19th ave and northern

On 19^th ave and Northern, just a mile from my two bedroom apartment, there’s a woman with faux red hair, working Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evenings. And on some of these very same days there’s a man, with a mushroom tattoo on his forearm, and an affinity for video games, thinking about her likely dyed hair. He complimented her hair – she’s glad he noticed the change. She’s nervous that they cut it too short but he thinks it looks just great. She likes his mushroom tattoo and told him. Too bad, he thinks, I’ll never ask her out. One day, he thinks. And for every future Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday evening he thinks he may just get another game.

That same day, at a Great Clips in Central Phoenix, a man with freshly cut hair pays for his 10 dollar trim. Maybe he turned for a moment when the bell above the door rings, or he could have caught her reflection in the mirror behind the checkout counter as she walks in and sits down in a chair. “Just a little off the top,” she says. And he thinks about her all the way home, and whether the fact that she slightly resembles Tom Selleck is telling about him in any way.

Way over in Mesa a woman in the express lane watches a man with 4 cartons of eggs explain to the cashier that he really needs all these eggs, he promises. He never says why, but that smile forgives it all. Prank, she thinks. She's sure, in fact. Or a party, maybe, the brunch kind? She didn't have the nerves to ask, not with the cashier watching and all. Maybe he heard her laugh? What was she buying?

It's with a sort of religious zealotry that i pour through these posts, alone in my two bedroom apartment. I'm keenly aware of the potential implications that would inevitably come if anyone searched through my browser history to find thousands of impressions on craigslist missed connections. And in all my self-produced nervousness I think, naturally, how often am i looking for me? I scan the location before anything else. 19th ave and northern, phoenix center for the arts, driving on i-17, taste of tops. All spaces that i know or have frequented. Next, the description. Latina in White, she dropped your lemon, you gave me a discount, Kari from friday night. Next 100 posts, Next 100 posts, and hundreds upon hundreds more from ann arbor and buenos aires and austin and wilmington and san francisco and seattle and phoenix. All evenly distributed - w4m, m4m, mw4w - whatever catches my eye. But it's the location that gets me most every time and drives me to edges of divine revelation or steady emotional disintegration. That just a mile from my two bedroom apartment, on 19th ave and northern, there's a man so taken by a woman with faux red hair, on tuesdays, thursdays, or perhaps sundays, that there's nothing he can do but buy his game and leave.