If Catcalls Were Cheeseburgers

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't know how the sarcasm could have been more clear w/o putting labels all over it...

[Lorizael]

Uh, I hope didn't say something offensive here. My post had two points: (1) I'm really bad at interacting with humans, especially random strangers on the street and (2) (and this point may not have come across at all, because it was mostly in my head) I am seriously uncomfortable with invading other people's personal space or intruding on their lives in any way, so the idea of propositioning random strangers on the street is an utterly baffling one to me, and I really don't understand how people can think it's okay. (Not wanting to intrude is part of why I freeze up in the presence of strangers, which is how that's not a total non-sequitur.)

[Buster's Uncle]

...And knowing that about Lori, thus my 'yes, and' retort.

I have the same problem/attitude towards the issue, actually...

[Lorizael]

Hmm, reading over my original post, an alternative interpretation springs to mind which is that it looks like I'm drawing a false dichotomy between cat-calling and being a deer caught in the headlights, and by making that unfavorable comparison I'm on the pro-cat-calling side of things. That was absolutely not my intent. There certainly is a middle ground between those two extremes (intruding on other people's lives and living in a bubble), but I worry so much about drifting toward the former that I almost exclusively go for the latter.

For example, I'm even uncomfortable with saying "good < time of day >" to strangers (unless I have a darn good prior reason to be talking to them), to the extent that I am legitimately working on exactly that with my therapist right now...

[Buster's Uncle]

Breaking the ice with strangers is always a problem, isn't it?  I have much trouble with that one, but am usually okay once contact is established.

[Buster's Uncle]

Sorting through my renfair junk, I found a montage shot on a 3.5 floppy -OF COURSE I didn't find most of the pictures I used to have- and I don't love that big closeup, but it's me caught in the act hand-kissing a lady.  Note that I'm looking up at her eyes, not the hand, and talking to her.  The next looks pretty good, I daresay, and I see that I can date it and the previous shot to probably October 1995 at the Carolina Renaissance Fair; the length of my hair, the knee breaches not tights, and the size of the tabard give it away.

The bottom shot would be 1999 at Hawkwood near Fort Worth, Texas.  The smaller tabard Mom made.  Tights.  The flatter sign.  My first gig as a stage act.  Two women I don't recall at all looking at them, (though they look to be participants, probably a washer wench act,) and the Fairy Godfather.  He was a bit bigger than me, looked like that, and brandished the plastic cigar you can make out badly in the shot.  He didn't have a lot in the way of jokes, just a semi-lame Italian accent, but all he had the do was show up looking like himself in a pink tutu and everyone lost it.  The man is a Legend in Texas renfairs.

-Which reminds me that this is the year that I found out a gag I'd tossed off and given away to a playtron a couple years past had gotten over in a really big way.  A fellow who went by Merlin, and you just imagined correctly the look he sported, was sitting in front of the shop I worked in eating a turkey leg, finished it down to only a little skin on the handle bone, asked "What do I do with this?"  I assume he was asking where a trashcan was, but I said "Walk about holding it aloft, declaiming in your loudest voice 'USED TURKEY LEG!  USED TURKEY LEG FOR SALE!'"

He did so and was able to sell it to a laughing patron for a quarter ten minutes later.

For some reason, the subject of Turkey Legs Are Funny came up with the Entertainment Director after I got on cast two years later, and I mentioned Merlin and the Used Turkey Leg Gag - Dave said "Oh yeah; Merlin's a legend for that."

Well, my ego runneth over, but some frustration at not being able to claim credit without undermining Merlin; I DID let him go on being a Legend... [shrugs]

[Dio]

Sorting through my renfair junk, I found a montage shot on a 3.5 floppy -OF COURSE I didn't find most of the pictures I used to have- and I don't love that big closeup, but it's me caught in the act hand-kissing a lady.  Note that I'm looking up at her eyes, not the hand, and talking to her.  The next looks pretty good, I daresay, and I see that I can date it and the previous shot to probably October 1995 at the Carolina Renaissance Fair; the length of my hair, the knee breaches not tights, and the size of the tabard give it away.

The bottom shot would be 1999 at Hawkwood near Fort Worth, Texas.  The smaller tabard Mom made.  Tights.  The flatter sign.  My first gig as a stage act.  Two women I don't recall at all looking at them, (though they look to be participants, probably a washer wench act,) and the Fairy Godfather.  He was a bit bigger than me, looked like that, and brandished the plastic cigar you can make out badly in the shot.  He didn't have a lot in the way of jokes, just a semi-lame Italian accent, but all he had the do was show up looking like himself in a pink tutu and everyone lost it.  The man is a Legend in Texas renfairs.

-Which reminds me that this is the year that I found out a gag I'd tossed off and given away to a playtron a couple years past had gotten over in a really big way.  A fellow who went by Merlin, and you just imagined correctly the look he sported, was sitting in front of the shop I worked in eating a turkey leg, finished it down to only a little skin on the handle bone, asked "What do I do with this?"  I assume he was asking where a trashcan was, but I said "Walk about holding it aloft, declaiming in your loudest voice 'USED TURKEY LEG!  USED TURKEY LEG FOR SALE!'"

He did so and was able to sell it to a laughing patron for a quarter ten minutes later.

For some reason, the subject of Turkey Legs Are Funny came up with the Entertainment Director after I got on cast two years later, and I mentioned Merlin and the Used Turkey Leg Gag - Dave said "Oh yeah; Merlin's a legend for that."

Well, my ego runneth over, but some frustration at not being able to claim credit without undermining Merlin; I DID let him go on being a Legend... [shrugs]

BUncle again appears all fancy in his renaissance fair clothing while likely recollecting in the present about his life in that temporally distant land. Meanwhile, the last time I saw a floppy disk was at least five years ago .

[Lorizael]

I have some floppies I carry around with me for some reason, but I haven't had a method of accessing the data on them in several years...

[Buster's Uncle]

I had to wait two hours until Mom woke up this morning.  She has an external USB 3.5 floppy drive.

I transferred my drive to the last machine from the one previous, but did not bother when I upgraded to my present machine 3.5 years ago.