Lately I’ve been having trouble seeing farther into the future than the next two or three days. Every time I think about the future a thick fog actually comes and sits on my forehead — right over my eyes.

It’s a struggle to find the right words to explain exactly how this moment in my life feels. So much has been going on. I’ve officially moved out of my parent’s house and signed a one-year lease for an apartment on the Upper West side of Manhattan. My temporary job has been slowly turning into something more long-term. I’ve started to slowly, but surely assemble a social group of other precocious, disoriented recent-grads. Together we work long hours at low-paying jobs and then at night we drink and dance until everything seems OK.

New Yorkers seem so confident during the work-week. They rush to their jobs looking sharp and acting important. On weekends, however, and after a few drinks, we’re all equal. Confused, scared, ambitious… blah, blah, blah.

But funny little things keep happening to me that keep me laughing and make it all worthwhile. Those who know me and have spent an extended amount of time with me know about my gravitational weirdness pull. I am a weird event magnet. I’ve always been. I never really thought about it until I went to college where my new friends broke the news to me that the things that happen to me do not happen to normal people.

Skeptical?

I have been pooped on by birds three times in my life. The first time by a seagull in the middle of my high school’s parking lot as I was walking to the school bus. (I sat alone). The second time I was sitting on a blanket on the beach when a big mushy gift from above landed smack in the middle of my forehead. And the third time I was walking through Manhattan eating Pinkberry when God spoke to me in the form of gray, runny crap among my frozen yogurt.

I’ve had chicken pox twice.

Once, in college I was followed home by a paraplegic homeless man in a wheel chair. I practically ran the whole way with him speeding after me until he caught up to me and asked me to put some sort of tube back in his mouth for him. I bathed in Purell when I got home.

I walked by a young boy sitting in the front of a cart in K-Mart a few days ago and he leaned over a hit me as hard as he could in the shoulder when I passed. Then his mom glared at me.

A few years ago I was walking through Central Park with my brother and his girlfriend. Per usual I wasn’t really looking where I was going while I was talking to them. I didn’t notice that I was about to walk headlong into an extremely large man who was walking towards us. Instead of moving out of the way he stopped walking and opened his arms. I walked right into his stomach and he wrapped his arms around me and gave me a bear hug. My brother was confused that no greetings were exchanged. “Do you know him?” he asked. “Nope,” I told him, “not at all.”

A homeless man drooled on me on the subway. He had no teeth and just let his saliva rain down upon my sandals.

In the cereal aisle at P&C a man once approached me and asked me what I thought a good name for a three-legged cat was. I said I didn’t know. Then he asked me, “what about tripod?”. “Sounds good,” I replied. Then he walked away.

I could go on and on, as I’m sure many of my friends could. But I guess what I’m getting at is almost all of these events have happened to me in NYC.

Gravity is stronger here I think.