Earth girls are easy

I biked to the lakefront park in my neighborhood donning bike shorts, a black and white striped bathing suit top, cropped grey jersey jacket, black flip flops and over sized large black sunglasses. My bleach blonde hair pulled back in my usual summer pony tail. I worked on a crossword in a back issue of NY Magazine for an hour or so. Closed my eyes for two seconds then decided to pack up and go. While packing up an older clean cut (in his 50's at least) gentleman crossed the street. "You look like you're having too much fun" he said approaching me. "Oh yes, I am" I replied, shoving books and pens into my bag. "Do you canoe?" he asked, looking out at the lake. Wondering where he was headed with his question I replied cautiously "Do I canoe? Well yes... I have canoed before, so I suppose I do." He told me he just bought a little canoe from someone across the street and asked if I would be interested in joining him out on the lake. I declined and said I was going to go home and paint. His name is Bob and if I ever want to canoe I am told I can knock on his door just across the street from the park. The door belonging to the two story landscaped brick house with the hose in front. Something tells me I won't be knocking on Bob's door anytime soon. As I have just landed here on earth from outer space, the fact that men (not just boys but men) approach me is new and strange. Despite my lack of practiced interaction with this strange new and confusing species I can always refer to what I have learned in movies (thank goodness for carrier waves piggy-backing on high frequencies through space.) Bob, as he is called was asking me to join him on the canoe. As he was doing so, I couldn't help but think of that scene in A Place in the Sun when George Eastman (Montgomery Clift) takes Alice (Shelley Winters) out on the canoe and she "accidentally" and conveniently falls overboard and drowns. I'm not saying that's what would have happened had I accepted his offer. But you never know. It's possible I could have just walked away with a new home and last name (though the well worn padded wallet of the human male often fails to ignite any spark in me - Rather, I tend to light up like a forest fire by the well ridden padded seat of a motorcycle. Think Natalie Wood and James Dean.) So if Ryan Gosling or one of his clones happens to ask me out on a canoe I seriously doubt I would turn him down in hopes of reenacting that scene from The Notebook. You know the one... Swans, water lilies and thunderstorms. And how! Life on earth could be fun as long as it's a little like the movies.