Stupid Things Happen to Me

A Compendium of Nonsense

Weird shit happens to me all the time. I frequently claim that my life is boring and nothing happens, and the most exciting things I get to do are visit my friends’ pets, but as I get to know people, and end up having to tell them about myself, it has become increasingly obvious that dumb events are deeply prevalent in my life. My personality is one that can generally be considered “abrasive but kind,” and since Pretend It’s A City has come out, multiple people have told me I remind them of Fran Lebowitz, which at first was amusing, but now is a personal affront and possibly could be anti-semitic? Not all jews are the same!

By virtue of being a small human being, I frequently escape a lot of day to day offences that happen as a resident of New York. I slip by crowds, am out of eye-line of creeps and weirdos, and generally float through life as an NPC (non-playable character). People try to walk THROUGH me, rather than AROUND me, and interact with me, as a byproduct of my profession, as someone to help them through their journey. I have no issue with this generally invisible existence, because a) it is presumptuous to think that I have any importance in a city of 8 million+ people, and b) it is far less stressful this way. However, due to the fact that I exist in this manner, I am more attuned to the frequency of “strange” things.

It is unclear when I became a magnet for stupid things, or if I’ve just always been the homing beacon, and just recently got on board with figuring out that none of this is normal. My first jolt of realisation that while these are hilarious anecdotes, are also bizarre occurrences, is when Steve Buscemi yelled (it was probably more of a stern scold) at me for tying my shoes on his front steps in Park Slope as I drunkenly stumbled up the street to see Sonic Youth in the park, for free. Obviously, I would probably be upset with some small drunk woman on my front steps, as well, and relegated it to “here’s a thing that happened” story. Given that this IS New York, it did not feel odd and out of place, yet to those I occasionally tell the story, the response has been “well that’s weird.” Yes. I know.

A lot of strange things happened to me while living in Los Angeles. Moving to Los Angeles was STRANGE. As someone from New York, you never realise how spoiled you are by how regular New York is in comparison to other places, particularly Los Angeles. People live in New York. People perform the exhibitionism of living in Los Angeles. I would drive to Studio City to get a Russian manicure from Armenian girls because ethnic enclaves are very different in LA. Afterwards, I would sometimes get a breakfast-for-lunch at Canter’s, where the waiter would ALWAYS stand crotch-adjacent to my face. ALWAYS. The first time it didn’t occur to me, but the second time it was obviously intentional, and when I asked him not to, in a tone these people are not accustomed to being spoken to with, he began to tear up. Like, big old crocodile tears welling up in his eyes. A grown man. At his job. Crying. Because I asked him to not stand so close to my face. Do you want to tell me that isn’t weird? That’s weird as hell.

Also in Los Angeles, I had a neighbour I made out with once. It occurred to me later that this person may have been stalking me. I had come home one evening, they shared the parking spot adjacent to mine, and were leaving as I was getting in - we exchanged pleasantries, as people do, and got on with our days. In the coming weeks, they would wave at me through my kitchen window while walking by, or just briefly look in, and left notes with jokes on my car’s windshield. Inevitably, we exchanged numbers as the neighbourly thing to do for packages, what have you, and then went out for a walk. This person frequently did things to get my attention, including stopping by to hang out unannounced, a real panic inducer in the year of our smartphones, 2019, but being polite to some degree, obliged. And then, one particular evening, after stopping by, we ran out of things to talk about, and made out - generally a harmless activity that even middle schoolers partake in, and not an indication of feelings by any means (prior events in my life maybe indicated otherwise but I refused to acknowledge this). Nothing more, and then they went home. When I finally reached out to find out what the deal was there, because it was weird, I was informed they decided to get back together with an ex, which was even weirder. First of all, good for you, but second of all, why go through all the trouble? Do you want to tell me that wasn’t weird either?

There was also the most recent time I almost died (due to external factors). As I was getting onto the 710N from Downtown Long Beach, a merging truck was not paying attention and started blindly merging into my lane, and I had to squeeze between this truck and some dickhead with Oregon plates who would not let me into the left lane, due to self-absorption, or just bad driving. I gunned it and should have honestly been given a stunt driving job on the site. Is this actually a weird thing? Yes. Again due to my being an NPC, it is entirely likely that my car was never perceived at all by any drivers around me - a frequent occurrence driving in Los Angeles. Or, we can talk about my non-hallucination on the 710N, at about 7:15 in the morning, one crisp autumn day, where every car around me had New York plates, and then slowly disappeared and merged into the rush hour traffic. I was alone and there was no one to verify whether I was finally losing my mind, or this really happened.

The list of my lighthouse beacon talent to attract weird things happening is endless, and we’d be here for actual years at this point if I were to document all of them, but it felt necessary to share these particular instances to really drive it on home. These events are never ones I seek out, and yet continually find me for endless torture and the amusement of other people, who find themselves generally concerned for my wellbeing. Will weird things ever stop happening to me? Probably not. It is unclear why. But until then, I will continue to share these stories with people who may or may not care about them, or me.