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!]

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!

NTKOG #244: The kind of besotted transit enthusiast who, once you catch her eye, turns the traincar into a make-shift angsty calc class and, gosh, passes you a love note.

I am: forever falling in love with people on trains and busses. Those are the best moments, I think, when a strictly theoretical interaction hovers in the realm of infinitely possibility before you inevitably pass from each other’s lives forever.

I am not: in the habit of actually informing momentary eye-catchers how lovely they are. There are national registries for dudes in said habit, guys.

The Scene: A Brooklyn-bound L Train last weekend, returning home from a lovely evening with Muscles and Justice. And while trains fascinate me even in the mildest of times, this particular car was especially alive with possibility, thanks to a magical urban anecdote Muscles had shared with me a few days prior.

Apparently he had been riding the train, as usual — standard T-shirt, ratty jeans, reading an Evelyn Waugh novel — when an anonymous woman brushed past him and dropped a note in his lap. I don’t usually do things like this, she more or less said, but you’re extremely handsome and — what if? Justice, Muscles and I reread the note a number of times, exclaiming over how cool and ballsy it was of her, and how in an alternate universe, we would have had a killer real-life rom-com on our hands.

From this discussion, two lessons: 1) See, gentlemen? This is what happens when you read Waugh novels in public; and 2) even though the note didn’t result in a love connection, and she must have been terrified to write it, nothing bad happened. Her note was the delight of all — including the girlfriend of the gentleman she’d approached.

I’d had this idea a few times before, but doing it in my hometown seemed with awkward possibility; however I was determined that before I left New York, I’d drop off a similar missive.

Unfortunately, it seems that train cars are only filled with cute guys on the days you couldn’t care less. For miles of train car between Williamsburg and Manhattan, my searching gaze was met only by homeless dudes, awkward tweens and pale, fanny-packed tourists.

As I was about to give up, on the last subway ride of the weekend, I saw him. Mid-thirties, maybe; fantastic blazer, dark-wash jeans, buttery navy loafers; riding home at midnight on a Saturday, he looked exhausted, but — more — disappointed in himself for feeling so tired. He looked the way that I always feel: like he’d tried his best and wasn’t going to take another step until something magical happened.

Oh whatever, I'll bet Robert Browning got his start scrawling ambiguous missives on the back of bakery receipts.

For three stops, hopped anxiously out of my seat every few seconds to make sure I didn’t miss his auspicious exit. Finally, saw the crown of his head rising above the thronging passengers, threw myself through a couple that was making out in my path, and extended the note. Sir! Sir!

Goddamnit, HEADPHONES! With one foot out the train, he hadn’t heard me. Desperately, I grabbed the train pole — my fist mere inches in front of a twelve-year-old’s face — and swung myself across it like a manic Gene Kelly just close enough to his path to tuck the note into the breast pocket of his blazer.

Unfortunately, just as I started tucking, he spun around to look back into the car, causing me to awkwardly stroke the smudgy receipt across his chest, then, paralyzed with horror, watch him retreat.

Another successful social interaction with another human being.

Afterwards, had only one stop to figure out how to dispense of the note. It wasn’t a proper love note, I reasoned, and surely there’s another jeans-clad man with excellent shoes who could use a pick-me-up! As we got off the train, I spotted a snappily attired gay Asian guy on a date with his cute-but-unkempt boyfriend, ran fifteen feet after him in the tunnel, tapped his shoulder and pressed it into his hand.

After which, because they were apparently walking the same direction we were, I had to run back in the tunnel and hide behind Muscles for the whole way out. As we walked aboveground, though, I hovered in the stairwell long enough to see him pause in front of the ticket machine and read the note out loud. The guys were laughing but, uh, I hope they were smiling too?

The Verdict: Argh I am terminally awkward. This anecdote is slowly receding from mortifying to hilarious, though, and in the worst-case scenario, at least I’ve secured a footnote on yet another Loonies Not To Lunch With list. Can’t argue with that, eh?

On Secret Society of List Addicts, check out vacations I’d send myself on if I weren’t so broke I actively have to choose between food and laundry. (Hint: I always choose food.)

NTKOG #207: The kind of modern-age guru who – when casting around the darkest corners of her psyche – realizes, hey, there’s an app for that. (And at $1.99, spiritual well-being comes cheap!)

I am: wary of New-Age jiggerypokery, including but not limited to: hypnosis, “self-esteem” and quinoa.

I am not: trying to get competitive, but I might be the most unenlighted person I know. Hey, how many first kisses have you had in Wal-Mart parking lots?!

The Scene: A late evening bus from New York up to Boston, obsessively cataloguing my neurotic thoughts while hungover college students dozed in the seats around me.  In a last-ditch effort for serenity, tried to meditate my twitching, vibrating self into an uneasy physical rest.

Suddenly, a (recyclable, eco-friendly) lightbulb! Hypnosis! Signed into the App Store to check out the free trial contenders: a half-hour program for improved self-esteem (um, no) and another for restful sleep. Jackpot!

Once I downloaded it, wriggled into a comfortable position and plugged in my earbuds as deep as they could go. The closer to your soul the better, right?

After some bird chirping and gong ringing, a disembodied man’s nasal voice started speaking to me from deep within my ear canal. “Close your eyes and relax,” he told me. “Picture yourself outside in your perfect place on a beautiful day.”

All y'all desert rats know what I'm talking about.

As I sunk lower in the bus seat, he directed me to shine an imaginary sun on each of my muscles in turn as they melted into utter relaxation. “The sun warms your face” – slack-jawed, I drooled on myself – “and now it shines on your chest and stomach” – I slowly dripped another six inches lower in the seat – “and now it warms the toes on your left foot. Really feel each little toe relax!

Wait, what?! You mean – you mean the left foot that’s currently crunched at a 160-degree angle to avoid the risk of accidentally making contact with some other dude’s bare foot? You mean that one? Oh, man, Relaxo Towne Express! Choo choo!

I pulled myself up haughtily in the seat and it took fifteen more minutes of deep-ear blathering (something about candles? a sunset might have also been involved?) for him to liquefy me back to a Capri-Sun-commercial-esque puddle of relaxation.

Just as I started to enter the velvety blackness of welcome unconsciousness, Disembodied Voice dropped to a whisper: “You are now completely relaxed. You will leave your unconscious mind open only to my voice. You will absorb every bit of the very important information I am about to tell you.”

On the count of three, you will chant your Visa card number...

Wait. What. The. FUCK?!

My whole body jerked upwards like a marionette, wild-eyed and desperate to protect myself against Disembodied B’s attempted brain-rape.

Disappointingly, he just wanted to tell me lots of stuff about how I’m a good person for trying to take control of my unconsciousness, and how restful sleep is this big noble gift I’m giving myself and how I’m basically a Chivalrous Knight of Olde for vanquishing my fear of unconsciousness with this free trial iPhone app.

I’d already sunk halfway under the chair in front of me, murmuring incoherent agreement (“Yes I am great!”) and was three milliseconds from sleep when, damn it all, the Disembodied Bastard trotted out the old healing sun motif yet and – curses upon you, you nasal bastard! – directed my personal consciousness-sun to wake me up, muscle group by muscle group, and face the day alert and alive.

Dude. Psyche-blocked.

The Verdict: A two-pronged upshot to today’s tale, loves. First: I obviously found some aspects of hypnosis at least somewhat relaxing, and so am interested in re-trying it in a more appropriate physical context. Despite the fact that this experience suggests I won’t be able to turn my conscious mind off for long enough to experience much joy. (What else is new.)

Second: When I started the hypnosis, I felt especially well-dressed for the part, because I was wearing a long, floaty hippie skirt – one of those loose, elastic-waisted numbers. NOT THE CASE. Between all the relaxation puddling and jerking abruptly upward in my seat, after the half-hour course I realized that, without noticing, I’d managed to roll my skirt entirely off my hips. Yes. I was sitting bare-ass on a bus seat.

Cue two full hours of TKOG attempting to subtly stand up enough to readjust the skirt without a) flashing the couple behind her, or b) waking the girl next to her. Both of which I ultimately did. No fewer than four times.

Yeah, maybe I should have bought that self-esteem hypnosis course after all.

On Secret Society of List Addicts yesterday: reasons having long nails occasionally makes me want to stab myself in the eye with my (exquisitely manicured) index finger.

NTKOG #195: The kind of vigilante bus avenger who, upon witnessing minor violations of public transportation etiquette, makes the punishment fit the crime.

I am: annoyed by people who act singularly burdened to be stuck on the bus. ’cause, really, guys, the rest of us are thrilled to be here! (Well, excluding those dudes who seem to count rush-hour frotting as the high point of their sex lives.)

I am not: ballsy enough to call people out on it. Why make a bad situation worse?

The Scene: My morning rush-hour bus to work, which has the unique pleasure of crossing no fewer than three busy subway lines. Although I’m fortunate enough to join the crush before the bus gets truly packed, it would take nothing short of an act of god to prevent every square inch of the bus from cramming with groggy passenger-zombies within a few stops of my entrance. Which miraculously doesn’t stop people from plopping down in aisle seats and unpacking the full contents of their purses and briefcases into the empty seat next to them in the mad attempt to score a full double to themselves.

Heck, a few weeks ago I saw a dude spread out a linen handkerchief on said unoccupied seat and spread out an honest-to-pete PICNIC on the seat next to him. Complete with friggin’ soup, the least appropriate bus food since lighter-broiled s’mores.

Usually I sleepwalk past the seathogs, assuming someone else will put them in their place. But for one week, walked up, looked those dudes straight in the eye and told them to shove it. Specifically, to shove it over so we could be busride bffs.

Monday: Businessman sprawled in the outside seat, briefcase full of papers precariously teetering on the inside seat. The bus is half-full; regardless, I stand next to him and clear my throat. There’s an empty seat over there, he nods, and I tell him I’m aware but do not move. Well, it’s going to take me a minute to gather my papers. That’s okay, sir. I’ll wait. By the time he finally gathers his goods, we’ve hit the next stop and all of the other seats do legitimate fill up. Which doesn’t stop him from passive-aggressively elbowing my ribs every time he turns a page.

Tuesday and Wednesday: Young professional women, both days, perched in the outside seat with their bags resting non-aggressively on the inside seat. Can I sit there? Much rolling of eyes and exasperated sighing, but I am allowed to pass and sit unmolested.

Thursday: A brah, sprawling across both seats, taking up more physical space than seems possible for his hipster-emaciated frame. He is bobbing slightly to the music on his skull-eating ’80s headphones. I stand in front of him, gesturing, then verbally asking him to move — growing more polite as my voice raises. Maybe he’s playing with the volume on his iPod or maybe he doesn’t hear me. Just as I’m about to concede the stand-off, he makes the fatal mistake of glancing up and catching my eye. Sir. Seriously. Move. He does, then avoids looking at me for the rest of the ride, even when he passes two inches in front of my face to be let out for his stop. “Stupid bitch,” I can hear him thinking and, yeah, I guess that’s one way of looking at it.

Friday: A day so wet and unpleasant the whole world smells like a dog-grooming parlor. Already, the bus is crowded, and yet a bottle-blonde undergrad with her hair pulled into a messy finals-week chignon sits in the outer seat with an overflowing summer tote spilling on the seat next to her.

TKOG: Excuse me, can I sit in the seat next to you?
Blondie: There’s another seat right over there.
TKOG: This bus is going to fill up in like five minutes and you’ll need to move your stuff anyway.
Blondie: Yeah, but there’s a seat right over there.
TKOG: And there’s one next to you. Seriously.

Blondie exhaled a double-lung of disgust and, as she stood, picked up her drenched umbrella from the ground of the bus and put it on my seat, where it lay dripping for thirty seconds while she arranged her bag. “Ooooh, I’m so sorry,” she smirked, straight out of Gossip Girl, “Now the seat’s all wet! You probably don’t want to sit there!”

Hey, whatever, I told her. I was going to wash this skirt tonight anyway. Shot her a grotesquely sweet smile until she rolled her eyes away. Dude, there is no escaping the vigilante bustice.

The Verdict: Funny thing about people: for some reason, calling them out on their bad behavior always seems to make them anxious to behave even more atrociously, as though it in some way validates the decision. Whatever, guys! I can play this game all day long!

That said, I don’t think I will. Vigilante justice just isn’t viable for the non-caped set. If you call people out directly and verbally on bad behavior, maybe one in a thousand people will think to themselves, “Huh, that was a fair point.” And once you take direct reproach out of the equation, the odds get even lower. Providing gentle nudges against bad behavior is highly unlikely to make people realize exactly how they’ve been behaving badly. More than likely, I just gave a few people an excuse to bitch to their c-workers about the crazy jackass that may or may not have been coming onto them on the bus.

NTKOG #185-7: The kind of self-absorbed douche sandwich double-sauteed in jerksauce who, confined to a matchbox-sized airplane seat, feels the need to expand her presence in the most obnoxious ways possible.

I am: at my best, as a human being, on airplanes: mild, efficient, insular. We’re going to make it through this, buddy, says TKOG, and I’m only here to help.

I am not: sympathetic to anyone who willingly inflicts discomfort on other travelers on the flimsy excuse that “I’m not comfortable.” Uh, yeah, welcome to modern travel.

In this pursuit, a whole trio of NTKOGs in which I reign as the supreme asshole of the air.

NTKOG #185: The kind of legroom hog who, moments after take-off, slams her seat back into your knee and leaves it there for the whole dang flight.

Call me a Seatback Socialist, but I live by a simple credo: A traveler is entitled to recline her seat precisely as far as the person in front of her does. But for every time the dude in front of you reclines and you keep your seat fully erect, you get to sleep with Adrien Brody in the afterlife. I like to think it’s what Gandhi would do.

Fun fact: not only have I never in my life fully reclined an airplane seat, but I haven’t reclined one even an inch in several years. It’s kind of a point of pride with me. Nonetheless, moments into my return flight, zoomed back several inches, until I could feel my seat gouging the knee of the loud-mouth Masshole wedged in the seat behind me.

“Jesus fucking christ,” he slurred. I smiled sweetly between the seats and apologized, then got back to work on reclining. For five minutes, silence. Then, a siege of first tapping, then kicking, then full-out pounding my seatback. Once the man has escalated to repeatedly lowering his tray table then slamming it back upwards, I turned to him again.

TKOG: Everything alright back there?
Passive-Aggressive Masshole: Yeah, except there’s no fucking legroom on these seats.
TKOG: Oh yes. The perils of flying cattle-class. Well, have a nice flight!

Kick. Kick. Slam.

NTKOG #186: The kind of unprepared thimble-bladder who physically forces you into the aisle to sprint to the onboard lavatory.

Before I boarded the plane, resolved to leave my window seat to use the lavatory for the first time in my adult life aboard a domestic flight. Once the couple sharing my row got seated, though, my resolve wavered: an elderly couple, both obese and obviously mortified about taking up more than their allotted seatroom, who took a good fifteen minutes to swaddle themselves in blankets, blow up travel pillows, and otherwise broadcast to the rest of the cabin that they were infrequently travelers at best. By the time they’d settled and, in rull thick Southern accents, began to confer about how earnestly they hoped to sleep through the whole flight, my heart crackled.

Nonetheless, the second that seatbelt sign came on: “Excuse me, would you mind? I promise not to be annoying again ’til we land.” Slowly, laboriously, they gathered up their travel possessions, re-folded the blankets, and staggered against the turbulence into the aisle. When I returned, the same slow production. By the time I was seated again, my heart felt as empty as my bladder.

NTKOG #187:  The kind of neo-warrior/emperor who goes to any length to secure a permanent settlement on the communal armrest.

My theory: the poor schmuck jammed in the center seat deserves every tiny break he can garner in life. Two full armrests is the least we can do to assuage his suffering.

After the heart-rending bathroom visit, while the elderly woman next to me dug through her bag for her hardbound Semi-Literary Sexy Mystery Du Jour, snaked my arm onto the rest and planted it firm. When she was ready to settle back into her seat, she gingerly prodded me with her elbow, but no doing. She made a little moue of consternation, then curled into herself.

A few moments later, the drink cart rolled by, and the Air Waitress leaned over to me with a can of Diet Coke. I protested there must have been a mistake; I was in the lavatory when orders were made. The elderly woman turned to me with a sheepish smile:

“I saw a Diet Coke in your bag. I figured that’s what you want, so I went ahead and ordered it for you, honey.”

Oh my heart. My fucking heart. I gave her the armrest, because there was nothing else I could give her, short of eternal adoration. Curled up against the window to enjoy a sense of peace and rare faith in humanity. Which lasted right up ’til Masshole behind me sneaked his arm into my seat to try to press the seat-recline button.

The Verdict: I try not to be judgmental, but, honestly? Traveling inconsiderately is the fastest and only surefire way to convince this mostly-sympathetic girl that you might just be a terrible person. Trying out some of these taboo behaviors only deepened my resolution: although they provided fledgling sparks of personal comfort, it was at the cost of knowing I was bringing pain to perfect strangers. I can’t do that. I don’t do that. Not even to jerky seat-behind-mates who have no sense of personal boundaries.

What are your guys’ personal rules of etiquette when riding on a plane? Am I just crazy for taking travel comportment so friggin’ seriously?

NTKOG #184: The kind of laid-back traveler who starts packing half an hour before boarding time, then cuts in front of everyone at the security gate with the excuse: “I can hear my plane’s engine revving!”

I am: the chillest, most laid-back person you’d ever hope to meet — right up until I set a single molecule in an airport. At which point, I start physically vibrating and loudly demanding capital punishment for slow-walkers.

I am not: wrong about the slow-walker thing. If you do this, I hate you.

The Scene: Bay Area, winding down an enchanting weekend with The Ex. Conundrum: I wanted to squeeze every last second out of the weekend, but my airport neuroses require me to be sitting at the gate two hours before boarding time, even for a domestic flight out of a dollhouse-sized airport.

I’ve been mocked for my tyrannical airport attitudes before. Justice and The Ex are both notorious second-splitters, and have reassured me that the world will not end if I’m not the first person seated in my boarding group. But Justice is Russian, so she’s profoundly uncomfortable when not in the physical act of cutting someone in line; as for The Ex, well, he once missed a flight to eat a bowl of clam chowder, so who is he to give me airport advice?

Still, for the first time in my life, I was going to Cut It Close. My boarding time was 8:30PM for a 9:00PM flight.

6:00PM: Putter around, snacking on jalapeno jelly with The Ex. Start to think about packing. Vajazzle instead.

6:30PM: Triple-check to make sure I’m checked into the flight. Pack. Angst.

7:00PM: Run around the house like a madwoman, telling The Ex if we don’t get out the door RIGHT NOW, I’m going to have a stroke.

7:17PM: Actually get out the door. Fret that we’re not going to get to the airport ’til after 8.

7:31PM: Get to the airport.

7:33PM: As we drive toward the terminals, note that the airport is absolutely dead. The Ex asks if I want to pull into short-term parking to hang out for a bit, just to really press the experiment. I ask what we’d even do for half an hour.

7:33-8:00PM: We figure out what to do for half an hour. (Oh don’t be gross. We just talked and sang along to the CD in the car. More or less.)

8:01PM: Skip brightly into the terminal, ID in hand, ready to zip through security. Take a long look around at the ghostly conveyor belts before realizing — fuck, completely wrong terminal. Grab an employee’s shoulder and barely refrain from shaking it while shrieking, “JetBlue! JetBlue! Right now! Where?!” He tells me I’m in good time for the flight and a five-minute shuttle should be along any minute from bus stop 4.

8:03PM: Hang up from frantic phone call to The Ex to board shuttle. Whatever. I should be there by 8:10 — plenty of time to board.

8:12PM: Wait a minute, why are we going into long-term parking? Bus driver calls out “Parking Lot, Stop A”. It’s the wrong bus. He sent me to the wrong goddamn bus. Sweat profusely.

8:23PM: “Parking Lot, Stop M!” I ask the bus driver how many more parking-lot stops there are; he looks at me like I’m crazy: “It’s the alphabet. So, uh, 26.” I call The Ex and curse. A lot.

8:31PM: My flight is ACTUALLY BOARDING. We finally wind our way out of the parking lot, begin to approach the terminals, and — the bus stops. The driver radios the station and tells them that his shift is over, can the new driver meet him?

8:32-8:34PM: Look, guys, history may never know what happened here, because I suffered an anxiety-induced black-out, but I ran to the front of the bus and cried. A lot. Was awoken from my panic-stupor by being hurled to the front of the bus as the driver booked it out of the lot and radioed to postpone the back-up driver. I vow to name all of my kids — fuck, actually, totally forget his name.

8:40PM: Run into the terminal, sweating, crying, and bleeding a little from where my bag has ripped open my ankle. Self-check kiosk rejects me because I’m too late. Ask security guard what to do and he gestures to the ten-person check-in line. “Don’t worry, you have twenty minutes. That’s plenty of time.” Regret that I don’t have a spare moment to throttle him.

8:47PM: Beg people in front of me checking in for 10pm flight to let me cut them, on grounds that I was told wrong bus. All acquiesce sweetly except fellow in front of line, who is checking on my same flight. “What’re you worried about?” he asks, with hateful calm. “We have plenty of time.”

8:48-8:51PM: Check in, get through security, and run past eight gates to my own, hurtling over wayward children and wheelchair-dudes in my wake. Oh yeah, guys. In three damn minutes. As I sprinted out of the security line, the guard stopped me with a suspicious/amused look. “Why are you running? Your plane leaves in ten minutes. Everything will be fine.” I run backwards, shouting, “Nothing will be fine! Nothing will ever be fine again!” Yeah. Clearly no security risk here.

8:54PM: Board the dang plane. First person on in my boarding group. All is as it should be again.

The Verdict: This was single-handedly the most terrible thing I’ve ever done. I will now resume my regular airport activity of arriving at the gate early enough to eat two meals and read half a novel there. And the next dude who tells me not to worry about missing a flight is getting a faceful of justice-rage punches.

I realize that most of this had to do with the bad luck of being directed to the wrong shuttle (and the oversight of not double-checking with the driver), but seriously, I’m scarred for life. Are you guys airport worriers as well? How much time do you usually allow?

Check out this week’s post at Life As A Human, in which I reenact a scene from When Harry Met Sally. No, not that scene.

NTKOG #173: The kind of discomfiting child-at-heart who indulges in public tête-à-têtes and tea parties with the stuffed set.

I am: usually in the process of trying (slash largely failing) to hide the most distressing of my eccentricities from human view.

I am not: ever going to be accused of excessive maturity. Just look at my bookshelves, in which new, un-dog-eared volumes of Sachar and Pinkwater mingle with Chekhov and Chabon.

The Scene: Amtrak, hurtling to New York. Started out all business: staked a window seat, plugged in my computer and cell charger, tucked my copy of Brideshead Revisited in the seatback in front of me. Then, to the intense discomfort of my seatmate, fished into my bag and pulled out a stuffed elephant, whose ears I kissed a few times before settling into a four-hour writing session.

This is Nichka. Despite the care-worn appearance, she’s only four years old. And if you have a problem with her, then I have a problem with you.

For context: Nich came into my life during the shitty summer I spent in Vermont (phtooey!) when I was 19. As a kid, I was generally pretty aloof with my stuffed animals – after brief stints of fascination, I’d inevitably abandon them belly-down in sandboxes. For whatever reason, though, Nich is real in a very veleveen rabbit way. Any time I know I’ll be spending the night elsewhere, she comes along in my purse; we often pass a pleasant half-hour chatting about world events, peanut farming, and reading aloud chapters of Wodehouse. Seems normal enough to me, but in our jaded modern world, the innocent love between a girl and her stuffed elephant is not to be.

By the time I’d written a paragraph on my computer, stuffed elephant nestled between ear and shoulder, my seatmate had pretty much gotten ceased the incredulous side glances. I was neither especially ostentatious nor reserved in my stuffed animal canoodling: the occasional stroke, a kiss here and there. No big deal.

However, when said seatmate exited in Providence, she wasn’t easy to replace. My train car was 85% full, and most of the free seats were rudely stuffed with bags and jackets. As new riders strolled the aisles, their eyes would lock hungrily on the empty seat next to me, then, once they took in my pachydermal lesion of etiquette, snapped up their heads and kept gazing into the distance. One gentleman got so far as stowing his luggage above my seat before he took a closer look at me, hoisted his bag back down, and moved on — eventually sitting beside a woman holding a tiny infant.

A bit over halfway through the train ride, I got a little peckish, so Nich and I worked our way up to the snack car. After some deliberation, chose a packet of peanuts, and cuddled Nichka while I ordered them.

The clerk gazed at me with genial embarrassment. “Are they for your little friend?”

“Uh, no, dude. They’re for me.”

The Verdict: I truly didn’t think this was that weird, but when the Amtrak snackette straight-out accuses you of being touched in the head, you’ve got to admit that you’ve been making some dang life choices and, uh, maybe not all for the best. Guess Nichka is doomed to spending daylight hours cooped up in my purse. Good thing she has the leftovers of that bag of peanuts to snack on while she’s in there.

NTKOG #170: The kind of take-no-prisoners badass warrior chick who, when you affront her, holds you up to a wall by your throat until you grunt out an apology.

I am: mild-mannered, unless you snootily miscorrect my pronunciation of the name of one of my favorite authors. (It’s EVE-uh-lyn WAAAHH, snotty bookstore dudes!)

I am not: unscarred by rude behavior, even if I choose to ignore it.

The Scene: Taking a mental-health stroll during my lunch break from the office. If I haven’t mentioned it before, I work in a slightly seedy area of TechnicallyBoston that police dispatchers routinely refer to as Roxbury. If you’re from Boston, you know what I’m talking about; if not, then, well, don’t leave your GPS in the car when you come to visit my office.

Actually, just don’t visit my office.

Because my not-super-great work neighborhood is situated near a major university, however, there is an intriguing social dynamic. The fresh-faced do-gooder undergrads routinely strew gifts and spare cigarettes upon the thronging street masses, which has led our local homeless population to become — like public-park squirrels — entitled and snappish.

While I’m often a good sport with a spare quarter or PowerBar, I’m a firm believer in well-reasoned donations to local charities instead of high-pressure one-on-one hand-outs. Even though I’m a little disgusted with my own behavior, often when I’m approached in the street, I’ll avoid eye contact with the beggar and move on my own way.

“Go fuck yourself!” they will snarl on occasion. “An excellent suggestion!” I’ll crow merrily, then continue about my business.

Every once in a while, though, a girl has had a morning filled with screaming visitors, lost file folders, the incessantly shrilling phone — and  on such a morning, a girl is maybe a little sick of being looked upon as an enchanted piggy bank for the unfortunately downtrodden.

As I lingered outside the local 7-11, listening to the last few notes of a song on my iPod, a middle-aged woman holding a plastic bag tapped me on my shoulder. I jerked away, of course; I hate being touched.

Bitter-Faced Street Woman: Give me a dollar.
TKOG: No. I don’t even have a dollar. I only carry cards.
BFSW:  I know you have a dollar. You have a wallet. A nice lady bought me some food. Now I need money for the bus.
TKOG: My wallet’s empty. There’s nothing in it.
BFSW: Your heart’s empty. You have nothing in your heart. There’s nothing inside of you.

And maybe it was her particularly mawkish turn of phrase, or the fact that she had already been given food by another sucker on the street, but my heart slammed shut like a steel fire door. Look, I told her, I’m not giving you anything. I don’t owe you anything. Leave me alone.

BFSW: You’re a selfish cunt. You stupid ugly cunt!

…really? Really?! After she shouted it, she turned and got onto the bus that had pulled up — though how she intended to pay for it, I have no clue. Looking through the bus window, her face had already grown serene again. Probably she was so used to calling people stupid fucking cunts that the interaction hadn’t registered with her. She was going to get on the bus and do it ten, fifteen, a thousand more times before the day was done, slashing as many innocent pedestrians, for virtually no reason. Words are cheap to spend but expensive to hear, and she was getting ready to drive up debts all over town.

So. I followed her. Ignoring my empty stomach, the office waiting for me, and the fact that it was an incredibly stupid idea, I swung myself into the front of the bus, where she was haggling with the driver.

“I’m not a stupid fucking cunt! I’m not any kind of a cunt and you can’t just say shit to people because they don’t give you money!” She turned to face me; the driver and occupants of the first few rows looked nervous. “I’m a nice girl. I have a job, I work really hard, and I’m broke. I’m sorry I don’t have money to give you and I’m sorry you don’t have money, but it’s not my fault. You need to apologize for what you said.”

Okay, check that punctuation. I might have actually been shouting. I was on the verge of leaning into the woman and shouting until she apologized, but she was giving me an impassive bovine stare, and the bus driver leaned in.

“Are you going somewhere?” Uh, no. “Then you need to get off my bus.”

Point taken. Meanwhile, in all the ruckus, the woman had crept to the back of the bus, paying neither the fare nor the demanded apology.

The Verdict: Why does it hurt so much when people who have no right to say horrible things do anyway? Obviously I’m never doing this again but, jesus, it felt good to call someone out for being a completely unacceptable human being, just once.

NTKOG #134: The kind of free-wheeling jetsetter who is so unfazed by travel that she considers it not only necessary but natural to drop trou and — eek! — pee while on a voyage.

I am: that chick whom no one ever sees entering or exiting a restroom. True story: for the first nine months of our relationship, The Ex never saw a shred of evidence that I experienced normal bladder function. He found it disconcerting.

I am not: actually a big germophobe about it, but regardless of all my other feelings about peeing in public, I’ve always been distressed by the idea of using the restroom on any form of transportation. Where does it go after you flush?!

The Scene: On the Amtrak before my Barcelona adventure, approximately 30 oz. of Diet Coke out of Boston and half an hour from Penn Station. The pressure on my bladder was medium-urgent, like the urgency to confess to a former lover that you’ve kept their Pandora log-in information and sometimes listen to their custom stations (sorry, The Ex, but I’m never logging out). In any normal circumstance, I would have waited for the anonymous crush of Penn Station to slip into a public restroom stall, far away from the eyes of my fellow travelers who, by this point, had come to know me by my clothes and throat-clearing and incessant typing.

As I walked to the front, my lack of train-legs caused me to accidentally hip-check a few people in aisle seats. When I stopped to apologize to a mid-20s bottle blonde whose bottled Frappucino I’d jostled, the train threw me elbow-first into her forehead. Yeah, TKOG, unobtrusive restroom visit. Mortified, I ran into the stall and locked the door as quickly as possible. Very quickly. Perhaps … too quickly?

TMI disclosure: because I’d left myself a totally prudent seven minutes to pack for the ten-day trip, when I’d dressed for the day, I threw on my go-to swingy knee-length skirt and a massive pair of granny panties. I mean, we’re talking old-school. The elastic waist basically came up to the bottom of my bra. So before I could sit to, y’know, expurgate, I had to loose myself from the underwear of doom.

In a moment of sheer silliness, I caught the hem of the skirt in my teeth to hold it away while I found the elastic of the underwear, then began the process of unsheathing myself. Right as I’d wriggled the underwear down to my knees…

CLICK. TTTTSSSSSSHH. SLAM.

The door slid the entire  way open, revealing my debauched disrobing cancan to the first eight rows of the car. Bitchface nestled her Frappucino between her knees and — god, I wish I were exaggerating — caught my eye before slow-clapping.

Yeah, this bore exactly zero similarity to my own accidental flashing. Just thought the picture was cute.

Did what I went there to do and made a monumental effort to slink back to my seat without making eye contact with anybody. It was an uphill battle, though. Don’t think I didn’t consider hiding out in the restroom until we got to New York. Or maybe flushing myself down said toilet and just walking the rest of the way…

The Verdict: Seriously, considering my myriad issues with public restrooms, it might be time for me to consider a potty-training refresher course. Or charm school. Or just not telling the internet about my not-infrequent restroom failings.

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TMI Thursday! Other restroom stories abound! Offer some praise to the goddess LiLu for bringing this great weekly festival into our lives!