beautiful_strangers Lila Pause Case study 1) Today I went to the pizza shop and there was this guy I had never seen before. I noticed him straight away. And I thought to myself...he's the sort of guy I would smile at coyly if only I were one of those girls who come to school on Mondays and talk about all the hotties on Friday night. But I'm not that girl. - I'm too embarrased. I don't wield that sort of P.O.W.E.R. ...I am not dumb enough or divinely beautiful enough to pick up cute boys with shaggy haircuts and deep brown eyes in pizza parlours. So when I hand over the change, I make a concerted effort, to maintain no meaningful eye contact. I pretend I am my 49 year old mother picking up some takeout for the family after work; distracted. I exit the premises without hesitation. - I don't give that boy a second thought. 040810 ... uow . 040810 ... Lila Pause Case Study 2: Waiting at the bus stop after class, a girl wearing an apricot 80's-style off the shoulder top asks me what time the bus leaves. We soon strike up a conversation, discussing our various classes and once on the bus, talk some more about career aspirations, working and music. One of the first things that catches my attention is her voice. She has a very distinctive way of talking...on one hand tacky and contrived, but on the other, fantastically suave...a bit like a Las Vegas showroom. She continually offers me her bag of mixed lollies, which, while perfectly generous, strikes me as a little quirky. I take a sour worm. As we talk more, I began to find myself more and more captivated by her world. She talks about her friends and her friend's bands and I realise that she is one of those edgy, indie-type girls...the type who appear on Suicide Girls and ride their turquoise Vespa scooters to school. Somewhere out there, some poor indie-boy doubtless has it bad for this chick...only he is probably much too blase to ever lose any sleep over it. Her hair is cut into a mid-length shag bob (in keeping with one who is au current, but leaning towards the indie scene) and her face has a slightly exotic look about it...maybe it's her eyes, framed with their thick khol, or her naturally mocha-bronze complexion. Whatever it is...I start to wish I had it. I start to wish I could be more like her. An independant, artsy, gloriously-charismatic butterfly. As the bus pulls up at the station, I ask her what her name is. I'm pretty sure she says "Ch"... something, but I don't quite catch it. It's a name I've never heard before and I can't even pronounce, which is only fitting really, for such an exotic bloom of a girl. I don't ask her to repeat it however and say "it was nice to meet you" to which she replies over her shoulder "See you round Babe" And I've never called a stranger "Babe" in my entire life... but in her case, it makes perfect sense. I can just picture it now: Greeting her friends at the door of her inner city apartment on a Friday night with air kisses, "The Streets" new album and absinthe in tow... And suddenly, I feel like the child in Charles Dickens that presses his nose up against the window that glows orange, in demonstration of the burning hearth within. The warmth radiating from within can be visably seen, but never felt, outside the icy surrounds of the stranger's living room... 040810 ... Doar . 040810 ... marked . 040810 ... unhinged can i play? (marked) . 040810 ... minnesota_chris sometimes the more obnoxious you are, the more people like you. 040811 ... minnesota_chris mmm Lila you've got a starlet locked away inside you. Let her out, or at least give her a little air before she dies! 040811 ... birdmad passing glance in brief: Yesterday afternoon, half-empty bus filled with people coming home from work. Wondering if i don't have something stuck to my forehead because why else would this woman be looking at me? Tall, slender woman, early twenties dressed like something out of one of those mid-nineties Calvin Klein jeans ads that littered every magazine. cover-girl looks, well defined face, and straight, light brown hair and eyes to match. wearing a mostly disaffected expression... slightly loose white t-shrit and relaxed, but not baggy, faded blue jeans she keeps looing askance when i try to look back at her, just as i do when she looks at me. i can't figure it out I reach my stop, she keeps on heading west, and as i get up to the exit door... of all the incongrous things, what looked a lot loke a prison tattoo on her left hand from the curve between her thumb and index finger to her wrist that was something which both piqued my curiosity and tempered it as well at the same time 040811 ... pete . 070304 ... misstree no telling how it starts, most of these bus conversations. i don't think i initiate, most of the time. but all it takes is a simple comment, about the time of the bus, the weather, and soon we're launched into a light dance of tangents, sometimes predictable, sometimes fantastic. i've been told that people talk to me because i look them in the eye, i smile, i invite them. i do all these, when i can, because there is such beauty in strangers, because sharing those genuine smiles restores light to both of us, makes it easier to remember in this overcrowd that we're all individuals, makes it concievably possible to have that hippie ideal of loving everyone, at least a little, at least sometimes. the mountain of courage it takes to talk to strangers is easily crossed, if you carry with you one charm: what they think of you doesn't matter. if you think they are far more beautiful, more stylish, more anything, remember that they are just a person like you, part of the same dance, seeking other souls in the grey distance. Lila, if i were ever to see you on a bus, i hope that we would have the courage that day to smile at eachother, and talk. i think i would enjoy it very much. 070304 ... Lila thats me name thats me game 070304 ... stephshine strangers are always less beautiful than friends, than lovers, where intricacies are discovered, and nakedness is welcomed. 070304 ... gja and you? 070306 ... pete her coat bled colours, shapes, and life. her smile was confident, and her eyes held high almost daring the snow to crumble beneath her feet and send her tumbling. the air she held close around her drew me in, our eyes met, curious looks reflecting, slight smiles, and then we passed and the connection broke. i hesitated, looking back too late. 070306 ... ? are there stranger beautifuls? 070306 ... Jane "hi stranger" 070403 ... sameolme Beauty accidentally glances my way every day. 070403 ... jane in new_york_city i would fall in love at least seven thousand times a day 070404 ... phil where are you now? 070404 ... pete "we must live life like we're seen" 070405 ... jane lay lady lay (magnet) 070405 ... jane [[the above jane is an impersonator]] 070406 ... . oh .. mmmm... but that Jane... has big lips... so much more sexy ! 070407 what's it to you? who go blather from