People garden here. I think it's due to government jobs everywhere. People finishing work at 4 pm and benefits encouraging them to do vague things like "better your life and the health of your family." So instead of annuals in constantly parched pots planted by a 'landscaper' (read: 30 year old man who would otherwise be unemployed), there are beds of tulips and lush indigenous fauna on every street corner. Today after it rained it was so green and smelled so good it reminded me of living in Vancouver, when I was seventeen, with my boyfriend who was in the process of dropping out of film school... ah, magic.

The rain did block my plan to walk home with groceries around dinner so I ducked into a little cafe that made something between falafel and a panini and waited out the cloud. As I was contemplating how close it tasted to middle eastern food from places with, well, middle eastern people... I thought about how long it's been since I was hit on by anyone Jewish.

A couple of months ago I went through a serious run of being constantly wooed by Israeli Jews and an assortment of North American Jewish guys who'd made various trips to the homeland. I don't have anything against Judaism, or Jewish guys, but I'm no shiksa. And, honestly, I can't relate to (a) being in the military or (b) going to live in another country based on heritage/faith. I'm actually pretty happy that my Euro-mix family emigrated and would rather be almost anywhere but where they were from. Oh, and I'm a sardonic atheist. The irony that my roommate had begged me to be a yenta for any cute, Jewish professional guys I might come across when we were living together was not lost on me as I had dude number 12 in three weeks reveal his love for Hebrew hip hop... and I began to wonder if I was sending secret signals into the world attracting something totally unintentionally.

The best was Jacob.* I met him when I was surfing through a small town. He was a telecommuter who had been living most of the week at a grungy hostel for almost two years. He offered an invitation to a local party, it was actually a pretty cool scene and I briefly thought he might understand that I had no attraction to him whatsoever and we could just enjoy the reggae and trade wave war stories. Possibly because I am stupid.

As the night progresses, he upped the ante by telling me some stories while sometimes awkwardly touching my knee and rapidly withdrawing, like a one-tap morse code signal "beep, I'm creepy, beep." The past couple of years of his life were funded by a dot com venture, complete with suspected stealing of brilliant marketing idea, during which his greatest accomplishment was programming a video game that sold moderately well among seven to nine year old girls. If I named it a Google alert will probably pop up, so let's just say it would have involved working in a lot of pink cartoon graphics and the most generic theme ever. However, the fact that this project allowed him to lead a lifestyle I envied was enough that I just shrugged and continued to drink my beer. Plus, it seemed like he got along well with the locals who ran the big waves, so there had to be something redeeming about him and I didn't want to offend anyone by leaving. I endured a few random "coming of age" travel stories popular with people whose parents bankroll round the world trips as graduation presents, and the regular discussion about why Israeli culture is so amazing for North Americans to experience. Then he brought out his A game.

"So this once I took a trip to Berkley to sell some acid," he said, looking over.

A convoluted non sequitur-filled story commenced that had nothing to do with what we had been talking about. It involved him not actually attending Berkley, but couch surfing at a house there for an indeterminate period, and something about selling and doing drugs. I realized halfway through the story that this was his big story, he was making his play. Throwing an ace down before the hand was finished dealing, confused. There was horrific, blaring techno in the background. He finished without a punch line or any kind of point to the story.

He was a man whose entire existence was anti-climax, always on the periphery of cool. I asked to go home.

*insert old testament name here.