(no subject)

[camwyn]

Nine and a half miles on the bike today. Wore the chain across my torso the whole time. Home to Modell's (no sandals), Modell's to Target (sandals), Target to Hoboken North, ferry ride into Manhattan, down to Chelsea Bikes (bell, air horn, placed order for new saddle), Chelsea Bikes to Whole Foods Pharmacy (four bottles essential oil), Whole Foods to bodega (lye, juice, protein shake), bodega to train, train to Hoboken. Brief encounter with the Angel of Surrealism, who as usual took the form of an old man with a peculiar accent, this time Polish so far as I can tell. "You rrride a bike in New York City? With all the traffic and the cars?" etc.; after praising bikes and saying cars were noisy and polluting and more people should have bikes, the Angel told me I was a sweet woman and not to change, and then wandered off towards the train station. It was a lovely thing, truly. I smiled most of the rest of the way home.

(For the record, I have had a number of encounters in the past with old men with accents I don't hear very often, who've talked to me almost exactly as if we left off some conversation long ago, and who've either imparted some form of philosophy or some suggestion of something not to give up on in future. I have decided that this is actually the Angel of Surrealism in human form. There has also been one incident with a Black man with a Caribbean accent and a small child close at hand and who told me not to worry because 'the moment that exists is the only one that matters' as I was fretting about one of my exams at NJIT, but I think he was more in the way of the Angel of Zen than the Angel of Surrealism.)

Comments

[lienne.livejournal.com]

*grins* The Angel of Surrealism sounds AWESOME.

[camwyn]

The first time I met him, he'd talked to my father first. Said he was over ninety years old (this was back when I was in high school, maybe even earlier) and that he had been born to one of the Eskimo women in the Arctic village where Amundsen and his men went to train for polar exploration, and grew up on mixed milk and reindeer blood.

This is more cool than disturbing when you realize that both my father and I have major interests in arctic and antarctic exploration- and this guy found us at random.

[lienne.livejournal.com]

Dude, that's brilliant.

I... don't so much get angels. >.>

[feonixrift.livejournal.com]

The angel of zen is totally a black dude with a caribbean accent. :)

[camwyn]

I thought at first he was a homeless guy, because it was night, and I was in Newark, and I was on my way from NJIT's school buildings to the NJIT parking deck, and I used to encounter a couple of homeless people a week when I took courses at NJIT. I was starting to reach for some money (I tried to keep some in my pocket for just that sort of purpose) when he smiled at me and said that bit about the moment that exists, and I blinked, and he smiled and the child with him just stared (she looked about five and not fond of strangers) and walked off.

He had a hat on that said "Hawaii". And he had braids, I think, rather than dreads. I don't remember much else about how he was dressed or looked. Just that.

Angel of Zen, mon.

[midnightlurker.livejournal.com]

They were probably all agents of Illuminati University's College of Zen Surrealism. :)

[camwyn]

And, y'know, I can live with that.