Saturday, January 24, 2009

Toddler Brigade

I went out for a run this morning. Took my normal jogging route. Wore my normal jogging clothes. A day and a run like any other.

Or was it?

Innocently, I ran along Clinton Street, listening to a little Clipse, thinking my thoughts. The familiarity, the comfort. But then...

...as I rounded the corner of Dekalb...

...I was faced with...

...NO LESS THAN FIVE UNACCOMPANIED TODDLERS ON TRICYCLES, ADVANCING TOWARDS ME. Alarmed, I jumped back. They regarded me with steely eyes and peddled with slow determination. One had a puffy pink jacket; another had Batman rubber boots. It was clear who owned the sidewalk 'round those parts, and I jogged off the curb, giving the rogue trike-warriors their share of space.

It would have been terrifying if it was not the most adorable thing I've ever seen in my life.

Postscript for the worriers: there were some adults, presumably parents, watching from a nearby stoop. So we do not need to sound the alarm for Rogue Infant Tricyclists.

Postscript for the shrewdly alert: We do not need to sound the alarm for RITs...yet.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

To do: Call Boy who Saves Future

I have no idea how, when or why this happened but I have, at some point during the ownership of my current agenda book, made a note in it to "Call John Connor" on Friday, January 9th, 2009. I flipped the page to this week, and there it was, in black pen. "Call John Connor".

Just to clarify, I know nobody named John Connor. It's not just that I know no John Connors in New York; I'm pretty certain I've never met a for-real John Connor. I think I would remember if I had, because I would feel obliged to make constant Terminator jokes around him. A John Connor has definitely never given me his phone number, perhaps for that very reason.

Which means we're talking The John Connor. We're talking Boy who Saves the Future.

I mean, well, we aren't, necessarily. But let's avoid the "we aren't" route. Yes, there is a fair chance that I wrote this in my agenda book when drunk and bored on a subway ride home, which would account for me not remembering how it got there. Yes, my agenda book goes from June 2008 to the end of 2009, so this could have been written anytime in the past seven months. But maybe it was BEFORE? Maybe I bought it with "Call John Connor" already written inside, in my handwriting! Let's not take the "we aren't" route. Let's take the "Oh boy" route. Let's take the "This is it" route. Let's take the "John Connor, Boy who Saves the Future, either wrote in my planner or put me in some kind of trance, and then I wrote in my own planner" route.

So that's it, guys. John Conner, leader of the Tech-Com Human Resistance Movement, son of Tech-Com rebel soldier Kyle Reese and Los Angeles waitress-turned-guerilla-warrior Sarah Connor, foe of Skynet, savior of humanity, wants me to call him. Some real shit is clearly about to go down, so if you don't see me for a few days, just assume I'm fighting time-traveling robots with a dreamboat. Probably there's going to be some motorcycle chases and we'll be hiding out in deserts and there may even be some human-robot bonding and all of it will be exciting and romantic and generally high drama. Wherever I am, I am happy.

Unless I am in some sort of robot death grip. In that case, I am very unhappy, and if you see/hear about it, please call help.