missed connection kay

I have this fantasy where one day I will be sitting on the subway and I will watch two cute people eye each other up, awkwardly flirt, and then one of them will walk towards the train exit, look over their shoulder and yell "Missed Conn me!" I browse Missed Connections every now and then, and a few days ago I came across one titled "Dear Mr. Iowa City." 13 e-mails later, I spoke to Kay Fine [not her real name] on the telephone. Hi Kay. Should I start by reading your posting? Sure. Dear Mr. Iowa City - w4m - 30 Date: 2007-02-16, 9:22AM EST I enjoyed talking to you this morning (brunette/F train). You seemed very pleasant and interesting, and I like eavesdroppers (no, really). I am completely noncreepy (30, librarian, Texas), and decided to post this even though now I'm going to get random emails from 41 guys with pictures of their genitals. Anyhow. If you are single, feel free to drop me a line (I usually don't mention dada, like, 8 times per casual conversation). Otherwise, take this as a random compliment from a stranger on the subway. Cheers! That's you. Yep, that's me. When you hear it now, are you happy with it? Oh no, I'm totally happy with it. Fun and random? It was fun and random. Can you describe what happened on the subway? I was on the subway with my sister and we were talking about lots of things, but it came down to when we were going to buy a house together, and where we were going to buy a house together. The topic comes up often, and we were trying to decide between Minneapolis and Iowa City. Why those two? No particular reason. Both sound nice and that's about it. Oh, and maybe when civilization ends, those two places would be pretty good. So then this guy was like, "Did I hear you talk about Iowa City?" I said, "Yeah" and he said, "Iowa City is great." And I said, "Oh really.." and then we talked about Iowa City, and he lived there for seven years, after he lived in South America, and the whole point was that I want to go there because that's where the Dada Archive is. So we talked about the Dada Archive. Though I'm not sure he knew what the Dada Archive was. But he seemed really smart. Can you describe him to me? He was tall and he had dark hair and he has a beard and he had blue eyes. What kind of beard? Long and scraggly or stubbly or.. No no, like an average beard. I'd say it was approximately...an inch long. How old do you think he was? I don't know, actually. He said he lived in Iowa City; um, I asked him if it was when he was a kid or an adult and he said, "Adult-ish", and then he said it was between the years 22 and 29. So I think he was probably at least 35 if he realized that he wasn't an adult when he was 29? That's my guess. You know how some people look like a Jim or a John - Did he look like any of those to you? Mmmm....yes, but only in comparison to what he didn't look like. So if you named a bunch of names, I could tell you that they were wrong. What about one of those names like Smith or Johnson? Did he look like one of those? No, I don't think so. He was pretty plain looking. I hate those. Plain but good looking, right? Yeah, not it a bad way. How did you leave it, at the end of the encounter? We were talking about Iowa City and then Dada, and then he said, "Well, you know, good luck." Then his subway stop came up and my sister got off too, and I was very jealous...cause he was getting in the same car as she was, but then it was too crowded and so he couldn't get on the subway, and I was happy. Did you guys talk about the Dada exhibit at MOMA? Did you see it when it was here? Oh, no we didn't talk about it, but of course I saw it. I have a large Dada tattoo, and it was showing when I went to the exhibit and somebody commented on it and said it was very nice. What's the tattoo of? It's a collage of Dada cartoons. Was this a first time post on craigslist? No....no. I met my current best friend from a post on craigslist. Oh! Can you tell me about that? I posted 5 questions, and then people replied. That's how I sort of knew I was going to get pictures of guys' genitals. It was in the "Strictly Platonic" section [of craigslist]. This missed connection, though, was not in the "Strictly platonic" section. No, definitely not. "Strictly Platonic" is ah, not platonic...nor missed. This is definitely missed. Did you get pictures of genitals this time? No no. I got 2 e-mails: one from you and one from a guy strongly in support of Iowa City. It was nice and he wasn't gross at all. Did he also ask you to meet up so he could ask you questions? No, no. You were the only one. In the post you said you were a 30-year old librarian from Texas. Did you dwell on how to describe yourself? Well I needed to explain that I was 30. I realized that he was probably at least 35, and I look very young, and I didn't want him to think I was 20-something. 30, from Texas, and also very modest. In what...? And a librarian is always a very disarming kind of profession. How did you get into being a librarian? On accident. I had graduated with a lot of degrees in things, and I dropped out of grad school to move here, and then I got a job here and got a huge promotion to be a librarian. What did you originally go to grad school for? I have a degree in evolutionary biology, and then I was going to get a degree in history and social studies of science. But then I dropped out. So you grew up in Texas? Did you enjoy it there? I love Texas. Very much. I grew up in Dallas, but I lived for eight years in Houston, which I like a lot more. Have you ever heard the quote by Edward Abbey? Edward Albee? He doesn't like Texas? He taught at the University of Houston, why doesn't he just leave.. Oh, no, sorry. Edward Abbey. He's an author and an environmentalist. Oh, well of course he doesn't like Texas then. Yeah, the quote starts, "Why pick on Texas?" and then he lists all the reasons; he calls it vulgar, cultureless, and anti-cultural, mediocre and false. Well, that's stupid. He's wrong. Will you ever move back to Texas? We were also talking about buying a house in Austin; we like Austin a lot. Why with your sister? Because I love my sister a lot and she's awesome. Why do you want to move out of the city? Would you raise kids in the city? Oh no no, I think that'd be horrible. Kids that grew up in the city are crazy, and they have crazy stories.. Or they're European. European? Oh, right right. I don't want European kids. I want kids that speak English. I don't much care for the Euro children. Haha. I grew up in Germany actually. Uh oh. Were you a brat? Yeah, pretty much. I lived in Germany for a while, and then in Venice for about 8 months. Were you in...Wiesbaden? Ah, yes, actually. The entire time. How'd you know that? Oh, really? Oh. Well...well, you're young. You wouldn't know my friend who was there. If you think you know Mr. Iowa City, feel free to e-mail me at ilovepostage@gmail.com and I'll pass the message along.