Don't look at me

I came to a coffee shop because I need to focus but then two really loud women sat down next to me, but I don’t mind.

They’re sitting within arms reach - so close I could easily touch them - but I didn’t look up when they sat down so I don’t know what they look like, and I do mind that. Not looking up at theses two women is one of my greatest regrets.

“Well she’s having a lot of luck lately.” says the woman closest to me. Close enough for a very loose hug, even, the kind of hug you might give someone at the gym. “What she does now is go to ComicCon and cosplay conventions and gives out stacks of cards that say I saw you looking at me, and that’s not ok, I’m a person.”

“That. Is. So. Great.” her friend exhales slowly.

“Right? It can be hard to say out loud but people need to know, that even though we look this way, the way we look, it’s not ok to look at us."

I have never wanted to look at two people more.

I wonder if I look up at them if they will notice. And if they notice, will they give me a card.

They kept talking, in plain sight but completely unviewable.

“That’s so empowering. And important, because looking is harassment. The occult circle in Seattle had harassment problems years ago and it was terrible. It ripped the witchcraft community apart.

As they pause for a moment of silence for the Seattle witchcraft community I use every muscle in my face to hold my gaze down. I wonder if people will be able to tell later, if my face will be incredibly toned or even sculpted from the self-restraint. I wonder if people will look at me, and I will wish I had cards I could give them that say I’m a person.

I've almost found a new thing to obsess about when one of their friends walks up behind me to meet them. She reaches for a chair at my table and practically screams: “Oh my goodness, look at you two!”

I wish I could, ma'am. That's all I want to do right now.

Later, when they seemed distracted, I looked at them quickly and they look like every other person I've ever seen in my life.

Everything I know about Chicago.

When I was in middle school my family drove through Chicago. 

“I think we’re near the apartment you grew up in,” my parents said. Actually one of them said it, they didn’t talk in unison. But I don’t remember which one specifically so I'm just using "my parents" in a general sense.

“Can we drive by it?” I asked. “Can we see it, just from the car? Just so I can imagine where I come from and what it was like where I lived as a baby?” 

“No.” my parents said.

Still not in unison.

Reasons I shouldn't go running today

Please choose three of the four excuses.
○ It's snowing.
○ My knees feel sort of loose. Is that a thing?
○ Maybe I should stay home and watch tv so I know more about pop culture.
○ My hair looks too good to mess up.

No spoilers please

Things I think about when I’m washing my hands in a coffee shop bathroom and notice a $1,000,000 bill sitting next to the sink:

I bet it’s an ad for something.

Once at a street fair someone scattered ads shaped like $100 bills. They looked so realistic that I put four in my pockets. I'm not sure what I was planning on doing with them, but when I dropped one later a stranger ran through four lanes of busy traffic to return it. I pretended to be as happy as I would be if someone handed me $100 I'd dropped on the ground, instead of as happy as I would be if someone handed me an ad I'd dropped on the ground. I did a great job.

This bill looks way more realistic.

Is that what a million dollar bill really looks like?

If million dollar bills really existed, people wouldn’t carry suitcases full of money. Why would you carry a suitcase full of money when you could fold a million dollar bill into your wallet with your ice cream scoops punch card?

Maybe they carry suitcases full of money because there aren’t many million dollar bills in circulation.

I’m not touching it.

Maybe I should touch it. Just with a paper towel.

Maybe God left it here for me. Because I've been so good lately. It seems like a weird thing to do, but it seems like the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who invented scabs, bananas, sex, and those fish that just look like bummed-out piles of fat.

Or maybe it’s some sort of promotion the coffee shop is running, where if I turn it in to the front desk they’ll give me a year's supply of coffee and all the internet I want. What a strange promotion, and what a strange choice of bill to use. A twenty would have made a lot more sense.

Maybe a million dollar bill is normal. Maybe most people who come to this coffee shop are super rich, obscenely rich. Maybe they had this in their pocket to buy a Mazarati for the ride home. If they did they would have more than a suitcase worth of money left over.

I have been washing my hands for a really long time.

Here are pictures of a few things. A blobfish, a very strange photo of the cast of Ocean's 11 at an air base in Turkey, and the treehouse I would build if I had picked up the money. I'm not looking up if a million dollar bill exists because I want to it to stay a surprise.