I don't crave the warmth of your unconditional approval.
Long subway rides are the perfect time to take some glamorous glamor shots!
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(Thanks to my clever, clever roommate for thinking this up and making us do it, even though we were all tired and whiny! See also: this Improv Everywhere stunt. I don’t know if this is where S got the idea or if the subway just suggests such activities!)
I noticed a number of St. Patrick’s Day revelers out yesterday sporting green carnations. Is it just me, or are green carnations inextricably linked with Oscar Wilde? Not, I imagine, the image these (mostly frat boy) drinkers were intending to project.
Speaking of whimsical accessories, I think I saw my soulmate on the G-train yesterday. A friend of mine gave me a little stuffed dog she got in a Happy Meal awhile ago, and I carried it in my pocket and played with it on the train (for something to fidget with, or squeeze when I got stressed) until I got sick of it. Yesterday as I was getting on at Court Square, a fellow was passing me, and I noticed him surreptitiously zipping the exact same stuffed dog up in his jacket. !
Speaking of the G-train, the MTA fare hike has gone into effect, which &*(^T*R&^#*R^QW!!!!!!!!!!! Honestly, I really do feel that if you can prove residence off one of the shittier train lines (like, for example, the G: shittiest of all possible lines), you ought to get a lower monthly fare. It only makes sense that if your train experience is consistently agonizing, endless and unpredictable, and is undoubtedly hastening your premature death due to frustration and anxiety over its unbelievable suckitude, you really ought not to have to pay the same price as someone who lives off an efficient and timely train that doesn’t just shut down entirely any time that’s not rush hour.
Dear administrators of MTA’s “Poetry in Motion” series:
I write to commend you on your selection of a stanza from Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass for your “Poetry in Motion” series, which features various poems reprinted on the overhead panels of MTA subway trains. I can think of no more appropriate bit of poesy to brighten the subway journeys of commuting New Yorkers than:
“If you, passing, meet me and desire to speak to me,
why should you not speak to me?
And why should I not speak to you?”
Clearly, this stanza is perfect for transit poetry, because what New Yorker does not wish to be more frequently addressed by strangers on the subway? In further celebration of this poem, I offer the following pastiche that more accurately reflects my unique perspective (that of a young woman who often travels by subway very late at night):
“If you, passing, find me attractive and desire to harass me endlessly,
why should you not harass me endlessly?
For what can I possibly do about it?”
Thanks again, “Poetry in Motion” – I look forward to more great selections in future!
Sincerely,
Elizabeth,
Transit customer
I had always heard that New Yorkers prefer to leave the city in the summer, and as my first summer here approached, various friends of mine (musicians, as it happens) began worrying about not getting into some festival somewhere far away for the season, which they seemed to think was like not getting a date to prom. I had assumed that this was because all the rich and fabulous “summer” elsewhere, leaving only the unwashed masses behind to melt on the pavement. But as this blistering August grinds on, I now realize that everyone’s so frantic to bail because summer drives New Yorkers (a population teetering on the brink of sanity at the best of times) completely stark, staring mad.
I love summer, and heat makes me happy, and while it’s undoubtedly relentlessly hot and sweaty here, and while the subways are certainly far from pleasant at this time of year, and while it’s impossible to make any money at all waiting tables at Lincoln Center when all the theatres are dark. . .still, with the pretty, shiny sunshine everywhere, and the pretty, floaty sundresses I am able to wear every day without so much as toting a hoodie, I am far, far happier and more even-tempered than in other seasons.
Not so everyone else. Everyone else is freaking pissed. Everyone else is sweaty and angry and spoiling for a fight. Here is the story of my day so far:
I left the apartment. I walked to the subway. The train came right as I came down the stairs, and so I ran onto it, behind a woman who glared at me for pushing in behind her even though she’d just pushed on behind someone else, and in front of a man who snorted at me for not getting out of his way as he tried to push on behind me. Every single passenger in the car was sweaty, smelly and had a huge puss on his or her face. The train started up. The train stopped. And stood there for a long time. The woman who’d glared at me earlier shouted something at me about the train being stopped. I couldn’t hear her because I had my headphones on (if it weren’t for my ipod, I don’t think I could live here), so she threw up her hands and scowled. The train finally started up again and stopped at 1st Ave. A kid held the doors open for his friends. Some MTA workers on the train yelled at him for it. He yelled back that he wasn’t going to wait in a boiling hot tunnel for 10 more minutes. They got into a full-out brawl. The train stopped again. And stood there for a long time. The brawl continued. I turned up my ipod. Everyone around me directed their anger my way. I turned it down. The train stood there. The conductor came out of the booth and everyone glared at her. She asked the MTA workers what to do, because the tunnel signals weren’t working, and they stopped screaming at the kid long enough to tell her just to go ahead anyway. Everyone glared at her harder. The train started up again and stopped at 3rd Ave, where I exited.
I tried to return some shoes at DSW. I dealt with a clerk, who wanted to kill me, and then with a manager, who wanted to kill the clerk and me, but not before torturing the crap out of both of us. The clerk felt the same way about the manager. I left them clenching their fists at each other, and I still have the shoes.
I bought a salad at Whole Foods. The cashier hated me. I bought a banana from a fruit vendor. He really, really hated me.
I walked past a homeless person, who stared pointedly at my chest and screamed (and I quote), ‘Oh, give me a fucking break!’
And now I’m indoors once again. I’m afraid to go back out. I’m not a mild and patient person – in fact, I frequently go around in a constant state of low-boiling rage – but New York at plus-90 degrees is too aggressive even for me. I don’t want to be here anymore. I want to be somewhere where people can handle sunshine, where they realize that oppressive heat is supposed to lull you, to make you mellow and placid, to knock you flat into your hammock, where you will lounge until the sun sets, too blissed out to bother with feeding yourself, much less coming to blows over trifles.
I want to go back to Southeast Asia.
