The Crazers

Walking home from the bar tonight, I bonded with a drunken crazy woman. I was venting to a friend about why Charlie Brown is terrifying -- that is, that the incredibly depressing voices, sound effects, dialogue and even illustration style are teaching little kids that life sucks -- and I stupidly said that it taught them that "they might as well put guns to their heads." Thinking back, maybe just generally a bad thing to say in public, but we know self-censorship is not one of my strong suits.

Upsettingly depressing.

Anyway, I noticed that a woman passing on the other side of me was staring at me with a creepy smile on her face, so I said, "Er, not really. Just kidding." She goes, in a friendly but belligerently drunk and over-sharey way, "No, you know what? Sometimes you do want to put a gun to your head. Like when..." and then she continues on some long story about a boyfriend and French textbooks. No, really. It made no sense. The story ended, "So yeah, I do kind of want to put a gun to my head right now!" I decided that it would be irresponsible of me not to say, "Ha, right. I know the feeling. But...don't actually do it, ok?" At which point she said that she was planning on remedying the situation with beer and cigarettes, and disappeared into a convenience store.

Later, my uptown 1 was stopped briefly to switch conductors, and obviously I was people-watching the folk walking on the platform to the exit. One guy walking past looked into the car, saw me watching, winked, and made a very lewd sexual gesture. I started laughing, and all the people in the train around me stared at me, thinking I was a crazer laughing at nothing. The guy sitting next to me actually scooted away a little.

When we finally got off the train, the girl walking up the stairs behind me yelled, "Holy shishkabob! It's raining!"

I think my travels home on weekend nights are the best part of living in NYC.