Having a Ball

I don't remember if the boy in the picture had any attachments to the woman on the left, but I like his expression just the same:


I took this with the Kodak Bullet, sitting on a bench in the park, though I was concentrating more on the conversation that was going on next to me.

There was this dude who had struck up a conversation with a pretty woman. She had some kind of work papers with her, some kind of financial stuff that I wouldn't even begin to comprehend. Though she was wearing black dress and heels, and looked pretty formal for someone just catching up on some office work on a nice day. She asked him what he was doing in the park, and he said, "I'm just catching up on the Journal, since I don't have time to read it during the week," as he raised his folded Wall Street Journal up as justification for his being in the park that afternoon.

Ugh. "The Journal?" Who the hell just calls the Wall Street Journal, "The Journal?" I bet this guy is the type who calls Southern Comfort "SoCo," and goes out at night wearing untucked button-down white shirts with jeans and sandals. This guy probably thinks Robert Chambers got a raw deal (pun definitely intended).

So I continued to listen, to see if this guy had any game. To see if he was going to leave with some kind of contact info from this broad. As far as I could tell (it was hard for me to hear her. she was a low talker and was facing away from me just about the entire time), he didn't. They just talked about downtown financial stuff and she laughed a few times before leaving. I kept an eye on him as he parked himself on a bench (no pun intended) next to a girl reading a vintage Peanuts book. That gave me a smile, since the book she was reading was of the same kind I grew up reading, and Peanuts was the biggest thing in the world to me, pretty much until Bloom County came along, but I never failed to take time out for the patron saint of St. Paul just the same.

I think within less than two minutes he stopped pretending to read "The Journal" and was surely fascinating her with tales from downtown. I saw all I needed to see and went on my way. Now here's the question. Why was I so judgmental about this dude? Why am I hatin' on him n'shit? Maybe I'm just plumb jealous.

I'm not a park gigolo. If I didn't have a stupid old camera around my neck I'd hardly talk to anyone. I haven't changed much in that regard in 18 years of living here. Hell, the camera attracts just as many dudes (if not more) than chicks. But it's not a prop. It's not a newspaper that I skim to make myself appear financially astute while trying to inject myself into the woman sitting next to me (you can take that statement however you like), it's something that I'd have with me regardless of reaction. As I've said in other ways on this blog, it's those reactions that got this whole damn project started in the first place.

I mean, I'm not in this for camera pussy. Is there even such a thing as camera pussy? Maybe if there were, the title of this blog would be, "HEY, NICE CAMERA! LET'S FUCK!!!" (.blogspot.com, of course).

I should be so lucky.

And if I'm in the West Village...well...I'd just have to politely decline the invitation.

Hell, I should be so lucky just to be able to say, "aw shucks, I'm flattered, but do you have any female friends that have been female since birth that you think might be interested?"

Wow, somebody needs to end this post before...I don't know, just before.