happy yay-day...

it is somehow sad that i had timed my arrival at the office in a way so i would not have to wait for too long until the meeting started. and it started pretty much on time. it was one of those standing performances where certain characters on stage discuss the situation in the field and groups of other characters are called in now and then and report on what part of the city was burning and what things were going well. okay, maybe it is not quite this way. a little bit yes though. a group of people making slight adjustments to some thoughts and another circle of people arriving every few minutes to read something and inspire new comments and ideas. big ideas too. and small ones. played animal crossing on the train going back to brooklyn. placed myself in the seat next to the window on the left hand side of the train, so i could look at the skyline of downtown manhattan when the train got above ground after carroll street. a woman sitting on the bench in front of me hid her strange moleskine-like diary and put on a strange smile as if i had just looked at some secret of hers and she liked it. it really did not care a pinch. i was just ready to go home, clean out my office a bit more, get some food in my belly and perhaps draw. i was not about to tell her that i did not care. i just played animal crossing. it was yay-day today, the day on which all the animals in my town (currently mostly squirrels and other mammals) come up with compliments for me. i then have to type in something that is supposed to flatter them too... in 16 characters or less. the animals then repeat the words i would come up with as if they were the greatest thing on earth, or the lamest, dependent on the personality that this particular animal has. does this sound insanely nerdy? it is. i called one of the squirrels "squirrellicious" and the gorilla "silverbacky"... lame. the train eventually moved above ground. a hungarian family with a toddler moved in on my corner. the child was very tired and just cried and cried. the family discussed the crying child in hungarian. i looked out the window and saw a very blurry version of manhattan and brooklyn and the dark sky. somebody had scribbled their name onto the glass with etching fluid and shoe shine. my stop was near, i somehow managed to convince the older lady to let me out of my window seat. as the train was pulling into the station i noticed a guy, maybe in his 30's, playing on a very beat up nintendo ds (it was a blue one.) I peeked at his screen and saw that he was trying to type something, some word, somehow under 16 characters, while in the top screen a little avatar was talking to some grayish whale like animal. i tapped the stranger on the shoulder. he took off his headphones and looked at me as if i had something he had just dropped. "happy yay-day," i said. i felt a tiny bit as if my father were there with me. my father who has the ability to start a conversation with any person, anywhere, may they understand his language or not. "happy yay-day"... the guy got it. he laughed. he thought it was very funny. i walked home smiling. bought a small pack of celery and carrots for a dollar. some of the celery was bad. ate a quarter of a watermelon. tomorrow will be a tougher day. more meetings. more people. more important. we will sit around a table. make decisions. present. i am tired now. yay... night