I wasn’t kidding about the 7-Eleven obsession, as evidenced by the huge thingie on a popsicle stick some guy outside the store was handing out. It says “I AM A FAN OF 7-ELEVEN, 23RD STREET AND PARK AVENUE, NEW YORK CITY.” I think the apple shape is a reference to “The Big Apple,” which means “New York City” for all you non-locals. Ha ha. Very cute. I curbed myself at the last minute from shouting at the little man “No way, I totally just wrote about this on my blog!” because I feel like he wouldn’t have cared. Seriously. If someone told me that I’d want to slap her in the face. Sigh. Bloggers. Ew.

Just came home and promptly turned on Footloose, which I DVR’d tonight while at work. I’ve watched the opening sequence, with all the different ’80s shoes dancing (shown at left — yes, I did just really take two pictures of the opening scene from Footloose, thankyouverymuch), at least three times now. I’m in love with all the shoes in this sequence. I wish there was just a storefront with all of these shoes, so I could go up to it and then buy all of them. Would you guys make fun of me if I did the legwarmers/sneakers thing shown in the image to the left? Does it really matter if you would? I don’t care. I think the combo looks fun. And very warm! Yum.

Speaking of yum, I feel like now is as good a time as any to post these two embarrassing photos of Rebecca and me completely devouring huge hero sandwiches at Long Beach a few weekends ago. Yesss. We are so cool. She opted for turkey, while I went with the roast beef. We already had a big bag of Fritos in our Big Brown Bag from home, and although I love me a good turkey sub, I feel turkey doesn’t go as well with Fritos as does RB. Tuna or chicken salad would also have been good. Rebs should be taking notes here, although she looked pretty damn happy with her choice as it was.

Here is a non-eating picture of us on the boardwalk. I was smiling rather normally (for me) during the first three, but quickly realized she was insistent on doing the trademark Rebecca McFarland “Aggghh! Look at me, camera! Catch me in a hilarious moment!” open-mouth gape (OMG), so I grudgingly went along with it for this fourth and final shot. Cute, huh?

We also ran into our Boston College friend and roomie, Shannon. And when I say “ran into,” I mean “saw intentionally because we knew she was lifeguarding at this particular Long Island Beach.” We are such stalkers. But she loved it. I’m proud of her for letting down the sportsbra to avoid nasty tan lines. That’s a kindred spirit right there. Kudos to Shannon.

In Creepy News, I saw the same person two nights in a row while walking down 7th Avenue between 23rd and Bleecker. Last night I saw him a bit north of Gourmet Garage. I stared at him longer than the requisite half-second glance, because he was one of ‘my people,’ it seemed – long messy hair, casual non-stylish outfit, looked hippyish… and right before we crossed paths he gave a little nod/grin. It made my night. (Lame!) It wasn’t necessarily sexual at all. It was just nice to acknowledge someone like that, a sort of “we’re on the same page” glance that was shared. It really put me in the best mood. No big deal, but it made everything so much better at the time. Someone on the mean streets of Manhattan just grinned at me! Wow! I mean, that rarely ever happens. You know how it is.

So now that I’ve seen him twice, it’s just weird. Like, I sort of feel like this is Truman Show and I am the central character. (Imagine, a blogger thinking she’s the center of the universe. Whoa. No way.) It was a random glitch in the Truman-esque system that I saw him twice, like he’d been planted at that point in the city by accident twice in a row. Or maybe it was an intentional move by the producers! Maybe someone wanted me to see this guy two nights in a row and feel great the first night, and a little weirded out the second night. Very weirded out.

I saw him sooner tonight. Meaning, I got to stare at him for at least four seconds before the crucial “passing point” occurred, wondering is this the guy? Could this actually be the same person? And I’m positive it was. Oddly, he was wearing some sort of structured red coat, with gold buttons on the front and down the back. Not a big fan of the red coat. Was it a costume? Does he perform at the Stonewall and then walk up to the 14th Street subway every night? Is he just a madcap free spirit who thought that coat would be a unique fixture of his character?

This time, it was obvious that I was staring at him for at least four seconds, as was previously mentioned. I couldn’t help it, because I found all of this just that weird. He totally knew it. So he started nodding a hello while he was still in front of me, as if to say yes! I’m the same guy! Can you believe it? And I had no idea what to do – I was still pretty happy-slash-mildly-freaked-out from the first night’s encounter – so instead of giving my usual reaction to eye contact on the street (i.e. nothing), I squeaked out this really weird “Hi!”

Fuck!

It was about an octave and a half higher than my voice usually sounds. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to watch/hear this in a surveillance camera playback. (Which I’m sure could be arranged, given that there are 2.5 delis per block around here.) I feel like I totally ruined that coolness of our second encounter that could have been achieved given the coolness of the first… by squeaking out a hello. Gross! Now if we never see each other again (which I kind of hope doesn’t happen), I will have “lost” round two after “winning” round one (when he gave a grin the first time, I didn’t smile, I just stared blankly. Somehow this counts as me winning).

Enough. I have no idea where this is going. I think I’ll go finish Footloose. I’ll leave you with this image, which was photographed on our day at Long Beach. It appears at the base of my spritzer bottle:

I mean, whatever. That’s cool. Thanks for letting us know you’re an equal opportunity employer and everything. The only part I don’t get is “in Michigan.”