I managed to get one of the seats by the window in this mainstream Thai restaurant on 50th street. I had to squeeze by this young family with this large boy. The street was moving as before but it was completely muted by the glass. The window must have made me invisible. A Policeman stopped his bike, parked it right next to me and stood like a huge blue shadow with NYPD written on it next to me. I could hear that his radio was on, but I could not hear the messages. I opened my book to draw.
The conversation at the table next to me had an interesting dynamic. The relationships between these three people developed, as they revealed more and more of themselves. The boy asked his parents about the spiciness of various colors of curry. The father, whom I now only heard, tried to give an educated answer but started shooting blanks. "It depends. It depends how you want it." The mother did not say anything. Then the father asked: "So what is it that you do in DC?" falling out of the role of the father, turning instantly into the New York host, who was taking a Lady and a boy to Lunch? Or was the Boy visiting all by himself? He seemed strangely grown up and a boy at the same time.
"I work for this Non-Profit organization for Women, mainly dealing with junk mail," said the boy and he instantly turned into a maybe 26 year old woman, dressed in an interestingly boyish outfit, visiting from DC. My assumptions were changing from minute to minute. It really seemed that the Man was from New York, but he seemed to be new to this neighborhood. He might live in Chelsea maybe? From what he said it seemed to make sense. His companion, the woman friend next to him, seemed to try to get a Masters in psychology, but needed to sign up for a strange program to do so. The boy-woman’s boss’ name was Jane. "And I’m like, Jane, I do not feel comfortable with us taking these addresses from the site and using them to send unsolicited donation requests to people, even the Exxon wives. And she, like, did not fire me for that." Did she have a Ph.D.? because this seemed to be what the other woman mentioned once the boy-woman had left the table. She was saying how wonderful it was for them, and that her family had a lot of money. The man left for the bathroom. The hands of the women met in an almost instant clinging embrace. So they were a couple. Now the woman went to the bathroom and the man started a conversation about his mother and how he still gets her mail, even though she was, passed away for three years now.
I looked out the window again. A WWF poster with a group of women arranged and designed to look like "Sex and the City." was placed on the side of a phone. Somebody used a fat black marker to cross out the women and wrote in large letters "Sexism still exists!"
A different couple sat right in front of me. The woman pulled out her new sunglasses and asked the man if he likes them. "They are sexy", he said, in a way that made me assume that they have not yet kissed. But what do I know. I just continued to draw and had my tea.