Is That Churchill or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

So recently I sold my drum machine for a cool $65 on eBay. That means I had slightly more money than I had budgeted, so hello mini shopping spree. In addition to the alcohol that was an inevitable purchase, I got a few things for the kitchen from Target, where I literally spent 20 minutes staring at blenders and wondering whether I could find a use for one, and wondering how powerful a 450 watt motor is in terms of blending. Since I was in the area, I also decided to stop at Barnes and Noble and make myself feel intelligent, feeding the illusion that maybe I'll read another book one of these days.

Now, the last book that I thoroughly enjoyed was Hughes: The Private Diaries, Memos and Letters, a very revealing and enjoyable biography of the eccentric Howard Hughes. I finished the book just before I saw The Aviator, and I was captivated. Howard Hughes may be my ultimate role model. He was an innovator, a visionary, a billionare, and a complete nutjob - all personal goals of mine.

Anyway, the point is, I think that I may actually like biographies - something's fascinating about being able to observe an entire life in the span of a few hundred pages of text. So I went to the biography section and started looking at a Churchill book. I had been debating getting either it or the new Einstein biography. So while I was looking and thinking to myself, this guy asks me out of the blue if I had ever studied Churchill before. I said no, and we had a real brief chat about biographies and history.

Now, I'm all for speaking to strangers in public. As of late, far too many people have become frigidly insecure about friendly conversation with random people you could run into anywhere. I've personally been trying to just strike up quick conversations with anyone with whom I would otherwise have to interact in the daily course of events. For example, I'm starting to be very friendly towards checkout clerks and waitresses, trying to start miniature conversations. I hope to soon reach a level of comfort where I can actually speak to people that I see randomly, checking out Churchill biographies or something. So I applaud this guy for just chatting for two minutes to a complete stranger.

Of course, at the time I was mildly weirded out. In my head, I wondered if this guy might be gay. Not entirely rational, I know, but I've been reading a lot of David Sedaris recently. After he left, I started to wonder which scenario would be better. Perhaps he was straight and was living the life I wanted to lead, saying "screw you" to the modern social norm of reserved individualism, and had found me approachable enough know that I wouldn't mind having a chat, or even that I wanted to be so liberated myself. Or perhaps he thought I was cute and just had to take a shot, hoping I was gay. I was in Barnes and Noble, after all. After a while, I started to almost prefer this scenario, as it would mean that I'm attractive to at least some people, even if it is just one gay guy. Along with my recent weight loss, it's kind of a self-esteem boost.

I ended up getting the Einstein book. Maybe I can read it somewhere public, and some girl will be able to sense both my intelligence and my increased sense of confidence and self-esteem. Then, I could take her back to my place and make her a drink...

Bah, if only I had bought a blender today.