Coincidences February 5, 2008
Posted by Katie Oh in : Such As , trackbackmy life recently has been marked with this series of silly, coincidental events. many are not even events: i just so happen to run into someone in the caf, and we get food together. not a fluke by any means. but i had one that, in my cold-medicine-addled brain, was nothing short of a miracle.
i went to get my laptop fixed at the apple store in soho. to do this, i had to catch the c train to spring street, and then walk a few blocks. i got lost wandering for a bit, finally made my way there. and of course, my laptop would not make the same mistake it had made to warrant my taking it. i was disheartened, it was raining a bit, i was generally surly. i left apple vowing to kill my campus’ internet (which i am now convinced is what’s wrong with my baby laptop) and meandered back to the train station.
i hopped on the c, which was crowded as could be. of course, this, while i am carrying my damn laptop on my hip. i fixated on keeping it close to my body. all i kept thinking was “i don’t even Like the c train! why can’t the a come to this station too?” the train kept going.
and then, he got on the train. you know when you’ve just had a shitty day, and someone attractive shows up on the train and you’re just like “that’s what i needed. thank you for standing there, sir.”? that’s what this guy was for me. i wanted to actually thank him right then, but a man pushed behind me (? even though i was half a body-width away from the doors) and i went into laptop-safety mode.
this guy was carrying a book, something with a black and white cover and i swear i came near close to breaking my neck trying to simultaneously read what the cover said and keep my laptop close to me. i wanted to be more confident in that moment, ask him what book it was, would he recommend it, would it give me bonus points at pretentious art school? the train stopped again and he had to move closer to accommodate more people, and i still couldn’t read the title.
alas, i said nothing. i vowed to approach him at hoyt-schermerhorn, aka “catch the g train here and try not to hate your life because you have to do so” and ask him the book title. alas, my insatiable book-curiousity was Crushed when he got off the train at jay street, one stop away from hoyt. i seriously sighed aloud when the doors closed behind him.
i got on the g and pulled out my notebook, scribbled a few lines of description as to what he looked like. i ended up with the most base details known to man. “brown hair. 6 ft maybe. messenger bag. book w/ complicated cover. multicolored nikes (?) w/ neutral tones, maybe orange?” i got off at clinton-washington. of course it was raining. i ran to the pi shop, got myself a coffee. sat down.
i logged on to craigslist. “missed connections” seemed relevant. i ended up with
C to Jay St tonight 7pm – w4m
i just wanted to thank you for being on the train. you were tall, brown hair, messenger bag, some book in your hand whose cover i couldn’t read. you were very attractive, and i just wanted to thank you for being on the train — you were a sight for sore eyes.
“okay,” i thought, “there, it’s off my chest.” i posted it, with hopes that he might stumble across it, and maybe it would make him smile, like he made me smile on the c. with such a vague description, half of manhattan could have said “aww, how nice of someone to write about me!” (sidenote: okay i seriously sound like such a total TOOL in this post. but bear with me, maybe.)
i got two emails that were stupid right off the bat. an “irishman” wanted to have dinner with me. i myspace’d his email: he was 38. not quite, buddy. what makes this story even funnier is that another guy emailed me: a guy who was standing two people away from me on the train. i almost called the coincidence-happening a day. it was just a nice craigslist posting, right?
well, not quite. sunday night, at the height of my sickness, when i was hopped up on cold medicine, i got an email regarding my posting.
i opened it and scanned the text. “could the sight for sore eyes in question have been me?” “points for sentence structure!” my brain said. he had attached a picture. i glanced down.
It Was Him.
i ended up sending him back a really toolish email (cold medicine, i’m telling you people) and he ended up being very cordial, considering that i was, essentially, telling him that he was hot stuff in a very awkward way.
given all of these hilarious coincidental happenings (what if my repair had actually happened? what if an earlier c had come? what if i had had to fill up my metrocard?), i have but one lesson to impart to you all: just talk to them! don’t rely on coincidence! and if a bunch of coincidences collide, well… you never know.
god, you guys, that was anticlimactic. i hate colds and cold medicine. i’m done.
oh, and ps: if you don’t already, you need to listen to more wilco. i’m on a wilco-binge and it’s fantastic. maybe i will see jeff tweedy on the subway…
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