Conversations with women that have restored my faith in some small amount of goodness in the world

What else do we have but the gals.

Eyeglasses store near Rockefeller Center:

STRANGER (Posh accent, long thick black hair): Can - Sorry. Can I ask you what you think of these?

ME: Oh sure of course! They’re nice! Good.

[SWITCHES PAIRS]

STRANGER: And these are a little unexpected.

ME: Oh!

STRANGER: No! Uh oh. Your face!

ME: No no - I think the tortoiseshell, it’s a bit distracting?

STRANGER: You don’t think the first ones make me look too young?

ME: I think they’re very flattering. I like the color with your hair and your face shape.

STRANGER: What shape is my face? I never know.

ME: Oval? I think oval? I think the rule is you’re not supposed to wear the same shape as your face.

STRANGER: Right. That’s what the magazines all said to us.

ME: It’s the law!

STRANGER: Ha!

ME: I always get a variation on the same thing. I’m between these and the same ones in green.

STRANGER: Let me see the green.

[I PUT THEM ON]

STRANGER: They’re…cool!

ME: But I’m not. I think just the brown ones.

STRANGER [BACK TO HER MIRROR]: I just don’t think these round ones are “boss bitch.”

ME: Is that what you need to be?

STRANGER: It’s what I am.

ME: Wow.

---

School in New England. The teacher and I are fumbling with the projector before 50 students file in. We cannot, for the fucking life of us, make the school’s Chromebook make this goddamn PowerPoint version of the children’s book fill the screen. We have unplugged the HDMI cable and plugged it back in again. We are two educated women of letters who are failing completely to make technology work, and we are on the verge of giving up.

TEACHER: I’m so sorry. I don’t know why it isn’t just…working like usual.

ME: I know. It’s ok. We don’t even really need it.

TEACHER: But the kids won’t be able to see if they’re not in front of you. What about the kids on the sides? Oh gosh I’m so sorry.

ME: I’ll just be very animated! I could kind of pivot around between each page and show it!

TEACHER: Or! I could hold a copy on one side! Wait a minute -

[SHE RUNS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, DOWN THE HALL, AND LESS THAN 20 SECONDS LATER JOGS BACK IN ACCOMPANIED BY ANOTHER TEACHER]

TEACHER [BREATHLESS]: Ok. Jen will hold a copy on the left [JEN NODS], I’ll go on the right, and you go in the middle. We’ll turn the pages in tandem while you read.

JEN: We got this.

ME: Holy shit.