October 8, 2000

I left my apartment this morning with one goal in mind: to get a goddamn wedding present. I am really, really, really bad at buying gifts for people, because I usually just end up getting something I'd want, forgetting that very few people have as stellar taste as I, and then wondering why, oh, say, my mom is not nearly as excited about the glow-in-the-dark Powerpuff Girl (Buttercup, if you have to ask) watch she has just received as I am. My ineptitude at picking out presents, coupled with procrastination techniques that have been taken to zero-gravity heights, resulted in my desperately combing the city's abundant supply of overpriced candlestick shops and trendy towel stores. Seeing as I am not a big fan of overpriced candlesticks, and trendy towels give me a rash, I turned to the one place that had never steered me wrong in my search for idiosyncratic gifts for my equally idiosyncratic friends: the street fair.

It really was an accident. I was going to the Chase on 23rd & 6th to get some cash, and I saw the familiar artistry of the police barricade and smelled the sweet stench of meat on a stick. I didn't really think I would find a suitable gift literally on the streets of New York, but we all know how weak I am in these situations. So, I giddily attacked small, yippy dogs with the $5.00 marionettes made out of pom-poms. I stared, mesmerized, at the $8.00 battery-operated cars toolin' around the grooved (and substantially groovy) mazes to which they were attached. And then, as I headed toward the sarong table (because, y'know, sarongs are perfect for the wintry months ahead), I saw him.

This…this…this guy, for lack of a better term. This, at the time, 21-year-old guy with whom I had a brief and terrifically embarrassing relationship (sic) was just traipsin' along, pretty as you please, with three or four equally young people who I swear just got out of diapers around May. I met him on Swoon about two years ago -- a computer geek who dropped out of college yet could afford a rather palatial apartment down by the South Street Seaport. And he was five years younger than me. All these things should have made me hate him, but he was actually quite charming. Online. And on the phone.

In person, all I ever got from him was that he had an Asian girl fetish. Seriously. He would go on at great lengths about how I was the first white girl he'd dated, and how I wasn't his type at all. Shockingly, I found this annoying, but I was lonely, and he, um, well…he'd call me at work and tell me he wanted me to come over that night. My work was far away from him. My apartment was even farther. I was poor. So, he would send cabs to come get me. And pay for cabs to take me home. I think I was what is commonly referred to as a call girl, albeit a poorly compensated one. Amazingly, we broke up.

So, I saw him for the first time in more than two years, and of course I found it awkward, and of course I didn't want to talk to him, but at the same time, I totally did. I wanted to have a classic Awkward Moment. A Sex and the City moment. I wanted to prove that I was civil and adult and held no hard feelings. Most importantly, of course, I wanted him to look at me and kick himself, but hard, for ever letting me go. I wanted him to remember how funny I was, and how cute I was when I blushed, and how downright better I was, really, than all women, everywhere. Even in Asia.

But first, I just wanted him to recognize me. Which he didn't do. I mean, when I saw him, I immediately thought, "Yup, that's Charlie." The least he could do was show me the same courtesy. I tried to catch his eye, and failed. I made sure to walk in front of him, letting my trademark hair flow fast and furious down my back and in his line of vision. Then I would wait a few minutes, and look back at him. Nothing. I simply did not register. I should have been pissed, but I was really finding the whole thing quite funny. I laughed at the lengths I was going to make him see me. I mean, god forbid I go up to him and say hello. No. That is not my way. He must come to me, damn it. That's just the way these things work.

I circled him a few more times, like a wolf toying with its prey, and then gave up. He was leaving the fair, and it'll be a cold day in hell before I let anyone come between me and my funnel cake. I continued to scour the tables for the perfect gift, to no avail. Street fairs, I've found, are just not the place to get wedding presents. They are, however, perfect for running into people you've slept with.

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