rubinville

About an hour ago I walked out of my apartment and bumped into the woman who lives down the hall. I often bump into her here and there and we have the smattering of nonsensical talk that people who don't really want to talk usually have. Generally when I bump into her she is standing in the hall smoking, which is a big no-no in according to building rules, but she does it nonetheless. I do know that she lives with her daughter and grand-daughter, and perhaps other people, so I can only assume she smokes in the hall because they don't want her to smoke in the apartment.

I don't really mind that she is smoking in the hall as much as that she does it there because she she doesn't want to disrespect her family by giving them cancer, so instead she disrespects the rest of the people living in the building.

And now to the funny part...

So we bumped into each other and as we usually do, we talked about the weather. "Sure is cold out there", she said. "I heard it's gonna snow later", I retorted. This went on for about 30 seconds when I noticed that there was smoke coming out of her jacket through her neckline. I then looked down and saw that it was also coming out of the right arm of her jacket. I couldn't see her hand there, which led me to believe that she suddenly didn't want me to see her smoking so she hid the cigarette in the arm of her jacket. Pretty clever old-broad, indeed.

Long story short (or is it too late for that?), I never mentioned that I thought she was on fire, and I think she thought she pulled a fast one on me. But I know what she's up to. For where there's smoke, there's an old smoking woman.

As I write this I just glanced at the TV only to see William Shatner in bed with James Spader. How jealous is Leonard Nemoy right now?

Oh, one other quick story. I went to pick up chinese food after the smoking incident and when I walked in a black man came in right behind me and the guy at the door said to him, "This way." He then brought him over to a table where another black man was sitting alone. I couldn't hear the exact conversation but it turned out that the guy at the door just assumed that second guy was there to sit with another black man. It got a little testy but ultimately the man sat at a table a few feet away.

When the guy who was doing the seating returned I gave him a quizical look about the situation. He looked at me and said, "Oh, I thought they were together. They are the same gender."

Ah, New York City, a true melting pot...