• The sixty-year-old ex-rocker-type standing on the corner of Second Avenue and Sixth Street yelling to a friend, “I’m still waiting on my check from the Italian government!”

• The sad-eyed man on his phone in a crowded Starbucks, whispering, slowly and mournfully, into a friend’s voicemail “Vanessa, do you really think… that most people in this world… don’t actually believe love is possible?”

• The preteen girl riding the subway through Brooklyn, braiding a friendship bracelet taped to a library-borrowed copy of Plato’s Symposium

• The woman who used to give out prescribed medications in tiny envelopes at night at my boarding school dorm who would always tell me what color my “aura” was that night (usually “gold” or “powder blue”)

• The man my sister and I met in a New Age store in L.A. who overheard us talking about her needing a haircut and said, “If you’re interested, I give spiritual haircuts!”

• The British Vivienne Westwood-esque shopkeeper in L.A. who I am both terrified and in awe of and who gave me one of my favorite backhanded compliments of all time: “You’ve got a sizeable arse, my dear.”

• The little British girl I met while visiting a school in East London who told me that the most special thing about her was her cat, who was white and named “Legend”

• The young woman with the quietest, tiniest baby voice I’d ever heard, whispering to a receptionist at the doctor that her last name was “Famous”

• The bartender at Theatre 80 on St. Marks' Place whose family ran a theater out of a former speakeasy, who once ran away from the family business to be a war photographer but came back when his wife said it was too dangerous, and whose father once found a million dollars when he knocked down an old wall and nearly started a gang war after he “returned it to the wrong mobster”

• The flamboyantly dressed man who rode up on a bicycle to House of Pies, and when we complimented him on his outfit, said “Thanks! I got it at Liberace’s yard sale!” then leaned in conspiratorially and said “You guys want a little pot?” and before we could respond, opened his hand to reveal a palm-sized gardening pot.

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Stuff I Did This Week: Last week, I went to the The Trevor Project’s gala and had a great time for a great cause — especially since I was one table away from the cast of Pose the whole night. (Dominique Jackson told me I looked beautiful in my dress and kissed my cheek, which left me feeling as if I’d been blessed. I missed the chance to tell James Van Der Beek how underrated Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23 was, though.)

I also got to reminisce about my episodes of Welcome to Night Vale (and traveling, and cats, and show choir) with some dear friends on Good Morning, Night Vale! And then had the good fortune to be on a live episode of The Bechdel Cast, which will be out later this week! What a fun show, and what an amazing audience we had! And Jamie and Caitlin are just brilliant.

Fake BBC Show Title of the Week: You’ve Got a Sizeable Arse, My Dear