Off and On Kilter

[rax]

For the past week I've been feeling either a step behind or a step ahead, but generally at a fifteen degree angle to the rest of the world. I still can't place why, and it's been very concerting. But a trio of amusing interactions this morning helped make it better. I had a doctor's appointment this morning, which wasn't actually terribly helpful for the whole off-kilter bit, but I took the train there, and on the way home I got into three separate conversations about my cat hat.

First: I'm standing on the platform at Park Street, reading Make/Shift 5 (good so far!), when a girl walks up to me and says "Excuse me, did you make that hat?" I take out my headphones and say "Not this one, this was a gift, but I've made things like it in the past. Why?" She says, "Well, I have this friend who is making a hat like that, and I think she'd be really happy if I took a picture so I could let her know she's not alone." I said "Sure!" and got photographed in a cat hat. She said "She's actually making a whole costume to express her inner cat or something." I said "People do that, yeah. I've got this dress and gloves and ears combo I wear to parties sometimes." She said "Wow, she's going to be so happy!" and then basically ran away.

Second: I get onto the train and sit down. A guy walks up to me and says "Excuse me, I'm just curious, what kind of reactions do you get when you wear that hat?" I talked to him about the girl who just asked for a picture, and how I get various reactions, mostly good, including little kids pointing at me and shouting "It's a kitty!" (I think half of my largely dormant Twitter feed is "I just got this odd reaction to having a cat hat.") Apparently he and his ex-girlfriend used to have the same exact hat, but they were always afraid to wear them in public. We also talked some about how people don't have conversations with strangers enough in the US in general and on the East Coast in particular. THen he got off the train.

Third: The girl next to me turned to me and said "That's a really awesome hat." We talked some about how wearing cats ears gets different reactions from the cat hat and I suspect but don't know that it's because the hat is more viewed as a functional object. Then she said, "Also I'm glad to hear you wear a helmet when you bike, that saved my brother's life." I said "I don't know that it's ever saved my life but it's sure never harmed it." She nodded. Then she said "You should get cat ears for your bike helmet! Like, you can get them for ski helmets, I bet you could work something out." We talked about how to weatherproof cat ears on a bike helmet until I got off the train.

I feel maybe only twelve-degress off now... and like maybe I want to stay at least two or three. :) I love my cat hat.

Comments

[oonh.livejournal.com]

You have teh Cat-Hat-Fu.

I've been hovering around pi/7 radians from the rest of the world for a bit.

[rax.livejournal.com]

You would express it in radians, wouldn't you? :)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

"When did you repeat the experiment with a control head?" :-)

[rax.livejournal.com]

It seemed a little gauche to go that far. :)

[damerell.livejournal.com]

Well, you're not as grouchy as I am. I do hate these saved-my-life anecdotes, though.

[postrodent.livejournal.com]

Your bike helmet does not, repeat not, need cat ears.
[beat]
It needs to be a bike helmet which is _designed to accommodate cat ears_. Little plastic cones sticking up, protecting the delicate kitty ears within!
If all goes well, it is not outside the scope of possibility that I could make something like that, in a year or too... but wait, I'd be very nervous trusting your life to anything I made. So maybe your helmet can just get some careful aftermarket modding that doesn't disrupt the protective structure.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Well, the one I have right now has a bunch of vents in it, so it would be easy to mod, but really it's about time to retire it and pick up a new one. Personally, I think it needs protective one-sided shells with cat ears in them, but that reeks of effort.

[friode.livejournal.com]

I suspect you don't want the ears mounted on the vents, since if the ears have any rigidity to them you don't want the part of the ear on the inside of the helmet to be forced into your skull as the helmet is crushed and loses thickness.

[rathdei.livejournal.com]

Hey, is everyone in Boston that nice? Or only when you are wearing a cat hat?

The only people who talk to me when I'm walking around are people I know or bums asking me for change. I guess I'm not exactly a sensationalist or a very warm person at first glance, though.

[ab3nd.livejournal.com]

People in Boston comment on hats. My bowler draws a lot of comments, and it's not even all that unusual looking.

[badoingdoing.livejournal.com]

They comment on my (purple) hair, too.

[etotheipi.livejournal.com]

Aha! I don't know if you remember me, but I met you at a party a couple months ago, and we talked some (I'm the person who did trapeze school). I didn't get your contact info and poked around a little afterwards to see if you had an easily-findable LJ. I actually recognize your username because I've seen you comment on some of my CMU friends' stuff, but I had no idea you were you. (I really hope this doesn't make me sound too creepy...)

[badoingdoing.livejournal.com]

Huh, I am pretty sure I remember the conversation, but I don't remember what party (and I have a pretty bad memory for faces too :/ )

I know I've seen your LJ before, and seen the funny overlap between people we know -- I know a lot of CMU people from HS, and a lot of MIT people from college. When I saw that, I was pretty sure I'd met you *sometime*, but wasn't sure when. I know I've seen your (non-lj) username around before.

Hi!

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

I think it was a party at my house, on the landing outside my room, and you talked about trapeze and silks, maybe prompted by the pull-up bar on my door?

[rax.livejournal.com]

Every once in a while i realize just how surreal your icon actually is. What the hell? :)

[baniszew.livejournal.com]

My feeling on Boston people is that they're mostly pretty nice, but they can be stiffly polite and won't talk to random people because they don't want to bother them.

[plymouth.livejournal.com]

Speaking as a (former) Bostonian, I gotta say I appreciate this - most of the time I don't want to be bothered. Which is to say, most of the time when strangers interact with me I appreciate it. But that's because it happens infrequently. If it happened all the time I would get tired of it. You wanna talk to me about my hat/bag/shirt/hair/book/knitting-project? Cool. You wanna talk about the weather for the sake of making conversation? Go away - I probably disagree with you anyway.

I think I must have brought my Boston vibe with me to the bay area too. 'Cause I am told that people out here are much friendlier but I don't see it - strangers here talk to me with about the same frequency that strangers in Boston did.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I think honestly I would get tired of this if it happened every day (I got two more later in the afternoon, too). But today it was just what I needed.

I haven't spent that much time in the Bay but I got the same vibe you do --- I did talk with strangers a lot more around LA, though.

[rax.livejournal.com]

The cat hat helps a lot. I tend to wander around one or two levels of weird above normal such that I stick out (cat hat, pink glasses) but not enough that it makes me unapproachable. At least, I think that's what's going on.

[wormulus.livejournal.com]

These are such great stories.

I get all sorts of people asking me about my piercings. I don't even feel like I have that many compared to a lot of other people in NYC! Why me? I don't know. Maybe I look friendly?

I always thought you looked friendly. Maybe that's why people talk to you? Plus, I'm sure the cat hat is adorable.

[rax.livejournal.com]

Awww, thanks :) Maybe it's just that you're so awesome!

[mollishka.livejournal.com]

AWESOME

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

And people wonder why I wear my Stitch ears and Tsume hat in public.

[rax.livejournal.com]

I didn't! I just thought "One of us.... One of us...."

[kelkyag]

Icon squeee!

I get comments about my cloak occasionally when wearing it, and comments about my hair infrequently when I'm not. I never get comments about my hair when wearing the cloak ...

[blushingflower.livejournal.com]

I would argue that frequently people talk to strangers far too often on the train. Especially when the stranger is me, and I'm trying to get to work.

[rax.livejournal.com]

That's fair. :) Sometimes I'd rather not talk to anyone either, but usually if I really don't want my travel to include people, I can just bike where I am going, since Boston is small enough. It would be nice if there were chatty cars and silent cars or something.

[friode.livejournal.com]

Some Amtrak trains actually do have a quiet car, but that's Amtrak, not the subway.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Did you like the This American Life episode that talked about the Quiet Car ?

[blushingflower.livejournal.com]

I really only mind it when everything in my body language is saying "don't talk to me."
If I'm wearing headphones and reading the paper, perhaps social interaction is not welcome (one time it was on the bus, so I had sunglasses on in addition to the headphones and paper, and someone tried to talk to me).

But I didn't mind when the random waitress in IHOP asked where I got my socks (knee-high rainbow toe socks from Sock Dreams), and I'll happily give directions to people who look lost.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

This made me smile.

[lhexa.livejournal.com]

Those are very heartening stories. :)

[cyborg-kitty100.livejournal.com]

Tell me more about this cult of yours...

[rax.livejournal.com]

Well, uh, we wear cat hats. That's... about it. =^.^= Oh, and dance parties!

[cyborg-kitty100.livejournal.com]

Hurrah! Sounds like my kind of cult.


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