Where Do I Work? or, stupidity on the subway (no surprises there)

This morning on the subway I found myself standing close to a woman who may or may not have been on the train with a friend. She was talking to someone, but that someone wasn't really answering her when she spoke, so I'm not sure if they were together of if the first woman was just crazy.
Also, she was saying, "I'm trying to remember where my job is. I wrote it down in my notebook that's at home. Is it 28th or 23rd Street? I know I have to take the 2 to the 1, though, so I'm good on that."
Now, it's very likely that she was going to a temp job or a freelance job and had just gotten the call and so had forgotten. But, isn't it rather important to know one's work destination before leaving the house? And also, we were on the 5 train, not the 2. I kept expecting her to notice every time we came to a stop and the announcement said "This is a Brooklyn-bound 5 train," but she just kept wondering aloud whether she was supposed to get off at 28th or 23rd. I figured since she was willfully ignoring the announcements and her "friend" wasn't informing her that she was on the 5, which goes down the wrong side of Manhattan, it wasn't my responsibility to set her straight, either.
I just moved further down the car to avoid her.

Entering Old Ladyhood: or, kids on the subway

Well, it's finally happened. After years of bottling up my annoyance, I've finally let off the steam by screaming at a group of high school students on the subway. Those of you who know me well will not be at all surprised by this. Kids are annoying. And for some reason, kids in groups on the subway are about fifty thousand times more annoying than normal kids. I think it's because generally when there's a group of them together (especially on a morning train during the school year, like today), they're on a school-related trip of some kind. Freed from the enclosures and strictures of the school environment, they feel as if they've been let loose upon the city and they get all hyper and full of themselves and feel the need to:
-talk very fast,
-pack as many of themselves into as small a space as possible,
-scream to each other from opposite sides of this small space as if it were a football field,
-laugh hysterically at small jokes, say things like "snap," high five each other, and go "Oooooooohhhhh" when "snap" isn't good enough, all in unison,
-make fun of each other really loudly,
-try to flirt in really stupid and transparent ways, also really loudly,
-generally do everything at about thirty decibels more than it needs to be done at.

I hate them.

Well today when I got to the train platform, I could see a group of them--probably middle schoolers--about twenty strong standing where I usually stand, with a few chaperone-y people hovering around. I assiduously avoided this area of the platform while waiting for the train.

When a 5 finally came along, about ten minutes late, I was already annoyed because I was going to be late for work and because it was raining and I was soaked, and because it was morning, and so on and so forth. And then, just as the train was bearing down upon me, ANOTHER group of students showed up in the station and positioned themselves right behind me.

I couldn't run, I couldn't move to a different car. There was no time and I was running late. So I just shoved into the car as fast as possible to try to distance myself from the mob of shrieking, "snap"ing, obnoxious children. Instead of escaping them, however, I ended up merely plowed into by their solid-group formation moving into the train car at maximum velocity. Pushed forward by the group, I reached out to grab onto an overhead bar to stop the flow and brace myself because the train was so full there was literally nowhere else to go. I couldn't move in any farther--everyone had already moved in as far as they could. I had to stand my ground.

But the young bastards behind me didn't care or notice and continued to push into the car. I strained against them, pushing back with my shoulders while holding my arm as straight as possible to avoid being pushed forward onto the people sitting down in front of me. They kept pushing, kept pushing, kept pushing, all laughing maniacally, shrieking, yelling, completely ignoring the fact that they were almost knocking people down. The strain on my arm became so great that I was actually afraid it would break; it was getting painful. My one hand had been hurting all morning anyway and now the strain being put on it that it was white-hot with pain. They were soooo loud. They were CRUSHING me. I could feel the anger and annoyance of years of dealing with stupid kids on the train welling up, like in those cartoons where the person's face gets redder, like a thermometer, before finally...

I burst. I whirled around on them and screamed at the top of my lungs, "Oh MY GOD, STOP IT!!!"

Immediately the pressure building from behind me eased up. A young lady behind me looked at me with big eyes and said, "I'm sorry," then looked away. The group went silent.

I turned around, seething, and stared at my reflection in the window. I looked crazy. But the kids were quiet. I could stand up.

At the next stop, the lady who had been sitting in front of me got off the train and I sat down to examine the kids. They were still in their tight group, standing closer together than necessary now that the train was a little less packed. And they were all standing as far away from me as they could get without moving to a new spot in the car.

They stayed that way for the rest of the trip.

I have successfully entered Grumpy Old Ladyhood. It feels ok. I'm gonna go ahead and start shopping for creepy old houses with gigantic porches and yards with the potential for spooky overgrowth.

Foot guy

There is a man who rides the 5 train in the mornings who I simply cannot figure out. He is almost always in the second car from the front, sitting on one of the long blue benches in the spot nearest the center doors. His age, ethnicity, and motivation are beyond me. He appears to maybe be white, but he is pretty tan-ish, and there is something in the way he looks around that implies that he is not American by birth (this may sound silly, but the longer I'm in New York the more I find I can actually pick out the foreign people from a crowd by their mannerisms and bearing). He wears a diamond earring on the right side, and he has shoulder-length, sparse, wispy, but very well kept, straight white hair. Light eyes that move around constantly. He seems to be interested in everything going on around him; it's difficult to get a good look at the guy, actually, because he's so alert that every time a head moves in his direction he notices and turns to look. I've found myself looking him square in the eye many times. But it's difficult not to want to look at him, because here's the thing: he is always barefoot. I don't know why. Nothing about him suggests extreme poverty or homelessness--he is always clean, his feet in exceptionally good shape, not particularly dirty or gross. He wears nice enough jeans, rolled up to just below the knee, and everything jutting out from below the cuff is bare.
He is always in the same place when I get on the train, and I have never seen him get up from his seat. He usually has a black drawstring bag under his seat, and I've tried to sneak a few peeks at it to see if there are shoes in it, if maybe he just likes to be ON the subway barefoot, but puts on shoes before he disembarks? From what I've seen it doesn't seem lumpy enough to contain shoes, but then, every time I try to look at the bag, he notices me and looks up and I feel awkward and look away. Someday I'd like to go over to him and ask him why he never wears shoes, but a crowed train early in the morning just never seems the right time or place...

The kind of morning I have to write about: or, surreal as all hell...

I won't pretend to pass this off as a post that has anything to do with any kind of blog theme. Truth is, I haven't had much time for those lately, and even when I do I've been so brain dead from all my other projects that I can't come up with anything, and I've been so wrapped up in my work and thoughts that I haven't been paying much attention to what's going on around me. So the blog has been dry.

But then, this morning, some cosmic ray or something showed up in my life. When I woke up I was in the midst of a dream involving me, my older sister, my father, and some other random people being stranded on a tropical island of some sort and seeking shelter as a storm approached. We had to wade through a swamp, past a calmly dozing row of gigantic crocodiles, and when we hit land I turned around to realize that my father had been eaten by one of them while pushing my sister out of the way. The rest of us sat to discuss what to do from there, the storm suddenly hit and we all had to run for cover to avoid being hit by lightning. There was some sort of massive half-built structure that we aimed for until we realized that it had no roof, so we had to alter our course for the trees ahead as the wind whipped up around us and the rain started pelting down. Just then I woke up, but wanted desperately to go back to sleep so I could see what would happen next. It was like a movie.

I got up and ran around crazily to get ready for work, somehow not having time for breakfast, but packing a huge lunch/dinner since I have my first session of a proofreading and copy editing class tonight at City College - my first in a series leading up to a Certificate in Publishing - and I won't have any time for dinner. So anyway, I started walking to the train very fast and heard a honk from a nearby car as it goes through an intersection. I assumed the driver was warning whoever might be at the stop sign going the other way that he was coming, but as he got up closer to me he slowed down and honked again. Ugh. Annoying. Eventually he took off again and I kept walking, only to catch up to him again as he was stopped further up the street at a red light. At which point he started shouting at me out of the window. What a nice guy. My name, however, is not "Mami."

So I got to the station right on time, only to find that my train had already passed. Way to go, MTA. Early trains are just as bad for most of us as late trains, you know. Running ahead of schedule will NOT make us like you more.

Anyway, I finally boarded a 2 train and found a spot next to an old, very angry looking Spanish woman who smelled like she was wearing an adult diaper, and that diaper was probably about due for a change. At Grand Concourse/149th I switched to the 4 train, which took its sweet time coming. In the meantime, I found a spot to stand right under the broken pipe that leaks water down into the train station all day every day, and wondered how long it would be before the ceiling caved in. I glanced down the platform to see a man with a big belly standing on the wrong side of the platform, shirtless, and talking to himself.

When the train finally came, I found a spot to stand right where a guy got on at the next stop, mumbling to himself. Great. Just what I needed. Turned out, this guy was a poet who had self-published 3 books and was selling them for $5 a piece on the subway. He spouted off some of his poetry, and it was GOOD. Not Pullitzer prize winning material, but good. I'd have bought a book if I'd had a $5 bill on me, but alas. One poem I remember is:

"The Quickest Way to Get to Riker's Island:
Take the D express train
Down to 34th Street,
And throw a brick,
Through the Macy's plate glass window."

Cute, right? So anyway, I was watching him walk down the car, selling his books and spitting poetry, and noticed as he passed a gentleman sitting, fast asleep, on one of the bench seats. He had that skin condition, the name of which always eludes me, in which his pigmentation varies in big blotches all over from black to pink. His mouth and chin and the tip of his nose were pinkish white, as was the skin around one eye, while the rest of his head was deep chocolate brown. The patterns gave him the appearance of having a muzzle, or a snout. But he looked peaceful. I noticed other people on the train looking at him, and I couldn't blame them--he was asleep after all, so he had no idea we were staring, and he was a singularly interesting looking person. I wondered if he was only pretending to be asleep to avoid the stares. Or if he was so used to them that he could relax enough on the train enough to pass out.

I got to work early, somehow, after being convinced I was late the whole way from the train. When I got in, the phone immediately started ringing and it's hardly stopped since, but I was told first thing by the guy who brings the newspapers to us on the second floor that our front desk man for the building, Steve, who has been a fixture of my mornings for 2 years now, died of a heart attack when coming up out of the subway on his way home last night. He was 54.

It struck me. Wow. No retirement party. No easy golden years. This guy who kept the building running, honestly, just stopped.

For some reason, every one of the weird events of this morning has just struck me as something significant. It's made me think about all the remarkable and weird things I've seen and done in my life. How everyone has these stories. How any moment, those stories could be silenced. It makes me want to call my parents and every person I love.

And of course it makes me want to blog.

Summer morning rain in the big city...

This morning it rained. Really hard, for a long time, without letting up. I don't really mind rain, but it does a number on the city and the people in it, who all seem to freak out and assume the end is nigh, even though it rains here pretty frequently. Also, it does make my commute to and from work much more diffficult than usual for several reasons:

1) Everyone in this city with an umbrella seems to think that he or she is Hot Stuff and can weild his or her umbrella like a deadly weapon. Apparently umbrellas exempt them from any moral culpability for poking people in the eye with their weapon's spokes, running into people because they 'didn't see them,' dumping huge amounts of water onto others, and any number of other inconceivably rude things that would NOT be ok to do if umbrellas weren't present.

2) There are about 500 of these ubmrella-toting bastards on every block.

3) It's very easy to become one of these bastards.

4) When I suppress the urge to be a bastard, I tend to get very grumpy.

5) No matter what the umbrella situation, I always end up wet from the knee down at least, because cars go by and splash me, umbrellas, bags, and awnings drip on me, and the sidewalks are never, EVER, even, leading to unexpected puddles.

So, when I got to the train this morning, I was already cheesed because my sandals were filled with water, my hems were soaked, and I had been poked and annoyed by at least 2,500 umbrellas already. But I was willing to try out a good mood. I was giving it the old college try.

And then, at 125th Street, this lady got into my car, which was not particularly crowded. I was standing in the little nook and leaning on the door, minding my business and listening to my iPod. This lady, I must admit, looked a little old and a little white to be getting on the train at 125th and Lex, and I assumed at first that she was just frazzled by the rain and all the people and the fact that she wasn't in her comfortable upper west side 3 bedroom rent controlled apartment. So I tried to give her a little slack when she walked directly up to me, then pivoted to stand facing away with her back literally less than 6 inches from me.

I let it slide for a few seconds, thinking maybe she'd assumed the car was way more crowded than it was and overcompensated, but would soon move out of my personal space when she realized her mistake. But she didn't. She just stood there, her hair practically in my mouth, not seeming to notice that the other people in the car all had a good foot of personal bubble surrounding them while I had virtually none. Even though I could have breathed on the back of her weird neck.

As the train continued hurtling through the tunnels, this woman swayed back and forth with its motion, her upper body in general getting closer and closer to me. I was getting extremely uncomfortable, and she seemed oblivious to my discomfort--to my presence entirely. I cleared my throat loudly. Nothing. I moved around, shuffling and moving my arms sufficiently to be certain she could see me in her peripheral vision. No response. I allowed my dripping umbrella, which was dangling from my hand and thus will tell you how close she was to me, to touch the back of her leg so that it dripped down into her pink galosh. No movement whatsoever. When we went around a turn and her hair literally touched my face as she swayed backward, I let a "Jesus CHRIST!" slip from my mouth. I didn't yell it, but I sure said it loud enough for her to hear me and move away. But she didn't. Just stood right there, being in my way, being way too close to me, and being oblivious or willfully ignorant.

Anyone who knows me will tell you that I don't like my personal space being invaded by strangers, much less in situations where it's completely unecessary. I wanted to take my drippy umbrella and smack her, hard, in the back of the knees with it. Or scream "Get away from me you creepy bitch!" But I kept it under control. Almost. I noticed a lot of people nearby watching me intently and realized I was giving her the Level 10 Death Look. Let me tell you - this is not a look you ever want to see coming from me. It means doom is coming for YOU.

Anyway, she moved away from me - far away - at the next stop, so maybe she got the vibes of pure unadulterated hatred I was sending her way from ~4 inches behind her head.

I made it to work on time and with little more in the way of incidents, still kind of wet and annoyed, but figuring I had a pretty good "Rainy-Day-Weirdo" story to share with the coworkers.

...until two of those coworkers got of the elevator and said they'd just been in there with a woman who was wearing a WWII style, two-oxygen filters, full-on gas mask.

Ah well, you can't win them all.

A majestically moustachio'd musical evening...

Friday evening was a beautiful one; despite the daytime mugginess and rain, by 6:00 the sky had cleared and the sun was shining on a temperate, perfect evening. I walked up to the SummerStage at 69th on the East side to get in the long, long line for the free Josh Ritter show right after work. The line stretched for about 2 blocks' worth of park trails when I got there, and by the time they let us in to the venue I couldn't even see the end of it anymore, and that certainly makes sense. Josh Ritter and his rockin' band of folk music superstars were playing a show backed up by the New York Pops orchestra! For FREE! Outdoors! Even if you don't know his music, that sounds fun, right? And if you DO know his music you'll understand why the line was so long.
The concert was spectacularly fun, despite the odd aggressiveness of the fans at the front (I say odd because Josh Ritter is not exactly the aggressive type and it's strange to see people responding to wanting to see him that way instead of with unadulterated joy) and some really, really annoying girls who popped up right next to/in front of us at the beginning of the show and seemed to think that since they were holding a really nice camera, it would be fine for them to run around drunkenly and shout to each other while blocking people's views in order to get good photos. They annoyed me heartily until the music started, at which point I forgot what "annoyed" meant.
Ah, the joys of Josh Ritter. It's amazing how one man can smile so much and not hurt his face. And the orchestra! And he had a poet read his poem with the orchestra playing, and he played Thin Blue Flame with Hilary Hahn on violin, and he did a duet with some dude named Hanser that the crowd went BANANAS over, although I cannot for the life of me figure out who he is. It was magical. And of course, Zack Hickman, Josh's loyal and amazing bassist, was there as always with his 'million miles of moustache' - this guy's moustache is... well...

All in all, it was a fantastic evening.
On the way home, Connor and I stopped to get some pizza and we were so excited and food coma-ed that we got on the 4 and weren't paying attention and ended up, once again, at Yankee Stadium instead of 3rd Ave-149th St. No big deal, we thought, until we noticed that the downtown platform was completely packed, and I mean completely packed as in every inch of available space being taken up, with people in Yankees AND METS outfits.
This meant that a subway series game had just let out. This meant that no matter what we did when we got off the train, the environment outside would be complete insanity. Oh my.
Well, we decided to try a bus to get home rather than fight the crowd on the subway platform, and after about ten minutes of walking through crowds and yelling groups of fans and arguments and grand statements about the superiority of the Yankees (who apparently won because of a fluke missed catch, making the Mets fans particularly ready to get into fights), we managed to board the single most crowded bus I have ever been on. It was so tightly packed that a man pushing his way by me as I desperately held on to an overhead bar tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to my bag, and suggested I keep it closer to me because I might get robbed.
When we got going, I noticed that the... woman... sitting right in front of me was sporting a moustache. Like, a MOUSTACHE. I don't mean a bit of fuzz on her upper lip. I mean a long, thick, wiry-haired, dark, comb-able moustache. The kind that she probably wakes up in the morning and combs and then twiddles with over the course of the day. A very real, very serious moustache.
I was flabbergasted. I mean, I know plenty of women and see plenty of women around who have a bit of hair right there, some of whom decide to remove it and some don't. But this... this was the kind of thing you might see on a woman who's going through hormone therapy pre-getting-a-penis-operation. And perhaps she was in the process of becoming a man, although nothing else about her appearance suggested it.
When we got off the bus, I immediately started yelling "Wow! Wow! Oh my god, WOW! Did you SEE that thing? WHY wouldn't she SHAVE it? Or get electrolysis? Or WAX it? That's just... WOW!"
Connor laughed but pointed out that maybe, in our PC day and age, moustachio-ed women are the last frontier for civil rights. Maybe they're an under-represented sublcass of humanity that gets way too much flack for its natural tendency to grow facial hair.
Which made me pause. I WAS being awfully judgmental. Maybe she loves her moustache, and is proud to have it. And if that's the case, then by all means, grow those whiskers, lady, and more power to you! Way to fly in the face of societal norms and even biology. I salute you, and your moustache.

Great day, and Obama Info

I'll post twice today. Because today is just that awesome. And although I'm trying not to make this a blog about personal experiences so much as a sounding board for my fantastic brain, today has just been so good that I want to share it with everyone who reads this. ...whoever that may be.

1) Firstly, this morning on my way to work I managed to get on a 5 train that came: 1) as soon as I got into the station, and 2) was not excessively crowded. It was a miracle.

2) Then, when I got off that train, I walked across 58th Street toward my office. Between Madison and 5th I noticed some people uncoiling some wires and setting up lights on the sidewalk, so I knew something was being filmed. Then I saw an old-fashioned yellow cab that was obviously part of a set. Then I saw a trailor that was lit up on the inside, and a girl I didn't recognize sitting at the window looking out.

3) And then... I think I saw... NPH!!! No shit! I think I saw Neil Patrick Harris inside signing something. I'm not 100% sure it was him, because I really only saw the top part of his face, but that forehead is rather distinct. I didn't want to stand around gawking because I had to get to work and I didn't want to get kicked off the set or anything, but... yeah I think it was him. If anyone knows about him being in NYC for any reason, let me know, cause I don't want to go hang around for no reason. But if it's him... well... a picture MUST happen.

4) I just got a raise! I don't know how much it will be for just yet, because in the gallery we just go ask the Big Scary French Boss for a raise, and he just says yes or no. And then he goes and "discusses" it with the administrator, which is probably a conversation that goes: "Give ze young lady at ze recepsion desk a raise-uh, 'Elmreech." "Ok, Pierre." So I'll find out on my next few paychecks what kind of raise we're talking about. But no matter what, more money = good. And when I asked, he said, "Of course-uh, I weel gif you a raise wis pleazure. I weel talk to Mr. 'Elmreech." And he SMILED. A very good sign.

5) Because it's Veteran's Day there is a street fair right outside on 56th street, so I just got to go out for lunch and have corn on the cob, a crepe, and bubble tea for lunch! Of course this cost way more than it should have and now my hands are frozen from trying to eat a crepe outside in 45 degree weather, but it sure was more fun to watch a Veteran's Day parade during my lunch hour instead of grumbling about tourists in the park.

More story tomorrow...