i have been shaving my head for several months now and im an old hand at most of the weirdness that comes with it. ive seen so many strange things - a beanie torn in half after i tried brute force yanking it off my stubble, strangers hands gripping my head like a sort of fleshy bowling ball, c-beams glittering in the dark by the tanhauser gate.
but still, sometimes, things surprise me. and i was surprised today. because today an old man approached me at the park. and he said, you know, im a pediatrician.
which is already a weird start to a conversation, because i didnt know that. and maybe i should have just rolled with it, but instead i went
wait. i dont know that. why did you think i knew that?
which didn't even put him slightly off balance.
cuz you're bald, he said, so confidently that i didnt even question it until the conversation was over. now. i was - i was over there, sitting -
and he gestured across the park to a giant pile of soft dirt that had an almost cartoonishly exaggerated ass print on it which derailed me for the second time. right? because whoever sat on that dirt, clearly, had an ass like two coconuts being fired out of a spanish cannon. whereas this man had an ass that could probably only be detected with powerful scientific instruments. i told him this in more succint terms by simply saying that was clearly not his buttprint.
now at this point we'd gotten derailed twice, and as unflappable as he'd been the first time, he was starting to get a little defensive. so he said perhaps someone with a large butt sat down after i got up, and i said why are you lying about where you were sitting, and he said why would i do that? and i said if i knew, i wouldnt be asking, and he said fine, i was driving by - and i said why didn't you just say you were driving by?!?!?!?! and he said because i didn't want you to think i was the kind of crazy person that would just stop his car to tell a stranger in a park that he, as a pediatrician, could tell that your parents REALLY cared about tummy time!
then he left. angrily. he actually stomped back to his car. i dont know when i started laughing but i didnt stop until i got home. my voice is still all scratchy right now. ive been in a little bit of a writing funk but i had to get this down while i could still remember it so perfectly.
and as a tangent, i cannot emphasize enough the benefits of going outside and interacting with the public. it is a constant source of joy. every place on earth is the weirdest place on earth. i will never be able to write a character as fascinating as the people i run into at the park. but god help me, i have to try.
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