I'm not sure if it's me being weird or everyone else being stupid.

Last week a customer at my work didn't think the portrait of the Bluenose on a dime was interesting. I told him to hold the tiny coin close to his eye, and imagine seeing the boat on real water and its sails fill of real wind and how beautiful it must have been. He just took his change and stared.

Three months ago I took a girl who had just moved here from a country far-off and across the sea, for an evening downtown. She was very pretty and I found her quite intriguing. As we were riding the Skytrain, I noticed she was more interested in looking at the seat in front of her than out the window. I asked her if she didn't think Canada was pretty. She said all she could see from here was houses. I nodded, then turned to the window and went back to looking at the mountains on the horizon.

Once a girl asked me what part of her I liked best, and I said her shoulders, the way they make her arms look too perfect to be real, like doll arms. She told me this was a weird answer and she had wanted me to say her eyes, or her smile, or her hair. I told her that lots of people have green eyes, and lots of people have perfect white smiles, and lots of people have wavy brown hair, but no one else I had met had shoulders like hers and that's why I found her so pretty. She said I was being stupid and weird on purpose. Now, whenever a girl asks me why I find her pretty, I tell her it's her eyes, or her smile, or her hair.