Watching

This afternoon, I was waiting for my wife while she did some quick shopping at a local store for a birthday card.  Cards are a funny thing -- we really do like getting them (especially when they have money inside, which happens too rarely).  Even though we know its part of the Great American Schlok Industry (proud sponsors of Valentines Day, Mother's Day, Fathers Day, Fourth Cousin Twice Removed Day...), we like it, and so still do it.  Or more accurately my wife does it.

But it was okay, because I had just been to the bookstore, where I bought a copy of The Rook (greater love hath no person for a book than that they got it from the library, months ago, read it, and so now know the plot and most of the surprises -  and still bought a copy when the opportunity presented itself.  I mean, this is an awesome book.)  Plus I'd picked up a copy of Ready Player One, which is slotted as Young Adult fiction, but I like it.  And I was drinking a Frappaccino, which is also good.  (I just found out how to make a decent Egg Cream with that Soda Stream we bought.  Happy about it. Not willing to buy an espresso maker, just so I can do the Frap thing, though. )

But what I found myself doing, though, in between spurts of reading, was watching people as they went into or out of the store.  Sometimes it was just gee, I wonder why that guy has a blue something wrapped around his arm, or yeah, you look at that kid and at the woman he's with, and you can see where most of his DNA came from. But every so often I'd find myself watching an attractive woman walking into the store, or one coming out, and I found myself wondering again why we find the physical characteristics attractive that we do.  Why are long legs considered attractive?  Are they graceful?  Does it suggest that in moment of starvation, the owner can reach more of the fruit in the tree?  Why is breast size a virtual guarantee of male attention? Why do some people love small breasts, while others fixate on large ones?  How come guys are attracted by swaying hips? Is there a relationship between this and childbirth potential, or do we just like the motion, the way that we're fascinated by cascading waves? Is there a neural rhythm being invoked here?  I've speculated on this kind of thing  before, and found that I'm apparently weird, either because I wonder about them, or because, having wondered, I have a theory about some of it. Which I won't go into again. And what are the male attractiveness characteristics?  No idea there, other than being pretty sure I never had any to speak of.  Which is okay with me, as things go.

After a while, I went back to Ready Player One.  Which, by the way, ten pages in, is not bad.