Sticks and stones may break my bones. . .

Walking the streets of New York City, you see lots of strange things, crazy people, and weird happenings. You see so many oddities that you begin to forget they aren't normal. Your entire weird-normal calibration goes totally haywire. Every now and then, though, you see something genuinely perfect - something that couldn't be better scripted in a movie - so you just have to blog about it. . .

It's a weekday morning in early August. I descend two flights of gray stairs, backpack hanging from my shoulders, and push open the heavy front door of my Upper East Side walkup. I expect the normal rush of humid, pungent air. Instead, it's fresh. It's cool and dry. I look up, expecting to see haze or clouds. Instead, a wash of blue. It's majestic.

As I do every morning, I stand in front of my building and ready my iPod for the trip to work. I plant sound-proof earbuds firmly in each ear, set my magic little jukebox to 'shuffle', and brace myself for what might come. This is usually the scariest part of my day. With whom will I share my first thirty minutes of consciousness? Will it be Jimmy Buffet, Billy Joel, or James Taylor? The regulars. Will it be Chantal Kreviazuk or Michael Bublé? My wife's music. Will it be Eminem or Jay-Z? Always an interesting start to the day.

Journey. Don't Stop Believin'. Nice.

I start walking west. I've got cool, dry air, a cobalt blue sky, and the best rock-ballad of all time telling me to keep on believin'. It's going to be one heck of a day. I'm wearing my comfortable Nike running shoes, so there's extra spring in my step. Why shouldn't there be?

I turn south, rounding the corner onto Second Avenue. As I walk alongside the highrise apartment building at the corner, with its sad, gray brick, I notice a fellow early-riser walking towards me. Late 30's, female, athletic. She's evidently walking home from the gym, in an unnecessary hurry, wearing workout clothes and a hint of flush redness in her cheeks. She talks, very animatedly, on her cell phone. Judging this book by her cover, I would say she carries more than a hint of attitude.

At this point, the world goes into slow motion. The only thing moving at regular speed is the soundtrack - still Journey, as I've only trekked two minutes from my apartment. The lady and I converge. We aren't more than ten steps from each other, still moving in slow motion. She talks fully with her hands, face, and mouth, as if the person she talks to is right in front of her. I can't hear what she says into the phone. I can't hear the cabs and buses rushing by. I can't hear anything but Journey. I certainly can't hear the flutter of pages as a book falls through the air and then - WHAM! - smacks this woman on the head. Assaulted by the complete works of Edgar Allen Poe.

Immediately, the world jolts back into normal time. It occurs to me that there is no established social protocol for when a 600-page paperback falls from the sky and hits a fellow pedestrian square in the head early on a weekday morning. I smile at the lady, thinking that she must be as amused by this as I am. Perhaps, just through eye contact, we can share a moment - the moment Edgar Allen Poe jumped out of a Manhattan apartment and landed on someone's head - probably the first time this has ever happened in the history of the world. I continue to smile and expect a smile in return, or maybe just a look that suggests, "did you see that?" This apparently is not the proper social protocol. She is not amused.

I still can't hear anything but Journey, but I can read this woman's lips as she talks into her cell phone, frozen in the exact spot where she met poetic justice.

"Oh. My. God. A book. Just. Hit. My Head."

I stop long enough to decide if I want to take the book or not. I decide to leave it. I continue walking to work. My day can get no better.