by ty | July 19, 2006
Yesterday I went down into my subway station, stepped onto the 4 train going into the city, and sat down. No sooner had the air conditioning hit me than I saw a bunch of familiar-looking green paper bits spread out over the floor of the train. A dollar bill, ripped to shreds.
I stared at it for a minute, as did most of the other people who had just gotten on the train. Then we all went back to our business. After all, it wasn't a hundred dollar bill. I began to read my book. But I couldn't help but wonder. Who had ripped up a dollar like that, and why? Did someone do it in a fit of anti-capitalist protest and leave it on the train as an art installation? Did someone get it as an insultingly small tip and rip it up in anger? Was it one of those rip-here-fold-here things that when you're done you get a picture of a mushroom? Maybe someone was trying to convince someone that they didn't care about money anymore. Or did someone get frustrated because their dollar had already ripped in half and couldn't be used?
I got off the train and went to my appointment. OK, fine-it was therapy. I sat there in my therapist's office and began to talk about my week, and it took probably twenty minutes before I registered a bunch of familiar-looking pink bits spread out on the rug in front of me. A flower of some kind! Torn to pieces!
Or fallen apart, perhaps. It took my therapist until the end of the session to notice (I like to think that was because she was so engrossed with what i was saying that it blotted out the rest of the world) and she also seemed puzzled as she picked up the petals.
There were no other flowers anywhere in the room, although I did find one, intact, on the floor in the bathroom.
What is going on?
by Doris | July 18, 2006
Things like to sting me. This is a well-documented fact. I am severely allergic to mosquito bites (but not bee stings, but bees sting me, too.) This weekend I was in Greenport, LI visiting friends and we went on a boat ride to Shelter Island. We threw down the anchor and went swimming off of one its beautiful beaches and the random thought that I would get stung by a jellyfish ran through my head. And sure enough, a prickly, needly sensation passed over my arms and belly, quite unlike any sensory experience I've ever had, and I knew I had accidentally brushed up against one of them. I thought about asking one of my friends to pee on me since that's the only remedy I've ever heard of, but that's hard to do on the spot (and it seemed inappropriate.) But I did the right thing, I rinsed off with more seawater (freshwater apparently makes the unfired poison darts left in your skin go off) and put some of that Afterbite crap on (its main ingredient IS ammonia!) and now I don't even have scars to show off how tough I was.
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by Toller, January 25, 2007
Aw Nate, i hope you are ok!