Considering Cubic Zirconium

Assignment:
In your first month in New York
1. Meet three, interesting, out of the ordinary type people
2. Do something random and adventurous
3. Stumble upon a job for me.

The assignment was given to me by one of my former college students who dropped by my place the day before I made the big move to the Big Apple. I thought perhaps it might be a wee bit difficult to accomplish the task of meeting three unusual people in such a short time frame, but oh no - I’ve met well more than three. In a city like New York, meeting interesting people is not difficult to do.

In fact, my very first week in the city I met this guy named Andres from Colombia. The start of our conversation was rather confusing because I assumed that he was student studying at Columbia. Once we finally established that he was from Colombia (i.e. the country) and not going to Columbia (i.e. the university), we chatted about coffee. He insisted that the coffee you find in Colombia is far superior to any coffee you will ever drink at Starbucks. I believed him and told him I would be sure to try the coffee next time I’m in Colombia.

A few days later at the subway station I met another man from Colombia. He asked me a question about one of the subway trains and I made the mistake of replying. He (Ricardo) insisted on continuing the conversation onto the subway train where he sat down and made himself a little bit too comfortable beside me.

I’m beginning to think it might be a good idea to invest in a cubic zirconium ring to wear around the city to ward off creepy men. The problem with wearing such a ring is that I would also ward off potentially quality men at the same time. Perhaps I ought to get engaged and married for real to help alleviate the amount of creepsters hitting on me. Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Or if it’s too difficult to find someone to marry, I suppose I could pretend not to speak any English. I could create my own language or perhaps just speak in tongues (see Bible, book of Acts.)

Before I exited the subway train, Ricardo informed that I would be married within a year. I’ll take that – as long as it’s not to him. Although, if it was to him, I might have the chance to go to Colombia and try the Colombian coffee that Andres was raving about. Hmmm… maybe I should have given him my number after all.

I know the assignment said three, and I only mentioned two, but I’ll be back with more stories – perhaps about the carriage driver at Central Park, or the cyclist, or that missed connection that I’m tempted to post on Craig’s List. And how can I forget that guy from New Zealand, actually make that two guys from New Zealand, and that other guy Sweden. And then there is my favorite - a friend I made on the plane on the way to New York – Julia, the yoga instructor from Norway. We recently met up at Union Square at a place called The Coffee Shop, which oddly enough specializes in Brazilian American food and drinks, not coffee.