stranger things

am i the only one who has a whole boatload of fond/funny memories that involve complete strangers and/or people that you only interacted with for a minute, an hour, an evening, and then never saw or talked to again? i can't be. i just wanted to take a few minutes to give a shout out to the randos that brought a smile to my face, made me laugh, or unknowingly introduced me to one of my favorite albums (see #1). thanks, complete strangers who will never read this! i love y'all. feel free to contribute your own "stranger things" in the comments.

1. the boy on my very premature college tour of fordham's lincoln center campus in 10th grade, who was wearing a strokes t-shirt, which prompted me to listen to is this it for the first time

2. the employee at my hometown's now defunct ghetto movie theater, premier 8, who disdainfully poured an absolutely grody-looking dixie cup of room-temperature buttery substance--that had probably been sitting on the counter for hours--on a kid's popcorn in front of him 

3. the spunky older couple who befriended gleni and i at arnaud's french 75 bar in new orleans and bought us drinks (pictured)

4. the panera cashier who shouted "kim possible!" at me for no apparent reason while i was paying for my food

5. the unidentified member of kentucky band parlour boys who once left a provocative comment on my myspace that just said "fucking beautiful"

6. on that note, the unidentified secret admirer who sent me a carnation in 7th grade on valentine's day
 

7. this super weird girl named ruthanne, that my roommate and i met at a halloween phantom planet show at BU, who tried to get us to stalk them in their dressing room with her

8. a fellow extra on the set of kevin james' here comes the boom who i bonded with during the 12-hour shoot because we were the only relatively normal people

9. the gutter punk in haight-ashbury, san francisco who pointed at me and said "you're GROOVY!" as i passed

10. a guy from craigslist named bernard arnest who responded to a personal ad i posted in college 
saying, "you seem an anachronism, and that's cool." he immediately inspired the creation of a british character that my roommate at the time and i still quote to this day, obvs. 

11. norwegian band the megaphonic thrift who shared a shuttle van with gleni and i at SXSW, joked about "irish whores" because it was st. patrick's day, and escaped with us into traffic because our driver had weird jesus paraphernalia everywhere

12. the street magician/balloon artist (nicknamed "tony balloons") who i met on a family trip to baltimore when i was like 8 and who was the subject of my college essay

13. the bar back/grill dude at robert's western world in nashville who suddenly ran out from behind the bar, jumped onstage to flawlessly cover muddy waters with a harmonica, and jumped offstage to return to burger duty again