I’m notoriously difficult to shop for. Not that I don’t give people ideas when gift-giving times roll around. But the things I want aren’t usually the sort of thing you want to run out and get professionally wrapped.

“Hm, Christmas already, you say? Well, I lost my tweezers a few months ago, so I could use another pair. Um, I eat a lot of cereal. I’m running low on paper towels?”

I’m one of the most easily delighted human beings on the planet, and I try to be concretely aware of just exactly why I love the people I love, every day. So when it comes to tangible tokens of that love, I’m a “buy me what I need” kind of girl. My favorite presents ever? A tie between a luggage set my parents gave me when I turned eighteen (and still use to this day) and the pairs of Rainbow flipflops that my nearest and dearest seem to keep buying me as my old ones start to embarrass them in public.

HOWEVER! My twenty-fifth birthday is coming up on July 24, and this year I’ve thought of a sheer-decadence present that would please me more than anything I’ve wanted in my entire life. (Except my Creepy Crawlers set when I was eight. Thanks, mom and dad!)

And the best part: it’s completely free. No shipping costs or anything. Genius, right?

This birthday, I want everyone I love (or like or admire or have ever gotten ice cream with) to record a message from their Five-Years-From-Now Selves to Past Kat, telling me something that’s going on in the year 2016. I’ll listen to them once, on my birthday, then burn them all onto one audio track that I’ll send to a friend for safekeeping, to time capsule until my 30th birthday, when I’ll play them again for maximum hilarity slash poignance.

Doesn’t that sound fun?

“Dear Past Kat, today I hoverboarded to the galactic-store to buy rocket fuel and organic peanut butter. Everything’s fair trade now! It’s crazy! Come join us!”

“Dear Past Kat, I’ve got to admit, things have been a lot more efficient since the robots triumphed in the inevitable Cyborg v. Human Uprising of 2013. Plus, now I can legally marry my waffle-maker.”

“Dear Past Kat, man, get with the program. Nobody says ‘dude’ in 2016. We all call each other ‘brigadier.’ Briiiiiiiig.”

How fun would fifty or so messages of that be?! I might be getting a little choked up thinking about it. But am mostly grinning my biggest dinosaur-hunter grin, imagining all the brilliant, hilarious snapshots of my favorite people I’ll be able to carry with me from year to year.

It’s all of my favorite things: visions of the future from the past; unbridled youthful exuberance; a moderate vein of narcissism; something I will never have to pack up and move cross-country. In fact, this is what I want for every holiday ever, now. You’re welcome, everybody! I will never ask you to buy me tweezers again.

What would five-years-from-now you tell yourself on a milestone birthday? How crazy’s 2016 going to get, y’all?

Quick vignette and a shot of joy:

A few days ago, when the divine Sarah Von of yes and yes was good enough to repost my adventure with high-fivin’ strangers, had a run-in of my own:

Standing at the check-out counter of Stop’n'Shop, waiting to ring up a purchase, realized the cashier was going to be a challenge: as she helped the elderly lady in line ahead of me, the cashier was carrying on an involved hollering conversation with the bagger two counters over, discussing whether she needed to get her hair re-done immediately or, like, super-immediately.

Most people think of the no-eye-contact clerk as a dose of modern-day rudeness or an argument in favor of more self-check-out lines. I’ve got to say, though, I like the challenge. If my life were a video game, you’d get bonus points every time a stranger looks at you, straight at you, and smiles. And I play to win, baby.

As a little context for this story, an embarrassing admission: I won a year’s supply of free Lean Pockets from LiLu (thanks, bro!) and, well, I don’t hate ‘em. The only problem is that the coupons — all 183 of them — don’t scan properly, so cashiers have to manually deduct the cost of the item.

As she scans the rest of my items, the cashier keeps fracturing my ear drums with her ongoing conversation. Finally, she hits a lull while trying to scan my coupon, and I jump in:

TKOG: Those never scan right! I’m sorry.
Cashier: That’s fine. What is it, $2.50? I’ll just deduct it.
TKOG: Oh wait! Those are on sale and I haven’t scanned my card yet. It’ll only be two dollars off! I don’t want to steal the extra fifty cents.

And she stopped. Stopped talking, stopped scanning, stopped punching buttons, and looked me up and down, like the grizzled old-timer appraising his heart-filled-but-oafish young apprencing after the opening credit sequence.

“I don’t think anyone’s ever done that before.”

“Oh, y’know, I’m just trying to keep it ethical.”

And she lets the coupon flutter to the counter while she leans in and gives me a big ol’ high five. She cracked into a small smile during the rest of our transaction, and even struck up a conversation. She asked me whether she needed to get her hair re-done.

–

Just a teensy interaction, but between the timing and her immediate sunniness, it put a huge grin on my face. Plus, it’s the first time I’ve ever gotten high-fived for the phrase keepin’ it ethical. Big-time dork cred, y’all!

So that’s my current happiness. In other news, I’m quiet here because I, along with a few other MFA hopefuls, have gotten wrapped up in an ad hoc national short story month (or as I prefer to think of it, NaSSty WriMo). Nothing more thrilling than banging your head against the keyboard ’til you realize you’ve got stories in you you didn’t even see.

Not that they’re actually good. My two latest works? “Buddhism for Douchebags” and “Cruiseship of the Motherfucking Damned”. Um, one Pulitzer please.

That, and with the weather heatin’ up to the low 40s and the sun making its annual transition from silver to lazy butter yellow, the promise is spring is finally upon us!

I don’t know ’bout you, but I’m planning on high-fiving some cashiers, drinking a lot of red tea, and listening to this song on repeat ’til it finally comes.

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.

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, check out some crazy lies my parents told me that I didn’t find out the truth about until embarrassingly late in life.

NTKOG Year 2, #12: The kind of girl who pits her (non-existent) desire to wake & bake against her law-abiding status and comes up with an, uh, interesting solution.

I am: a total fuddy duddy now. Y’alls, I don’t even jaywalk. And as for any desire to experiment with drugs, well, let’s just say those ended around the time Maroon 5 stopped pumping out number one jams.

I am not: all that psyched with how epically uncool I’ve become.

The Scene: A ritzy headshop (heh, I totally just said ‘head’) on Newbury Street where, after nervously shuffling at the counter for a few minutes, I selected a bag of K2, the legalized pot-alternative that’s been sweeping the nation for the past year or so. The scruffy dude behind the counter rolled his eyes as I asked him half a dozen questions, then asked me, “Dude, have you never smoked pot before?!” Uh, sir, I don’t even take cough syrup. But instead, I just attempted to bat my eyelashes until he agreed to roll me a fake-weed joint.

It’s not that I haven’t smoked pot, for the record. I did it maybe a dozen times in college — mostly courtesy of the culinary genius running the unofficial Stoned on Scones bakery out of the apartment next-door. I just don’t love it: it makes me lazy, anxious, and exquisitely famished. Which is to say, it doesn’t do anything at all. Still, in light of California’s recent failure to decriminalize marijuana use, I thought it would be fun to investigate the last legal recourses of stoners.

Drink deeply of the illicit image, kittens, 'cause in real life you're more likely to see me hold a cockroach than a roach-roach.

Surely any legal substance couldn’t actually get me high, right? RIGHT?! To answer that question, I present you with the musings of Stoned TKOG, who wrote the following completely unedited text after consuming a full joint of K2:

The Choreography of my Evening as a Legal Stoner

During walk from the store, marvel over its delicate sweetness – like a mixture of lemongrass and chamomile tea, you think. Perhaps it shall taste like childhood! It can’t possibly work, you know already, so your sober-as-friggin’-melancholy streak can go on another day.

Walking back from bus, pass convenience store and debate purchasing alleged “munchies” for the purpose of scientific inquiry; consider the contents of your bank account; vigorously veto experiment. Deliberate whether to smoke the fake joint outside, or to smoke it in the warmth and – well, let’s be frank here – nudity of your own apartment. Opt for the latter because you can’t bear the thought of anyone thinking you’re a stoner. It’ll be your little secret.

Back home, use torn cover from Oprah Magazine to wipe the dust bunnies off the plate under your obligatory sad-single-girl bath candle. Get so caught up in architectural marvel of a well-rolled joint (see Exhibit A) that you light it and puff curiously before remembering to open bathroom windows. “Eh,” you reason, “it’s organic. It’ll probably smell like incense. No way you’ll even be able to smell it.”

Yikes! Not a well-rolled joint! The first inch and a half are packed too loose and burn down in three seconds, (“Am I smoking too fast?” you worry, “Should I check into rehab?”) creating a truly prodigious cloud of smoke. After a few puffs, though, it burns slower and you can take satisfying pulls – without the usual lung-searing feeling. Become so fascinated with smoking process that you want to smoke as far into the joint as possible, and try to use small bathroom implements to extend the joint’s length.

Look up and see yourself – dude, seriously, life choices – in the most grim of drug tableaux: naked on the shower rug of your grimy bathroom, holding a fake-weed joint to your lips using a toenail clipper as a roach clip

Flush the roach down the toilet, then throw open the bathroom door to realize two things: 1) you are stoned. as. balls.; 2) judging by the skunky smoke billowing under your door crack, everybody in the building knows it. Judging by the reek of pot pervading the hall, there was enough K2-infused air pumping through my building to contact-high all my neighbors and several rounds of their ancestors. Uh, so much for no one thinking I’m a stoner.

Back into my apartment, and there’s only one urgent task at hand: camouflage the stench of pot wafting from my apartment.

Man, why did I veto the munchies experimentation? Mistakes were made.

Oh, no, right, the smell in the bathroom. Immediately, without thinking, turned the shower on at full blast. …with my head still in it. Drew the curtains and closed the door. Five minutes later realized, oh, I shouldn’t leave a shower unattended! and dashed to the bathroom to turn it off. Felt proud of myself. Got distracted by sad-single-girl bath candle and realized it could cover the smell, so lit it, went to close the door.

“Oh daaaang,” I realized, “my carelessness is increasing with comic exponentiality. I’m totally the after-school special about fake-marijuana use. I’m one scene away from a tragic-but-morally-nourishing grisy ending.” Decided to fend off tragedy by babysitting the candle while it works its de-incriminating smell magic.

Which makes me now a much more nuanced yet still grim drug cliché: naked on the shower rug of my grimy bathroom, hunched over a laptop, hoping the smell of a TJ Maxx hazelnut/toffee candle will overpower the odor of fake-weed billowing from my apartment at 9:21 on a Wednesday night. I – I often wonder what choices have brought me here.

Whoa, my heart’s beating the usual speed, but harder, and every beat’s reverberating like the taut face of a drum.

Screw this. I’m going to order a pizza and read a book about centaurs.

I only have three more distinct memories of the night. First, after an hour of deliberation, finally dragging myself to the pizzeria across the street and realizing, whoa, I feel almost happy.

Next, finding this picture by @cakewrecks, and laughing out loud to myself for a full three minutes…

…before thinking to myself: “How embarrassing to misspell that on your van! That’s weird, though, she usually posts pictures of cakes.”

Finally, just before I passed out, I grabbed my phone and frantically texted myself: “I feel very calm but I don’t feel very useful. Don’t do this again, dude. This isn’t you.”

The Verdict: Okay, Stoned TKOG, you may have almost set your apartment on fire and mistaken a cake for a van, but you managed to pull out a little wisdom at the bottom of the ninth. Cannabis lovers (and cannaibs lovers too, for that matter), I’ve got good news for you: legalized K2 is a fairly legitimate product and, though it isn’t identical to marijuana, it offers a very similar high.

Which means I’ve got bad news for myself: turns out I just don’t like the feeling of being stoned. Guess I’ve got another sixty years of fuddy duddying in my future, huh?

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…

Over on Secret Society of List Addicts, a few Dudes I Wouldn’t Mind Marrying Immediately. Like, yesterday, if possible.

NTKOG Year 2, #10: The kind of brooding commonspace poet who, so moved by the transcendence of everyday interactions, writes you a blistering sonnet in exchange for some mozzarella sticks.

I am: often moved to volcanic warmth for strangers, based on the way they clear their throat before they talk to me or how they shift their weight to one hip when they’re lost in thought.

I am not: crazy enough to actually tell them this. Plus, as discussed, I’m nobody’s poet.

The Scene: In and around the Boston Public Library every night in this suddenly gray, drizzly city. As a dude who’s only ever lived in cities where early November was considered late summer, I’m in a bit of a malaise about the impending onset of my second-ever (and possibly last!) New England winter. Compound that with endless library-bound nights banging out MFA applications, and my morale’s about as high as a sopping wet motivation-post kitten, clinging to the tree branch called “everything’s probably going to be okay”.

Grad school apps, y’all. I’m apparently saving my good sentences for them.

But for the past few weeks, I’ve been fighting to get out of my head appreciate this sunless city’s charms by doing what I do best. Er, eating peanut noodles in a bathtub filled to the brim with Beaujolais. But after that: trying to find new (to me) ways to never stop seeing how really enchanting other people can be.

It’s no real secret that my favorite people to interact with are dudes behind cash registers and wearing aprons on a professional capacity. Because I’m an emotionally guarded person, I feel safest channeling most of my warmth into one-shot social transactions. And for the past little while, I’ve been focusing on doing just that in, y’know, as weird a way as possible.

Limericks. Post-Its. You know it.

Scrawled on a neon-green Post-It attached to a dollar bill in the tip jar at the Copley Square Borders Cafe:

In this season of all things pumpkin
My night needed a little somethin’
Your recommendation
Drove me to elation.
Madame, you have set my heart thumpin’.

A hot pink missive stuck to the inside of the check-holder at Other Side Cafe, where it is a question for the ages whether servers are more knowledgeable about beer than adorable or vice friggin’ versa:

There once was a server named Dan
Who vended us sudsy shenans
Until we were quite full
Of beer most delightful –
Of your work, dude, I’m a huge fan.

A note tucked away in a black bag of medical equipment outside a temple in Brookline:

To your trade it is clear you are loyal,
Working heedless of struggle or toil
With keen precision
and your clean incisions –
You’re Boston’s best friggin’ moyel!

Okay, you got me, I didn’t really give anyone the last one. YET.

The Verdict: Hey, look at me, makin’ jokes, bloggin’ about circumcision. Just like old times! You win this round, limericks. That actually felt pretty good.

In lieu of sympathy, please send saucy limericks, pictures of pugs and Koopa Troopa fanfic.

Also, speaking of break-ups, my favorite ex-boyfriend invited me to cover the Boston Babydoll’s Halloween burlesque revue — The Wrathskellar — in Central Square on Tuesday. So get psyched for a Wednesday recap. (Yes! A blog entry comprised of words instead of pictures! I’m as shocked as you are.)

Check out Secret Society of List Addicts for the top five movies that never fail to make me weep my friggin’ face off.

NTKOG Year 2, #9: The kind of analytical, contemplative life-organizer who — instead of tripping all over herself to agree to the latest scheme — puts you on the back burner ’til she’s made her decision.

I am: apparently a people-pleaser. Or at least such has been suggested to me, though I’m rather skeptical, as…

I am not: an especially pleasing person. Just ask, um, anyone who’s ever met me.

The Scene: Uh, the MFA-related nervous breakdown I can’t seem to shake? And if you want, we could take a Magic Voyage through all of the symptoms — my stomach pumping bile directly in my blood stream, the unexpected three-hour sprints of 120+ bpm heart rate, the dust bunnies clamoring all over my pregnant-with-anxiety brain and causing me to do stuff like accidentally prepare and actually eat a raw-egg quesadilla without noticing last night — but let’s assume we’ve all been here, right?

The one side effect my perma-freak-out hasn’t caused, though, is the only one I wanted: forcing me to clamp down on my ridiculous tendency to try to make plans with the entire universe.

Yeah, I’m definitely one of those people. I like to shimmy through life like the caricature of a smarmy ad exec, clicking finger-guns at people and assuring them that “we should definitely get drinks!”. I swear, if I talk too long with the restroom attendant in a Moroccan airport, I’m constitutionally incapable of leaving without suggesting, “Hey, if you’re ever in Boston, you should look me up!”

And in my defense, it’s with good intentions. I genuinely like people, and in the ideal universe (in which I’m also the mistress of Alec Baldwin’s island estate, obviously), this is a pretty good impulse: what better way is there to enjoy the universe than mingling with its inhabitants?

The problem isn’t so much with the plans, as when people set a direct time and date and in one horror-movie montage, I’ll imagine double-booked plans or my messy apartment or three nights of insomnia and all the application stuff I need to do — and instead, my accidental “Yes!” comes rocketing out like a superball out of the barrel of a shotgun.

I really need to work on my impulse control. Even when yielding to those impulses does lead to gin-soaked nights and charming conversation.

So, for the past week, I’ve made a simple rule for myself: take twenty-four hours before getting back to anyone. About anything. No cocktail dates, no brunch plans, no immediate yeses to friends looking for a Boston apartment to crash in. I may be a “yes” person, but I’m trying on some “no” clothes.

And so far, the results have been tentatively encouraging. The first test was when my friend Anglophile emailed to ask about spending several nights in my apartment on a trip up from New Jersey. Although a few months ago I’d happily offered to let her crash whenever, and if my life were slightly different, I’d be more than happy to stick with said offer, I bit the bullet, drafted list fifteen potential emails, and ended up telling her: “Hey, I can offer lodging if you need it, but I really only have one day this weekend to hang out. But let’s definitely hang out that one day and make it count?”

The result? We’re still going to see each other on the visit, but she’s staying with another friend, and I’ve stopped convulsing with guilt every time she signs on gchat.

There have been a few other tests: a high school friend looking to catch drinks on a busy night, various hang-out offers threatening to crowd my scheduled writing days, fifteen thousand emails that don’t really demand an immediate response (but I promise I’ll get back to you this weekend)!, bars I don’t want to go to with people I just don’t have time to see.

I think it’s funny, that doing the adult thing (waiting for a while and contemplating my decision) is making me channel my inner two-year-old, but what can I say? My answer lately seems to be: No. No! NO!

And I’m kind of psyched about it.

The Verdict: I was surprised at how easy it is to say no to people, once I get past the initial shock of the unfamiliar. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in your own stress that you forget that everyone else has been here before too. But of course they have. So while people’s responses to a “no” might involve slight disappointment, truly, they’re not going to ruin everything forever.

Plus, I forget sometimes that my overactive social life is literally the reason I had to leave California. Like, I triple-booked so many brunch plans that I had to physically move three thousand miles away. So, if that isn’t a warning sign, I don’t know what is.

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?