’t kill me to waste a little time with them.

Although if there’s any speculation as to whether this guy and I had a love connection, allow me to end it right now: At one point, he gestured to his keyboard and told me, “Hey, you know there’s a more efficient keyboard system, but they started using this layout because people like typing slower?”

“Oh!” I jumped in, excited, “you mean Dvorak?! That’s actually an old wives tale!” I started to explain some of the backstory behind that urban legend, but he just furrowed his brow and started shaking his head in bored confusion.

Sorry, Cafe Dude, but discussing things like Dvorak v. QWERTY is practically bedroom talk for a girl like me, and if you’re not on-board with that, this isn’t going to work out. Come to think of it, there might be a “talk nerdy to me” t-shirt in my near future…

You guys, I’m having a really shitty week. I don’t want to talk about it. I made you a comic instead. It’s about middle-school crushes. Tell me all about your middle-school crush! I want some vicarious giggling, please!

[Also, over on Secret Society of List Addicts, conversational missteps that make me want to hang up on you in real life. I wrote this when I was in a bad mood a few months ago, then coincidentally scheduled it for another day I'm in a bad mood. Zany!]

You guys, I was absolutely floored by the sympathetic responses — and the heart-rending stories — you poured out in response to yesterday’s post and over at Life As A Human. You truly are the best.

And speaking of things I love, head over to Secret Society of List Addicts to read my list of Things The Northeast Does Wicked Well. (Other things I love: smooth segues. Cough.)

NTKOG Year 2, #7: The kind of bold, interpersonal opportunist who, where others see a full cafe, just sees the chance to make a new best friend.

I am: deeply into personal space — especially when I’m working. After all, it takes a certain amount of discretionary tablespace to spread out two books, a laptop, an iPhone, and a few beverages, while still leaving enough free space to spazzily computer-dance to Queen’s Greatest Hits.

I am not: one to deny any other cafe-goer that same right. (C’mon, who doesn’t dance while they word process?)

The Scene: The Back Bay Borders down the street from the Boston Public Library. Sneaked into the cafe in late afternoon with big dreams of snagging a coveted wall socket for yet another marathon grad school application session. But apparently half the city had the same idea, ’cause there was only one plug left — right next to a table occupied by a statuesque mid-twenties gentleman, tapping away at his own laptop.

The three chairs splayed around the table rather optimistically oversold the real estate. Clearly the table is intended for one and a half — at best — and any reasonable person would back out of the cafe and seek a battery top-up at the terminally lame but always-empty Finagle A Bagel across the street. But since when have I been in the business of doing what any reasonable person would do?

Picked up a drink and strode over to the table, where I put my bag on one of the accompanying chairs before even catching his eye. “Mind if I join you? I need to charge my laptop,” I explained, already reaching for the charger. He grimaced but gave a defeated shrug and scooted his laptop a few inches closer to his torso.

The table was so small that, with both of our computers set up, we were leaned in nose to nose like the poster for Sixteen Candles. And maybe it was the tight quarters, but over the course of the next half-hour, we quickly formed that casual stranger intimacy. He accidentally nudged my leg under the table with his Whole Foods bag, stuffed with a bouquet of carnations; I offered him a napkin when he sneezed twice in quick succession; after a while, he jumped up to find a book, leaving his computer, laptop and wallet in plain sight without so much as a word of warning.

After he’d jumped up, the breeze from his retreat sent one of his papers fluttering onto the floor. A woman who’d recently sat down at the table next to ours leaned over to pick it up. “Excuse me!” she coughed through my earbud Queen haze. “Excuse me, is this your boyfriend’s?”

“Oh, I don’t know, but — wait, whaaaaaaat?!”

Huh. Nothing says relationship like a Whole Foods bag, I suppose. And his two books of Proust on the table screamed “grad student” almost as much as my dog-eared copy of The Creative Writing MFA Handbook. Even our beat-up Moleskines were perfectly coordinated: my square-ruled notebook, jammed with strangely angular drawings and errant ticket stubs, every inch as eccentric as his unlined drawing notebook with its tight spidery handwriting scrawled perpendicular to itself.

Dude. Dude. Setting aside the fact that we’d never met, we totally could have been dating! Finally he returned, bearing the new David Sedaris book I’ve had on my to-read list for weeks now — the final seal of our imaginary-relationship status.

For the next hour or so, as we worked in parallel, I couldn’t help but sneak peeks at him over the top of my laptop. Was he a margin-scrawler? What kind of paper was he working on so intently? And who kept texting him?!

The last question, at least, resolved itself when a slightly younger guy in a truly devastating blazer wandered up to the table and grinned hello — then gave my imaginary boyfriend a movie-moment kiss hello. Sigh. Brutal break-up, dude.

The Verdict: Never share too-small cafe tables. You’ll only get your heart broken that way.

Plus, seriously, if the table’s small enough that you force the original table-holder to rearrange their belongings, then I can’t help but feel it’s overstepping a huge boundary. That, and once you sit within a two feet of someone, dude, it’s hard not to get involved, apparently. That’s — that’s, uh, normal, right?

Are you a table-sharer? Ever get too involved with the goings-on of other cafe dwellers?

On Secret Society of List Addicts, I temporarily stub out my cigar and give up my honorary chair at the Old Boys Club to reflect on a few everyday moments that make me feel divinely feminine.

NTKOG Year 2, #2: The kind of vivacious perma-hostess who halts your daily business and forces you to play a party game with her.

I am: an inveterate player of games. Not mind games, but old-school parlor games.

I am not: one to bring others into the madness. Unless you’re invited to one of my dinner parties, in which case, dude, you know what you’re in for.

The Scene: The Back Bay, a strange melange of snoots and tourists and, well, basically everyone else I’d never invite into my living room. Nonetheless, I shook off my usual standoffishness, and decided to engage the city at large in one of the all-time great party games: Mad Libs.

Purchased a bachelorette-party-gift edition of Mad Libs at Sugar Haven, and proceeded down the city streets with burbling cub-reporter earnestness, ready to coax every pedestrian who crossed my sight for a [noun], [adjective], or [part of body (plural)].

Flipped open the notebook to a page titled “The Ideal Mate,” and tentatively approached two dudes taking a bawdy smoke break on the Pour House patio. “Uh, hey,” I broke into the conversation. Alpha Smokebreak looked up — the type guy of who, were I a mid-level record producer, I’d hand twenty grand right there to grace the cover of my latest tweens’ll-buy-it pop-punk endeavor. “I’m, uh, I’m doing a Mad Lib. But I can’t do it alone? Can you, uh, help me?”

Requested an adjective and he immediately shot back: “cantankerous.” Multi-syllabic. Hot. He registered the surprise on my face and switched his cigarette to his non-dominant hand to go in for a well-deserved high-five. Three words later, I flipped the Mad Libs pad closed and he high-fived me again, then pulled his phone out.

“Sorry,” he said, texting rapid-fire with both thumbs. “I just really need to update my facebook status about this…”

Weirdly, the next half-dozen people I approached were no less chuffed with the random interruption. I’d anticipated people would be non-plussed by the random grammar lesson — hands up, guys, do you really remember what an adverb is?! — but of everyone I stopped, not a single dude denied me my random request.

The adorable college girl who stared up and sifted the stars for twenty minutes before deciding on “pendulous”; the Cactus Club bouncer who, when asked for a part of the body, immediately grunted “balls!”; the gaggle of techno-cuties clustered around the Apple Store who, pressed for a male celebrity, gave me an AP Euro crash course on the exploits of Hannibal.

With my Mad Lib half-completed, I paused briefly outside the fire station on Boylston, where four of Boston’s finest slouched on lawn chairs, staring over the velvety late-summer night. Gingerly, I approached and begged four words of them.

“Hell, honey, we’ll give you forty,” one of the guys grinned at me. “You want some cake? We’ve got some cake upstairs.”

Which is how, loves, I ended up spending thirty of the most utterly baller minutes of my life sitting inside a fire station, cooing over a gorgeous female pitbull, gathering increasingly risque [body part (plural)]s, and eventually being fed cake from the hands of honest-to-frig calendar-posing fireman.

Look, we may live in a world of “no,” but let me tell you, dudes, life never gets more exciting than when you decide to become an island of “yes.” It’s basically the most interesting word you can ever choose. Right after [body part (plural)], of course.

The Verdict: Say yes! Always say yes! Life is made of magic, and how the frig are you going to know that before you spend an evening inviting strangers to your phantom dinner party and being enchanted by every. single. one. of them?! Though I can’t guarantee that they’ll feed you cake. After all, not everyone’s life can be as charmed as mine.

[Edit: And for those of you who are curious, check out the completed Mad Lib here!]

NTKOG Year 2, #1: The kind of hardened pick-up artist who slays men in her wake by mastering the art of The Neg — jabbing the object of your desire with semi-insults until they … magically want to sleep with you?

I am: already kind of working The Neg in daily life. Or at least already the part where you’re not super nice to dudes.

I am not: mega adroit at communicating that I want to smooch a dude even when I totally, totally do. Let alone when trying to appear aloof, craft witty dialogue and remain seventeen moves ahead in the chess match of seduction — all without spilling my drink.

The Scene: First, a quick lesson in The Neg, for those of you who aren’t as obsessed with bro culture as I. (You’re welcome, mom.) The Neg is basically the pivotal tenet of the Mystery Method — right behind stupid hats — and suggests that women, especially beautiful women, have been hit on so many times that they automatically filter out compliments, so in order to woo her, you need to pooh-pooh her. The Neg can range from homicide inducing (“You wouldn’t think a girl with your figure would look so nice in a dress like that.”) to the subtle (“Huh, you’re not a lot of fun, are you?”). And, when properly applied, is supposed to coax any woman into desperately trying to prove just how wrong you are. With sexytimes.

The stuff men come up with, eh? Still, I’ve witnessed The Neg used with mortifying effectiveness on all kinds of smart, cool women, so why not give a few dudes a taste of their own medicine?

Neg the first: Late-twenties guy sitting on the stoop of my local convenience store, comforting a young girl whose giraffe rubber Silly Bandz bracelet has just snapped. He’s attempting to finesse the tiny bracelet into a delicate knot.

Usually I’d pass on hitting on stoop-dwellers — for some reason, almost none of them have read Camus, if you can believe it — but seeing a guy comfort a random child does something for a girl. As he futzed with the bracelet, I hovered and we made friendly eye contact. Everything was so positive. So of course it was time to throw The Neg.

“Hey, if you hold the broken ends to a lighter, you can probably fuse them back together.” He blinked up at me, non-plussed. “Don’t stress. You’re too cute to have to be clever.”

According to the Mystery Method, I should have been friggin’ in there like swimwear. Angsty glances! Flirtatious verbal sparring! Sexytimes? Instead, he rolled his eyes and I awkwardly shuffled away. But when I peeked back at him, he was indeed trying the lighter suggestion. So, uh, victory?

Neg the second: Since my first attempt felt less like flirtation and more like just plain rudeness, let the venerable ol’ Mystery script my first encounter. Stopped in alone to a neighborhood bar after work and grabbed a stool near a dude who was sitting alone, trying to read the head of his Sam Adams like tea leaves.

After I’d established goodwill with a little neutral chatting (weather! Sox!), I dropped the bomb with a neg line stolen directly from a Pick-Up Artist website.

“Dude, you want some gum?” I offered sweetly.
“Uh, no thanks. I’m drinking a beer,” he grunted.
“No, no really. You should probably take some gum.”

I’m sorry, in what parallel universe does this lead to make-outs? Dude turned away from me and suddenly became very invested in the Sox game. Which is probably just as well, since I don’t carry gum anyway.

(Accidental) Neg the third: On the way home, I toyed with the idea of staving off psychological debilitation long enough to try out a few more negs and, in that vein, jaunted to the convenience store to pick up a pack of non-phantom gum. The brah at the front of the line spent ten minutes mulling between Pall Malls and Parliaments, and in that time, I established standard mute-courtesy rapport with the attractive mid-twenties girl behind me.

After I rang up my pack of Orbit, I ripped off the cellophane to take a piece, then, since it was open, held out the pack to her. “Gum?”

She declined, politely, but I held her gaze for a moment too long afterwards and her face clouded with anxiety: “Do I need gum?”

Pause. Pause. I smirked, not unkindly. “Well, a little gum never hurts.”

Gave her the piece, walked out onto the street where — oh, I kid you not, my blessed kittens — two minutes later she shot out after me, physically stopped me, and proceeded to chat with me for nigh ten minutes about the neighborhood, laundry days, and how hard it is to make friends when you’re new in town. After the conversation had reached its natural end, she smiled at me — still chomping the gum — and said she hoped she’d see me around again.

The Verdict:  Holy frig, guys. Holy frig. I may have gotten shot down by two guys, but I PICKED UP A STRAIGHT WOMAN. Rejection be damned! Never before in my life have I felt more like a bro.

That said, maybe I was doing it wrong, or maybe I’m not the type, but I’m going to go ahead and veto The Neg for any future seduction attempts. While it’s devilishly effective on women, I’m not convinced the approach translates well across gender lines. After all, at least according to bar-hopping stereotypes, women are either wooed or ignored, and thus captivated by uncourted rejection; men, on the other hand, get rejected all the dang time, so it’s barely a blip on their radar.

Whether it’s gender differences or just the stupidity of the method, hey, The Neg, this is me rejecting you. (Though hopefully that’ll make you want to hook up with me. Call me?)

NTKOG #250: The kind of bold, optimistic adventurer who — fortified by a year full of uncharacteristic experiences — leaves her fate for a day entirely in the hands of her beloved blog readers.

I am: amazed and thrilled to announce this is the last official day of my project year.

I am not: afraid of anything anymore. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

The Scene: All over my fair adopted city, my love for which courses through me with the intensity of a volcano, yet the tenderness of a hiccuping kitten. For the last day of this strange, amazing project, decided to chance fate and let my truly beloved readers choose my adventures. And, dudes, you took the task seriously.

Adventure #1: “Write haikus! About things that you do today. Especially trivial things.” (from @xoxonatalie on twitter)

Perfect! I may have just the slightest tendency to get lost in verbal fireworks (nooooooo, really?!) slash lengthy descriptions of passers-by’s messed-up teeth, so let us approach this Choose My Adventure Day via haiku-cap.

Choose My Adventure:
it seems you conspired for my
ultimate delight

Adventure #2: “Swing on the swing set in Ringer Park in Allston. (If there still is a swing set and/or a Ringer Park).” (from commenter Mominlaw, who went on an early date with her husband there and who, ps, I hope is having a lovely birthday!)

Packed up and walked to Ringer Park in the drizzle, and was delighted to find I had the place more or less to myself! Then was even more delighted to get on a swingset and remember just how friggin’ fun that is! Uh, someone remind me why I haven’t done that in sixteen years?!

Dude, what is a swing? / Lever? Pulley? A machine? / Frig it, I'm swinging.

Adventure #3: “I would say joining kids’ games. Cartwheels anywhere there’s a spot of grass, hopscotch anywhere there’s chalk and sidewalk.” (from @PepperJess on twitter)

You don’t want to see an oaf of my caliber attempt a cartwheel (hint: destruction imminent), but — muddy grass and cute skirt be damned — still swing-dizzy, I found a hill on the playground and rolled right the way down. Afterwards, took chalk to asphalt and learned: 1) why professional hopscotch players don’t carry heavy messenger bags; 2) that my feet have apparently grown considerably since the last time I played.

Not great cardio / but it's still good for the heart. / (Is that too cheesy?)

Afterwards, a young couple strolled up to the playground, obviously on a date, and watched me attempting to make the perilous third-square hop. “Wanna play?” I asked them, then handed them each a stick of chalk. When I left, a few minutes later, he was drawing her portrait on the asphalt and I was meltier than the rainy chalk.

Adventure #4: “locate the toy that you loved most as a child/feel some attachment to and play in a park” (from Kelsey)

Although I’m a sucker for Slinkies, Play Doh and Creepy Crawlers, as a kid I was most obsessed with arts & crafts, and one item in particular:

Sammy D. Sapling / always keeps both his eyes peeled / seeking hot dryads

Swings, hopscotch, tree eyes.
Whoa, did I just take myself
on the perfect date?

Adventure #5: “What if you paid the bus or T-fare for a random person?” (from commenter Jessica)

Harmonica dude
with the sign by the bus stop,
stop playing and ride.

Adventure #6: “Stop at an animal shelter and play with the dogs or cats that looks like they need attention the most (usually the old guys)” (from commenter Erin)

Couldn’t find a local shelter I could public transit to on time, but stopped by a local pet store as they were packing up all of the weekly rescue kittens, and complimented a dignified former feral tabby on his glossy coat.

Fistbumps for kittens!
Love you temporarily;
hope you find a home.

Adventure #7:  ”i challenge you to buy and eat one cash register candy you wouldn’t ordinarily eat” (by @whowantssoup via twitter)

Adventure #8: “Please lie down on a busy sidewalk for a couple of minutes, and if anyone asks, tell them that you’re just looking up at the sky…” (from SapioSlut [warning: link nsfw])

Adventure #9: “take [your] reading outside to an iconic plant in your neighbourhood (Canadian sp) and, for good measure, bring some cold black tea to pour on its roots.” (from Naomi)

Adventure #10: “Bike to the Arnold Arboretum, find a secluded patch of grass and share a bottle of wine with yourself and Thoreau.” (from Neal Simpson)

Is it just me, or do these combine into one delightfully eccentric picnic? I had forty-five minutes to kill before free late admission to the Museum of Fine Arts, so I stopped by a local diner for a to-go Earl Grey, then spread a fleece blanket on the wet sidewalk and gazed at the grey-wooly sky while tourists hopped over me in confusion. Occasionally as I looked up, they would peer down anxiously and, for a moment, we would lock eyes. I smiled up warmly; they twitched away and kept hurrying on.

After ten minutes, I really gave them something to edge away from, when moved onto the lawn, nuzzled my face in the grass and read it excerpts from Walden while sneaking sips from a tiny bottle of Merlot. Maybe it was just the wine, or the luxury of getting soaked on a rainy day, but I was Thoreau-ly entertained. (Oh man. Oh man. That was awful.)

Rain came in buckets / Dude asked what I was doing / "Reading, sir. And you?"

After I fed the grass some of my cooled tea, headed into the Museum of Fine Arts for late afternoon admission:

Adventure #11: “should be lots of art students @ the mfa today. Could pay one $1 for a 1-minute sketch?” (from @kharied on twitter)

He captured my smirk / my rosy cheeks, crooked nose / and my lack of limbs

Adventure #12: “Give a high-five to all the cyclists you can.” (from @teeheehee on Twitter)

Good day, fair cyclist!
Kudos on braving the rain!
Knock and/or lock it.

Adventure #13: “Tell three strangers you like their outfit/hair. Yay for compliments!” (from Scarlet)

Well what a cute skirt!
Where did you get that necklace?
Those shoes are divine.

Adventure #14: “get a mimosa! Yum!” (from @scarls17 on twitter)

Adventure #15: “challenge a random dude or dudes to a game of buckhunter at a bar.” (from ohhayitskk)

Adventure #16: “I want you 2 walk up to the next hot guy you see hug him, tell him you love him and then walk away, preferably into a crowd.” (from @katiedeniselee on twitter)

Ducked into a sports bar near where I work to pick up an unfashionably late-in-the-day mimosa (yummy!) and stake out the console game situation. Although they didn’t have buckhunter, they did feature a game whereby you — and I’m so glad I live in a world where this exists — emulate throwing beanbags with a roller control.

Found a trio of dudes who had obviously been drinking since the beginning of the Sox game, and singled one out. His slight squiffiness was absolutely key to this mission.

Sir, let’s toss some balls.
The loser hugs the winner?
(My wager is love.)

Yes, for the first time in Boston, I told a dude I loved him. Not for the first time in Boston, a dude in a bar laughed at me. Awesome. (He also completely kicked my ass in the game, but this was to be expected.)

Adventure #17: “Pick 5 things from your apartment that you no longer need & give them away to 5 people. Uncluttering + charity!” (from @ericfriction on twitter)

I purchased sweaters
in all the colors I hate.
Well, some need the warmth.

And into the Whole Foods drop box they went! Freeing up more drawer space for me to, I’m sure, buy more clothes I’m going to immediately tire of. I … I might need a make-over.

Adventure #19: “Drink a Hot Toddy.” (from Toddy)

Adventure #20: “please have a sweet snack and a cup of tea before bed if you can.” (from commenter Susie)

Earl Grey and brandy:
ghetto toddy burns so good,
with bacon cookies.

Yeah, you heard me, bacon cookies, because a year as enchanting and bizarre as this one deserves to end on a sweet but weird note, don’t you think?

The Verdict:  You guys! My last NTKOG of the project year! I — I don’t know what to think! There’s a lot happening in my head right now. What I can say for sure is that my epic and exquisite Choose My Adventure Day was the pitch-perfect end to the experiment that has made this past year undoubtedly among the greatest of my life.

Thank you guys for sticking with me through it! And trust me, this blog isn’t going anywhere. Give me a few hours to catch my breath and still my heart, then come back tomorrow for some schmaltzy reflections and news about what’s happening to the blog now that I’ve (oh my goodness!) finished the 250!

Announcement! The last official NTKOG of the project (but not of the blog! not by a longshot!) goes up on Monday, and I’m going to need your help on this one. For the last day, I’m going to be the kind of girl to — do whatever you say. On Sunday, from 12:01AM to 11:59PM, I’m going to let y’all make all of my decisions for me, via blog comments and Twitter. Tune in on Sunday! Make me flirt with a cop, eat a squid, or whatever else strikes your fancy!

NTKOG #248: The kind of emotionally-promiscuous, utterly histrionic nutjob who — dissatisfied with the dissolution of her previous affairs — hires a stranger for a break-up redo.

I am: super great at planning what I want to say to people, but…

I am not: one for grabbing you by the ear and actually demanding to say my friggin’ piece.

The Scene: Nervously pacing outside the hole-in-the-wall diner by my office, waiting for a forty-year-old stranger to show up so I could pay him to break up with me. Wait, what?

This third of my TaskRabbit challenges stems from an idea Kiss-Ducker and I worked on a few years ago: the emotional equivalent of a haunted house. A Break-Up-A-Torium, where every mild-mannered girl could live out the crockery-shattering, snot-rattling break-up of her masochistic dreams.

And while we never got the caper off the ground, one measly buck on TaskRabbit had bought me a forty-five minute break-up with a local professional actor during my lunchbreak at work. We were set to meet at 11:30AM; by 11:33, I was shivering anxiously. I called to ask where he was — “I’m just walking there!” — then, after another five minutes had passed, texted again and left a voicemail.

Eight minutes into our relationship, I was clingy and he was emotionally unavailable. Great. It’s like we really were dating.

Moments later, I was greeted by a distinguished man with a gorgeous, gravely voice who bore a distinct resemblance to my Epic High-School Crush. We introduced ourselves warmly and headed into the diner. Nice to meet you. Now break up with me.

We chatted amicably while we waited for his food to come out, me angsting over how to begin the break-up. Because my last relationship ended so well (hearts, The Ex), I didn’t have any recent history to saddle him with, so dug through The Vault for a half-decade-old situation I never really got closure on. To prepare, I’d sent him a character description and a few paragraphs of synopsis. I was toying with various opening lines, when he pushed aside his burger and fixed his eyes on me:

“Well come on,” he sighed with all the weariness of a flickered-out former flame. “You brought me here to talk it out, so let’s talk it out.”

“You — I just — why were you such a dick to me?”

“I reject your basic hypothesis,” he shot back, sounding so much like the character he was playing that I had to catch my breath. Oh snap, guys. The break-up was on.

My basic objective in the exercise: to secure from Faux Beau a genuine apology for something kind of screwed-up he’d done a handful of years ago. And to my delight, the actor didn’t immediately cave — he made me fight for the apology I wanted. Throughout the first ten minutes of the argument, he weakened gradually.

I don’t know what you want from me. I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sorry there’s nothing that could be done. I — I’m sorry.

But even after he’d apologized, still, it wasn’t enough. It never is, right? I kept bristling and — classic break-up move — he went on the offensive.

Faux Beau: No matter what I do, you’re going to see what you want to see in me. If I give a waitress a big tip, you think it’s because I want to sleep with her. Did it occur to you that maybe I didn’t want to wait for change? Maybe I just got really good service. Maybe–
TKOG: Oh come on, of course you want to sleep with her.
Faux Beau: What can I say? I like waitresses.

Like all of my arguments, we spent half of our time just making each other laugh, setting aside the anger and guilt long enough to spike a perfectly arch aphorism. And, like all the best fights, our argument followed its own dreamy break-up logic. Accusations bled into apologies which flared into rage and then, for one soft moment in the middle, fond reminiscing.

TKOG: God, I just. You — you have the most beautiful nose.
Faux Beau:  Really? You think so? It’s been broken a few times.
TKOG: Probably by some waitress.
Faux Beau: I really do like them.

As is so characteristic, although I’d brought him there to scream and guilt, I ended up apologizing to him, just a little. I rationalized why we were sitting there, having that discussion, so many years after the fact, and — in a very meta move — hypothesized that I was injecting drama to my stolid life by creating an ersatz relationship.

Faux Beau: I think you mean archetypal. Like the platonic ideal of a relationship.
TKOG:  Dude, Plato must have been a fucked-up guy.

The conversation meandered its weird course to the natural finish and we looked at each other, seriously, not unkindly, before I shrugged and told him, look, I care about you, I want you to have a wonderful life. I just want to have a slightly more awesome one.

“I think you deserve that,” he said, then we parted ways, strangers again, strangers finally.

Ha! No! That was just douchebag melodrama. In reality, as he finished the burger, we snapped out of character, I thanked him profusely, and we chatted easily about the local burlesque scene. But I thought about his last line on the walk back to the office and, you know? I think I do deserve it.

The Verdict: Holy frig, guys. Holy frig. Instead of internet dating sites, there should be internet break-up sites. The second I dashed back into the office, Co-Worker asked me how the break-up went, then answered her own question: “You’re glowing!” What can I say? It was a spiritual spa treatment.

I only wish I’d thought to do this back when all the wounds were fresh. I can’t even imagine how helpful it could have been. Right now, I’m coming at the experience as a well-adjusted dude in a good emotional place but — but when something painful happens, the worst possible feeling is voicelessness. You can talk to your friends, your cat, your therapist, but they’re all people who exist to fight on your side. They’re incapable of an unbiased approach to the other person’s point of view.

All afternoon, Co-Worker’s and my minds clicked over other situations we could hire actors to role-play. Painless fights! Righted wrongs! Closure! And the best part is, after the fight, you can walk away from your opponent really-forever, the way you probably should have in the first place.

Thanks to TaskRabbit for hooking me up with a $25 gift certificate to use their amazing service in what I can objectively call the weirdest. way. possible.