Are we crazy or are we dancing?

As you walk the streets of New York City you will see and hear a variety of sights and sounds. More often than not you will see people singing, dancing, talking to themselves, and an assortment of other things that seen anywhere else would make a "normal" person think they were watching crazies. I have found in my four years of living here that just because someone belts out Whitney Houston in a Target or dances along to their Ipod while walking down the street does not make them "crazy." It just means they are about to audition for Alvin Ailey's biggest show...in their head.

I know that there a good amount of legitimate dancers, actors, singers living in NYC. I don't think they often practice while walking down the street, but in the end you really just never know. I saw this guy dancing all by himself while walking down my street, my first reaction was...he is batshit crazy, but then I looked at him and he looked like a normal young man. This does not mean that he's not crazy, but upon further inspection I decided that he was probably just rehearsing something or coming up with new dance moves for a special performance of some sort. Why people find the need to do this in public is beyond me, but I am not one to judge (okay I am and I did).

I think dancing is one thing, but when people belt it out when they are walking down the street is something I will never understand. Do they know people can hear them? Do they know they're not in a subway with guitar and no one will give them a quarter? Are they aware that they are a really bad singer? So many questions and so many seemingly crazy people to ask. I saw this perfectly normal young woman walking down the street busting out Leona Lewis...She did not look crazy, but that is crazy lady behavior if you ask me.

When you live in New York you constantly ask yourself if you are going crazy. The stress, the people, the nutjobs surrounding you, it can really make you question your own sanity. However the second I see a man in Target singing Whitney Houston at the top of his lungs as he wanders through the aisles allows me to remember that I have not yet reached that point.

Animals as snacks...

So after a long night of little sleep and lots of editing I was leaving my boss' apartment after an early morning hard drive drop off. She lives on the Lower East Side and although most of the drugs might be gone, the crazies are still abundant. However, sometimes the crazies wear sheeps clothing and you just can't tell from the exterior how crazy they really are. Well talk to them for five minutes and you will soon find out.

So as I was be-bopping down the street and I saw this little older lady with three dogs (all off leashes mind you, illegal in NYC. This should've been my first clue). Well two of the dogs were beautiful golden mixes of some sort and since I dream of dogs all the time I sometimes like to be creepy and ask people what breed their dogs are. So I asked, "What kind of dogs are those?" She pleasantly replied, "Retriever lab mixes." So, I countered with "What a great mix, beautiful and good temperaments."

Then out of no where the sky got dark, the dogs turned rabid, and the lady's eyes turned bright red. Okay, that didn't happen, but it might as well have because I would've been less scared if it had. Before I even knew what was going on the woman goes into this tirade about how if you love animals you don't eat them...cows, chickens, dogs, cats, birds, all of them. I can't even reply before she decides to educate me on the fact that humans were not evolutionarily designed to consume meat and not only meat, but eggs. ice cream, yogurt, all types of dairy. Then she says with indignation (towards apparently me and every other meat eater out there) that humans are herbivores and by not practicing that we are killing the environment!

Well I need to add a few side notes.

1. Homo Sapiens (or humans as we know them today) have been eating meat for at least 1.5 million years since the first humanoid type hunters the Homo Habilis. So, I think it's safe to say our bodies have evolved enough to digest meat.

2. As my super smart sister pointed out, if we weren't evolved enough to consume meat we wouldn't have canine teeth or incisors.

3. In New York, or any walking city for that matter, once you start a conversation with someone on the street walking next to you the only way to end it is to turn on a cross street or awkwardly speed up. So once you start...you're screwed until the block ends.

Side notes added, after she continues on her diatribe I just sit there not really knowing what to say (especially since I never admitted I ate meat anyway), so I just smiled and nodded thinking the corner couldn't get here fast enough. She even pulls out freaking PETA paperwork to hand to me before I quickly crossed the street and took a nice deep breath of McDonalds hamburger smell.

I learned a couple things from this experience. Don't start conversations in the middle of the block because there is not an un-awkward way to get out of them. I really like most meats and dairy products and I will continue eating them all I please. And finally...don't talk to anyone! Because even people who look normal could in fact be very crazy