Observing Strangers<\/p>\n
Whole Foods, Union Square<\/p>\n
Jan 26, 2009<\/p>\n
Choice of Location:<\/p>\n
The food court on the upper level of Whole Foods is great people watching territory.\u00a0 There is always a variety of foreign and local, students and professionals, the boisterous and the introverted, and all usually agreeable.\u00a0 I seldom run into people, so my studies are uninterrupted.\u00a0 If I stood on the sidewalk, I\u2019m sure it would be quite the opposite.\u00a0 The eating area is far less chaotic than the waiting line suggests, five abreast, coiling around through the aisles.\u00a0 It\u2019s a great rendezvous, as there\u2019s usually seating, and no moderation of outside food.\u00a0 The full-length, windowed view of the park draws those eating alone, and serves as a contemplative branch on which to perch.<\/p>\n
Subject 1 \u2013 Green Hat<\/p>\n
Female, early thirties.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s wearing a fashionable, somewhat odd green plaid hat, with an oversized button affixed, right of the crown.\u00a0 It has a proper name, and that she knows that proper name.\u00a0 She probably takes pride in educating people on it\u2019s name, history, including the actress that first brought it in vogue.\u00a0 She reads an oversized magazine, about the size of the New York Times Magazine.\u00a0 She flicks the nails of her thumb and forefinger, seemingly disagreeing with the author\u2019s stance on, whatever it may be, Rourke\u2019s performance in his latest and whether his success is ironic or not.<\/p>\n
She eats her bowl of salad and edamame rather quickly, although if she were in a rush, she wouldn\u2019t be reading in the first place. This suggests and underlying compulsive nature. She is conscious of her eating habits.\u00a0 Her slender, pink fingers operate the plastic fork with great precision, while her eyes dart from margin to margin.\u00a0 The fingers, articulate in nature tell me she can sew and that her handwriting is somewhat delicate and restrained (i.e. -not bubbly).<\/p>\n
Her dark brown eyebrows give her dye job away, although she seems the type to update her look constantly, as her clothing looks brand new.\u00a0 This includes the knee-high, red leather boots.\u00a0 Shoes are like cars in the way they describe the owner.\u00a0 Red wants attention.\u00a0 Knee high leather adds dominance.\u00a0 The combination make for an ego-centric personality, although the matte finish and short heal dilutes the intensity.<\/p>\n
I cannot tell if she\u2019s local or not.\u00a0 Her eyes and bone structure say Eastern European, but her nose, lips and chin are more Irish or English.\u00a0 Her style is more San Francisco than NYC, if she isn\u2019t a tourist, I\u2019d say she\u2019s only been in town a few months, since her shoes are unscathed and her taste hasn\u2019t augmented.\u00a0 She heads toward the exit, I realize her slenderness is such that her thighs don\u2019t rub together when she walks.\u00a0 I wonder if this makes her stealthier.<\/p>\n
Subject 2 \u2013 Blue Cap<\/p>\n
Male, mid-sixties.<\/p>\n
He wears a blue baseball cap with a logo I can\u2019t decipher.\u00a0 He\u2019s seems to be waiting for someone, though he\u2019s two thirds finished with his food.\u00a0 He is also people watching.\u00a0 We meet eyes.\u00a0 His are pale, blue.\u00a0 They are dull spoons.\u00a0 Something about their gaze said that he was unimpressed with life, or at least his day.\u00a0 Unabashedly, he picks his teeth with his thick fingers.\u00a0 He looks back at me as he fishes through his molars so nonchalantly.\u00a0 His lack of shame suggests that he\u2019s not married.\u00a0 I look down to answer my own question.\u00a0 Nope.\u00a0 No wedding band.\u00a0 His fingers are wide, rather square at the tips.\u00a0 Probably worked with his hands.\u00a0 They have the look of used sandpaper.\u00a0 He shakes his right leg when he\u2019s deep in thought.\u00a0 It pauses when he\u2019s purveying the scene.<\/p>\n
His phone rings.\u00a0 It takes about three rings before he notices.\u00a0 Another two before he answers.\u00a0 The ring is set on the default Nokia ring.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure he doesn\u2019t know how to change it.\u00a0 I wonder if he can check his voicemail.\u00a0 I wonder if he still has an answering machine that records to tape.<\/p>\n
Subject 3 & 4<\/p>\n
Two Females, twenties.<\/p>\n
I wasn\u2019t paying much attention to them, as they\u2019re sitting behind me and to my right.\u00a0 I only glanced over, as I settled at my two-person table.\u00a0 The dirty blonde faced my direction and wore a loose-fit orange Patagonia-like pullover.\u00a0 The brunette was in fitted clothing, showing off her tone physique.\u00a0 I instantly wrote them off as outdoorsy types, by the pullover.\u00a0 As they went to empty their trays, noticed the spoken Russian.\u00a0 I guess there was a noticeable shift in my attention because the blonde caught my nosing in immediately.\u00a0 As they walked back to grab their jackets their personalities diverged.\u00a0 The blonde was cautious and protective, almost analyzing my intentions.\u00a0 The brunette, who was used to attention, displayed a cocky-stride that was only interrupted in my turning down to my notes.<\/p>\n
Subject 5<\/p>\n
Female, late thirties \u2013 early forties.<\/p>\n
Another lady sits down at the table beside mine.\u00a0 With her, she has a small container of soup, I think it\u2019s the corn chowder.\u00a0 She drinks her Nantucket Nectar with a straw.\u00a0 Each time she takes a sip, she has to retrieve the straw from inside the bottle.\u00a0 Seems cumbersome to me.\u00a0 If she\u2019s a germaphobe, it\u2019s rather contradictory that she\u2019s using her dirty finger fetch the mouthpiece.\u00a0 She is also unwed.\u00a0 She\u2019s somewhat tomboyish.\u00a0 The way she rocks her head back and forth as an affirmation.\u00a0 She probably has older brothers or a dominant father.\u00a0 Her hair is styled in the \u201cbob,\u201d but it\u2019s not flattering her face.\u00a0 Neither are her frameless glasses on her long nose.\u00a0 She\u2019s giving off the science teacher vibe.\u00a0 Very schoolboy-ish in all of her gestures.\u00a0 She loads two pieces of pink Orbits and she demonstrates the phrase \u201cchewing like a cow\u201d flawlessly.\u00a0 Her bottom jaw skews to the right as it opens, allowing percussive sounds to escape.<\/p>\n
She reads from pamphlet in tiny, 6pt font, and horizontal orientation.\u00a0 Either she\u2019s far-sighted and this is her answer, or it\u2019s her environmentally conscious rationale at work here.<\/p>\n
Subject 6<\/p>\n
Female, late twenties.<\/p>\n
My eyes are drawn to her because she operates at a completely different rhythm than that of the rest in the room.\u00a0 There is patience in her poise.\u00a0 She slowly climbs the staircase in her \u00be length jacket, its hood serving as a faux-fur-lining to her aura.\u00a0 Her disposition breathes tranquility, while she examines the room, as a new world presenting itself.\u00a0 It\u2019s as if she\u2019s taking in the room as a whole.\u00a0 Not separating its constituents, but surmising one single vision.\u00a0 As she glides over to the caf\u00e9, her short brown locks curl toward the heavens, more buoyant with each step.\u00a0 She reviews the barista\u2019s chalkboard.\u00a0 Unconvinced of the selection, she swims past the biscotti case.\u00a0 She came to see the room, the caf\u00e9 to fill the lack of purpose.<\/p>\n
Subject 7 & 8<\/p>\n
Female & Male, teenagers.<\/p>\n
The girl is rather pudgy and has terrible posture.\u00a0 She has the look of a girl who grew up in a house of music.\u00a0 Total Aretha resemblance.\u00a0 You can also tell by the way she holds herself that she lacks discipline.\u00a0 Most likely this is due to very passive parental figures.\u00a0 Her frumpy clothing suggests a lack of self-esteem that\u2019s common for the age.\u00a0 The style of her backpack also corroborates her being in high school.<\/p>\n
The boy plays with his scarf in a funny way.\u00a0 If sexual orientation were poker, it would be one of his tells.\u00a0 He has very good posture, like that of a dancer.\u00a0 Although he isn\u2019t as physically developed as the ballet kids, but maybe he\u2019s less ambitious.\u00a0 There\u2019s obedience in the posture that seems learned.<\/p>\n
Subject 9<\/p>\n
Female, eighteen to twenty<\/p>\n
Her appeal is in her smiles.\u00a0 She travels with admirers.\u00a0 Her eyes bounce around the room as she speaks to her two friends, who sit, backs toward me.\u00a0 This could denote a short attention span, but I\u2019m inclined to say she\u2019s somewhat bored with the conversation, or her content is being retold.<\/p>\n
(Hmm, I look around while conversing.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if I\u2019m aurally centered or if I have to feel especially engaged).<\/p>\n
Subjects 10-12<\/p>\n
Male, Female, thirties.<\/p>\n
Male, late fifties.<\/p>\n
The two in their thirties seem like a performing duo.\u00a0 Almost as if they just walked out of the park.\u00a0 The woman looks like a Nubian gypsy.\u00a0 She rocks a sparkling \u2018do-rag, while the man has a large, traffic-cone-orange beanie.\u00a0 He may have dreads inside the beanie, but I cannot tell.\u00a0 He seems like the business mind and she, the act, the large personality.<\/p>\n
They converse with an older, man with a lax posture.\u00a0 He has short, grey curls atop his head, inspiration on his brow and a lofty laugh that one can hear well across the mess hall.\u00a0 He is reminiscent of a George Lucas, a definite math and sciences mind.\u00a0 You can tell he\u2019s a regular since he\u2019s on a friendly basis with the staff that hovers around.\u00a0 Or maybe he\u2019s that friendly.<\/p>\n
The gypsy is either a tranny or has a hormone imbalance.\u00a0 The build is too muscular and broad.\u00a0 I\u2019m leaning toward the cross-gender area, since there is a level of intentional privacy kept.\u00a0 She holds her coat closed the entire time, and her head is down when her sunglasses are off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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