A Moment

I shared "a moment" with a stranger today. Well, I share moments with strangers all the time, after all, I live and work in one of the densest areas of a big dense city. But this moment was funny and sweet and I think she enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

I was walking down 7th Avenue toward what would ultimately be the purchase of a surprisingly horrible lunch (a salad bar melange from the Chelsea Whole Foods Market which consisted almost entirely of salt as it turned out). This portion of the avenue is populated by many very fashion conscious young ladies. Not that there's any part of NYC that isn't, but this is right by the Fashion Institute of Technology (a good school for that industry, but such a dumb name). These young ladies tend to push the boundaries. They're hipper, cooler, edgier, sometimes prettier but it doesn't matter because they're soooo badass. Well, they think so anyway.

At one corner, I was crossing the street while she was waiting to cross the avenue. She was a tall thin very pretty African-American woman, with big wild hair. When she saw me, a lanky white dude, she obviously couldn't help noticing how big and wild my hair has gotten (it's gotten very big and wild.) She made eye contact with me, and we shared wry smiles, bonding over our mutual out-there hair (looked great on her; me... eh). And then she went back to her cel-phone and I went back to my, um, nothing in particular.

I'd never bonded with anyone over hair before.

Usually... it's the beard.