I’ve had the nicest (and funniest) experience with strangers the last two days. Last night when I got to the 24th and Mission Bart station from SFO, I stopped at my favorite burrito place to eat and went outside to stand near the bus stop to have a cigarette before I hailed a cab home. As soon as I had my cigarette lit, someone came up to me and offered me a ride home. I saw him before I went in to eat, and he looked and seemed friendly and I didn’t get any creepy vibes at all, so I said yes. He ended up being as friendly as I suspected he might be — we talked about work and where we lived and riding motorcycles on Skyline. As we got closer to home, I was worried he’d ask for my number, but he didn’t — just gave me the name of the place he worked at in case I ever wanted to stop by.

This morning, I was sitting on the bench in front of Hahn’s Hibachi on Castro (around the corner from my shuttle stop because I didn’t want to be smoking in front of my colleagues), and I had a bunk book of matches from the Hard Rock Hotel in Vegas and couldn’t get the damn thing lit. Every time I’d strike a match, it’d flare up, then immediately die. As I’m struggling with the matches, this guy comes up to me and offers to help light it and takes the book of matches from me. I told him thanks, but the matches were bunk, so he takes four at a time, fails in lighting them, then acquiesces that I was right. I ask if he’s got a lighter by chance and he says no, but wait — I’m going to get that lit for you (though you shouldn’t be smoking those anyway) and takes off. I thought he’d gone away so I snuck into the doorway of Hahn’s Hibachi and again, try the matches, but then he returns with a lighter and lights my smoke. I think he went to Walgreens two doors down to buy a lighter to light my cigarette. So I thank him profusely and he walks away again. Then I’m sitting on the bench, holding a bunch of used matches in my fingers (cause god forbid I litter), reading my book, enjoying my smoke, and he walks by again and grabs the burnt out matches out of my hand as he passes to toss them out! I thanked him again.

I love that movie, Pay It Forward because it’s touching and beautiful and because I think it would actually work. Because random acts of kindness engender other random acts of kindness. After that guy lit my cigarette this morning, I picked up some trash lying in a flower pot I was sitting next to. Perhaps it doesn’t seem kind, but I don’t know if I would’ve noticed the paper sack wrapped beer can or would have thought to throw it away if it hadn’t been for that stranger. And I’ve been thinking about these two things that happened to me recently because I consider myself a kind person, but how often do I go out of my way to do something nice for someone I don’t know — not often at all. But I’m rethinking that.

Since we’re on the topic of strangers…I had funny thing happen to me tonight as I was leaving my gym. It was just about 11pm and I saw this attractive couple out in front of the Four Seasons Hotel next to the gym and there’s a guy walking down the sidewalk asking the man if the woman is with him. He responds, yes, and the guy says, You guys are an attractive couple — you look good together, and as I reach him on the sidewalk he turns to me and says, Do you know where you’d look good? No, where? In my bed. And I start laughing! Not in a cruel, mocking kind of way (cause that’s mean), but in a genuinely amused kind of way (because I am). And he says, in the lingerie I’d have picked out for you, you’d look scrumptious, man! Scrumptious! Fresh peals of laughter, and a thank you. That made my night :)

i did all my christmas shopping this weekend. a couple hours yesterday, a few more hours today. lightning fast. loads of dollars poorer. i have a ritual of dining alone in the nordstrom cafe, reading (and i’ve been reading feverishly again since i’ve moved out!) whenever i can — coffee, tomato basil soup and the salmon nicoise salad. and while i was enjoying my fine coffee, an older woman sat a couple of seats away from me and i heard her on the phone talking about gifts and how she got someone this “very blingy bling” piece of clothing. i’d guess she was in her 50s. i gathered she was a grandmother from her conversation. a well kept, up to date grandmother. i thought to myself, wow, i wouldn’t even utter the phrase “blingy bling”. how much cooler is she than me?