There are some interesting (and/or crazy) people out there on the Boston streets, though I can't really say it's specific to Boston, and in fact, it's probably not. But in any case...

First encounter of course was from about a month ago - the delirious girl who randomly talked to me on my way back from Bed Bath and Beyond with two ginormous bags of heavy stuff. She stops me, and blurts out "hey, do you have a boyfriend?" "Er, no...?" "Good! I don't either anymore. He has herpes, he cheated on me!" ::pointing at the guy in front of her, presumably her ex-boyfriend, looking all flustered::

I kinda just walked away on that one.

This morning, in broad daylight, I'm walking to the bus stop, and there's this girl on the other side of the street, looking gothic with all-black outfits and whatnot. She's completely flushed, walking funny, and screaming something the whole time she was within my visibility. It was very strange to say the least...

Then just now, on my way back from work in the dark (this is Beacon street, I figured it's not such a sketchy street), and this old lady says "Excuse me, I was just wondering if you knew..." and I thought she was going to ask me a legitimate question, so I stopped walking. Then she says "... I need to get into this temple [points at the building next to us]. Do you know how to get in or how I can talk to the priest or something?? I just... [hyperventilates] I really need to talk to someone in there... I believe in God, I have faith, and... I just really need to get in there; they're killing my son out there... there was this talk about psychiatry over at Harvard Square... [or something... I can't remember]... there were like 4000 people out on the streets who came to listen and the psych experiments they do in this country... not even in other countries! the experiments the government does to the people in THIS COUNTRY RIGHT HERE.... it's terrible, oh gosh [hyperventilates more], and they're doing it to my SON! they're killing him! you see things like this on the news and you think: this can't happen to me... but this is happening to my SON and ... [etc]." I told her: sorry, I have to go but... I hope you find someone to talk to (?!). Not sure what I can make out of this one, really...

And then I got hi'ed by a random group of men 10 minutes later. I need to stop walking alone in the dark.

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I got my Starbucks Gold card in the maaaaaiiillll! Awww it's so pretty :) And how kind, they gave me a free balance of $0.01 to start out with.

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Severe nostalgia for being at UVA/Charlottesville and being a student continues... :( I even miss the Lawn, which is really just a field of grass! Gah.