The Good, the Bad and the Weird

Good:
One of my best friends is getting married and has asked me to be his best man. I am so incredibly happy for him and get all teary even thinking about it. We haven’t seen much of each other in the past few years (which is what happens when all you do is work at your fabulous restaurant with your wonderful fiancé), but I think about him all the time, hope he is well and see him when I can. I love him so much and would do anything I could for him. Now that includes finding plus sized strippers. Help?

Bad:
Late morning Post-Gazette headline: “Port Authority proposes hiking fares, slashing routes” More on this when I can talk about it without banging my fist on my desk.

Weird:
The 63B commuter bus through my neighborhood has generated a sort of community of friends and acquaintances. This morning I actually caught it (I usually miss it and take the 501 to the busway, as I did yesterday). There were few seats left in the back. I passed a friend on the way back, did a little happy new year greeting with an acquaintance and sat down between a young-ish guy who is frequently on the bus and a teenage boy. The teenager was jamming out to something on his big headphones and had painted black fingernails, dyed black hair in his face and big silver earrings. Yes, I wanted to give him a big hug and pat him on the head.

I was getting out my ipod, preparing to listen to the rest of the This American Life episode that I had started yesterday when he bumped me. I smiled. He said “I’m sorry I bumped your bag.” I replied, “That’s okay, it’s fine.” Then he complimented my knee socks (see pic) and it was the beginning of a very strange bus conversation, his side a bit loud and animated, my side very quiet. There was much talk about harassing people on MySpace, making web pages and MySpace pages for friends’ bands (“So, that’s what you kids are using it for these days.”), Satanism, Wicca (misguided and misinterpreted, might I add), local graffiti, underage drinking and the closing of the Upstage. He was wearing a Slayer t-shirt. At one point he pulled out a Green Day cd. (WHAT???)

So, were the knee socks the give-away that I’d “get it?” (Maybe it was the German fire hose bag.) Or was it just that I was nice to him?