Spring just sprung. Earth experienced the equinox at 6:45pm.
From when I arrived up until about an hour ago, a gal'd been sitting next to Shirley Bassey in that yellow chair. She'd just moved to NYC from Saint Louis, was very chatty. I was trying to get my work done. I politely engaged in conversations when she would initiate them about every 10 minutes.
Everyone who just moves here wants to talk about the move. They feel anxieties, want to connect, etc. I empathize.
She humblebragged about concert venues she's visited, a book she wrote, events she's produced. I rolled with it. She lost me when she announced out of nowhere, "I feel good when I do something nice for someone." Uh. Like, who doesn't?
She let me know she'd just donated a "couple hundred dollars" to a band. Evidently the band, friends of hers, was trying to raise money from the road. OK. Cool. Glad to know you have discretionary income.
Prior to this point, I'd been suggesting websites and blogs – even city gyms – helpful for people transitioning to life in NYC on the cheap. I knew them because I used them. I wouldn't have survived the first few years here without that info. Maybe she'd wanted to dispell the notion that she was like so many of us.
She said goodbye when she left, but never told me her name. I didn't share mine either. I know hers from Tinder. She was Emily, 30, a writer, a political scientist, enthusiastic about hip hop, and had just recently become a blonde. I swiped left.