Viewing Category: Encounters
So I went to the local Barnes & Noble in Nashua to browse around. As I was skirting the Starbucks cafe, I heard some awkward-sounding intonation from a couple near me. I realize that they're on a first date! How cute! I just heard a bit:
Girl: Do you do any other artistic kind of things? You know, like mumble mumble?
Guy: Mumble Mumble
Girl: Oh (Slightly-disappointed) Mumble Mumble.
Guy: Mumble Mumble Photography Mumble Mumble...
Girl: (Perking up) Mumble mumble! Mumble!
Guy: Mumble (Misses Cue) Mumble Mumble, probably Mumble the Red Sox.
(Awkward Pause)
I was browsing online buddy Tim's blog for the first time, and found this great link to quirkyalone.net: Quirkyalones are romantics who resist the tyranny of coupledom. [...] we are independent-thinking people who would prefer to be open to finding that magical click [...] rather than exist in a stifling or unsatisfying romantic relationship.
It's both serious and silly, which I find automatically appealing. There's a quiz too; I scored a mere 71, which put me in the "quirkytogether" camp. Which didn't seem right, so I took the quiz again with a more by-the-spirit interpretation of the questions. This put me nicely in the high 110s...yes!
Tonally, the site reminds me of goths/punks who, as they start to hit their 30s, cover up the tattoos with long sleeves to engage mainline society. There's even a book, which I promptly added to my Amazon wishlist.
Conceptually, I like the term "quirkyalone" much better than "haplessly single" :)
Today I registered to vote for the first time, heading down to the Nashua City Hall to stand in line. A couple of things struck me... the variety of people you see at City Hall, united in their common goal to have their vehicle registration renewed. I felt a small surge of civic duty as I stood in the City Clerk's Voter Registration Line. It was not unlike the way I felt when waiting to ride the Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland; the anticipation was more interesting than the actual experience, which was disappointingly free of drama. I had brought along a small wad of utility bills and other incontrovertible documents to vigorously assert my identity. But no, all they needed was my driver's license. They even printed out the form for me with everything filled in, and I just had to sign it. Absolutely painless...I give the experience an "B+". If I had gotten a free sticker, that might have pushed things into "A" territory.
I had told my eye doctor that I was seeing floating blobs of light, kind of like a lava lamp. Today, I had my pupils dillated for a retinal exam by a specialist. I was a bit nervous at what they'd find. My eyes are my livelihood!
Dr. Riddell was a slightly-built older gentleman with a caring demeanor. The initial exchange of pleasantries was a bit unusual in that he asked, "And how are you doing?" He actually paused to hear my answer, head tilted in a kindly manner. That was a positive beginning. He then proceeded to run me through the examination, with his assistant sitting to the side taking notes. It was pretty cool how he precisely described what he saw, shifting without pause between description and direction while shining various lights into my eyes: there's a cv in the lower quarillant sector nothing unusual with the aqueous di-elephantine crescent and lactating clusters appear nominal look up to the left please the micturating dipolynomial fixative swivels within expected normative range now look down to the right and to the left I don't see any cows here either okay we're done
It was an interesting feeling to be the subject under test, having a feature of my eye's structure observed in such scrupulous scientifc detail. So this is what it's like to be a microorganism, I thought.
And my eyes are "normal for an extremely nearsighted person." The assistant told me on the way out that she saw the blobs too, and had since she was a teenager...and a great weight was lifted from me...I wasn't a crazy person after all! Though I hadn't gone in feeling that I was being scruitinized for my mental stability, this was an unexpected bonus. I will have to celebrate with some Indian food, after my eyes undillate.
