This delightful bit of graffiti was on the wall of the L platform at 1st Street:
It’s funny that I didn’t, you know, notice that the Unicef logo on the truck was obscured by the overhead lighting, but I don’t get paid to pay attention, yo.
These are the sorts of things we do on weekends to amuse ourselves:
Zig.
Zig zag.
Zig zag ZOOM!
Kamran’s flailing arms aside, my favourite part of the video is the beginning where I have to tell that woman she can walk in front of the camera. I swear New Yorkers are only polite when they’re being filmed.
Also, I should mention that this is from months ago, just in case you get freaked out by my short hair and the fact that we’re wearing coats in the midst of summer. Because I know our every move affects your emotional health.
I got to Grand Central a little late yesterday morning, and there were a few too many people crowded on the platform. I took my place behind them and pulled a magazine out of my bag to take my mind off the heat and, you know, my loathing of all New Yorkers, when this girl not much older than I am walked right up and crammed herself and her giant duffel bag into a space in front of me that should’ve fit no more than a quarter of her. I let it go for a moment, not wanting to break a sweat, but when the train pulled up, I realized I wasn’t going to get a spot if I didn’t act fast. So I took one step to the side and one step forward and then outright pushed the girl back to make room for myself. She let out a huge scoff, I half-turned my head and smiled in victory, and she moved to a different line of people to try her luck there.
Later at work, I called a deli to order food for a training class that was taking place in the office and asked, “Can you have it here no later than 11:45? I won’t be available to sign for it after that.” The woman assured me it was no problem, and I got a call from the deliveryman that I should come to the lobby and sign for it at 11:44. Pleased that they were true to their word, I imagined myself thanking the guy for his promptness and giving him an outrageously large tip. But when I got downstairs to the lobby, there was no one there. And I realized that the guy had called me a few minutes ahead of time, figuring it’d take me a while to get downstairs, NOT REALIZING THAT I HAD A LUNCH DATE 80-SOME BLOCKS UPTOWN AND NEEDED TO ACTUALLY LEAVE ON TIME. So when he arrived, I didn’t smile politely, I didn’t thank him, and I slashed that tip to a shell of its former self.
Then yesterday evening, I was walking toward the exit of CVS when this very large woman stepped right out in front of me from a side aisle. She was wearing a huge orange tunic that screamed, “I am fat! Pay attention to me!” I sped up a step to pass her, but she cut me off and then walked as slooooooooooooowly as possible down the aisle, listening to her iPod and pretending not to notice that I was patiently waiting for her to git goin’. Finally, she stopped and turned to look at something on one of the shelves, and I took my opportunity to rush past her, being careful to brush against her bag and sort of push it off her shoulder. She said, “Jesus!”, but I kept on walking in my seersucker dress, swinging my white leather clutch and generally feeling superior.
But then I left the store and thought, Maybe these people don’t see me as the Robin Hood of Rudeness that I am. Maybe they don’t understand that I’m robbing from the rude-rich and giving to the rude-poor. (Namely myself.) Maybe they think I’m just being plain obnoxious like I think they are. Maybe they’re trying to teach me a lesson.
But surely not, right?
When I got down to the 4/5/6 train platform at Grand Central this morning, there was a glob of about twice as many people as usual waiting. I stayed in the back of the crowd, because I believe in things like letting the people who were there first get on the train first. When it arrived, I let the glob shove their way in and then took my position at the edge of the platform, primed to get in first when the next train came. Only when it did, this squat white lady in a blouse bought too big to fit over her old lady boobs tried to pummel her way in front of me, but oh no, I gave her a hard elbow jab to the neck and took up as much space as I could inside the car just to spite her.
So I was reading my New York magazine and holding onto the metal bar above my head in order to keep my armpits aired out when the train stopped at Wall Street and lingered a little too long there. The doors closed a minute later, but we still didn’t move, so I took a seat and relaxed with an article about a Jewish woman from my neighborhood who rejected her faith and had her baby stolen from her by her zealot husband. (Exciting!) Another minute later, the air conditioning suddenly went off. Now, the air conditioning goes off all the time, but that’s just for a second while it resets itself, and you almost welcome it going off for that second because it feels so good coming back on.
This time, though, the air stayed off, and the car became eerily silent. The conductor came on over the loudspeaker and told us that the next station had a smoke problem and that the air conditioning needed to be off so that our train wouldn’t vent it in. We sat pretending to be cool about the whole thing for a while despite the fact that it would’ve been nice of them to, you know, at least open the doors while we were stuck there, but then a woman across from me started going on about how ridiculous it was, how “someone should call 911,” because they were trying to “incinerate” us. The temperature went from slightly too warm to nearly unbearable, and we all looked at each other scornfully, thinking, This is all YOUR fault.
And then someone farted.
Which made getting off at the next station and having to cough through a corridor of dirty smoke feel like quite a nice change, actually.
I feel like a different and better person when I have reading material in public, especially hardcover books. Back when I worked for Barnes & Noble and had all the hardcovers I could ever need and want at my disposal, I ripped through everything the day it was released, wanting to look all-knowing in front of customers. “Oh, the new Junot Diaz? I mean, it’s interesting, but I don’t get the hype,” I’d say as I led them instead to the Miranda July collection of short stories. “No, no, don’t get that Augusten Burroughs,” I’d command, adding, “You really need to read Running with Scissors
I’ve been making due with library books for months now, but it’s not the same. I know that people see the little Dewey Decimal number on the spine and think less of me; the New York Public Library, after all, is only for doctoral candidate research and minorities who want to look at porn but can’t afford to have the Internet in their own homes (unlike the Columbus Metropolitan Library, where I used to work in Ohio, which provides what its users want and not what looks most pretentious on paper and is a beacon for the community, so ha). So thank god for my extremely generous co-worker Adam, who without any urging on my part, purchased the new David Sedaris book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames
Now when I’m on the train, I feel people looking at me differently. Not only are they thinking, Look at that girl with her expensive hardcover,” they’re also thinking, Oh, David Sedaris has a new book? My, aren’t I behind the times. The only problem is that I find myself reading this book sooooo slowly, just to make it last longer. I read the same paragraphs over and over to really suck all the worth out of them and take every chance to close the book after only reading a page or two. My subway stop is five stations away, so I’d better just, uh, put this back in my bag and, uh, concentrate on where I’m going, I’ll tell myself.
I’ve been wondering what I’ll do when the pages inevitably run out. Sure, I can reread it a couple of times without anyone noticing, but then what? Submit to paperbacks just to be able to hide them inside the Sedaris? Take to stealing dust jackets of even newer, more expensive books to slap on $5.98 copies of leftover bargain bin chick lit? Actually reading my copy of the 688-page I Am Charlotte Simmons
LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING IF I CAN’T HOLD A BOOK FACE-OUT AGAINST MY CHEST FAUX-ABSENTMINDEDLY AND ALLOW PEOPLE TO ADMIRE ME.
Last summer, I made a bet with myself that every single time I waited for the subway, I’d see a rat running along the tracks. And wouldn’t you know it–every time I had more than a moment’s wait, I’d spot one, and more than a few times, I saw two chasing each other. I guess it got to be too normal an occurrence after a while, because I rarely think to do it anymore. But yesterday morning, I didn’t have to.
I’ve been reading magazines on the subway a lot lately, finding that it relaxes me to the point that I’m not bothered by things like the seated person in front of me kicking my feet repeatedly while I stand crushed between two unshowered men, gripping the slimy metal bar above my head. I like to get on the last car of the downtown 4/5 train in the morning, get off still reading, and keep on reading while I leisurely walk to the staircase that exits the station, mostly because it really seems to piss off all the people who’re in a major hurry.
Yesterday when the doors to the car opened at Bowling Green, I stepped out holding my magazine and then almost dropped it a second later when A RAT up and RAN ACROSS THE PLATFORM right in FRONT OF ME. Some people gasped. Some people broke the no-talking-in-the-morning-on-the-subway rule and murmured to themselves. Everyone turned and watched it bound to the end of the platform. One man–out of place amongst the business suits and briefcases in a t-shirt and a backpack–pointed his finger and lifted his thumb to make a gun shape and pretended to shoot the thing until it jumped onto the tracks and disappeared.
Ahhhhh, Friday the 13th.
I was riding into Manhattan from my apartment in Brooklyn one Saturday night at 10 p.m. not too long ago when a little Latina lady with frizzy red hair, a tiny brown tee, and 80s jeans stepped into my car and planted herself in the doorway, one foot in the train and one foot on the platform. The doors tried to close several times, but she kept pushing them open and yelling something back to some unseen person in the station. Finally, a very tall, very well-dressed, very clean-cut young black man said in a friendly, familiar tone, “Mami, please decide if you’re in or out. I have to get to work.” Without a moment’s hesitation, the woman shouted back, “FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU! YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY?! I’M RIGHT HERE! I’M RIGHT HERE! SAY IT!”
At that moment, her son ran into the car with a scooter, which he must have had problems getting through the turnstile. The man kept his friendly tone and told her that he was just trying to keep things moving for everyone else, but the woman screamed over him, “WHAT’S YOUR POINT?! WHAT’S YOUR POINT?! I’M RIGHT HERE! IT’S A FREE COUNTRY!” The man kept on talking in a level tone, but I couldn’t hear him, because the woman kept shouting, “MY OTHER SON WILL FUCK YOU UP! MY OTHER SON WILL FUCK YOU UP! GET OFF AT 103RD STREET WITH ME! MY SON IS LOUIE, AND HE WILL TEAR YOUR ASS UP!”
The man was talking quietly, but he was evidently getting into the spirit and egging the woman on, because she got even angrier and yelled, “YOU CAN SUCK MY PUSSY!” At this point, I naturally had to uncontrollably laugh out loud and say, “Oh, my god!”, which prompted the entire train to turn and look at me. Except for the woman, of course, who screamed, “GET OFF AT 103RD STREET WITH ME, MY NIGGA! 103RD AND LEX, MY NIGGA!” Her young son finally got embarrassed by the display and patted her stomach, saying, “Mooo-ooom. Stop it.” The woman advanced on the black guy and said, “YOU EXPECT ME TO LEAVE MY 9-YEAR-OLD SON BEHIND?! MY OTHER SON LOUIE IS YOUR AGE! HE’S AS TALL AS YOU! HE WILL FUCK YOU UP!” Her son grabbed her arm to hold her back and half-smiled at how ridiculous she was acting.
A random white guy seated between the two of them suddenly clapped his hands several times very loudly and said, “You must calm down!” The woman yelled, “HE STARTED IT! I WAS JUST DEFENDING MYSELF!” The white guy said, “I know, I know,” trying to appease her, but she couldn’t seem to lower her voice. People throughout the train were laughing at her, and the black man had stopped talking back to her, but she continued shouting, repeating phrases that didn’t make sense in context. We were all looking at each other like, “This woman is insane.”
The train stopped at Grand Central, and as a bunch of us filed out of the car–the air filled with the sort of shared feeling of relief that all survivors must feel–the black man turned to us, smiled, and said, “Sorry about that, everyone.” And then he continued on his way to work.
YES!
No, seriously, I swear that I actually find this sexy:
This morning, the 4 train pulled up at Union Square, and those of us waiting on the platform made a little line on each side of the door closest to us to let passengers off first. When there are too many people wanting to get on, the line tends to clump up with overeager late-to-workers trying to weasel their way to the front, but this morning, there were only a few of us and therefore plenty of room to spread out. As I stood watching people file off, I felt something land against the back of my head and then move its way up to my crown (no, not my princess crown). At first, I thought that one of my friends might have spotted me and come to tousle my hair, but then I realised that anyone who knows me knows not to touch me in the morning, so I turned around with a scowl and saw that the guy behind me was holding one of those giant black Penguin volumes of the collected works of some supposedly-great author thisclose to my face. I realised that he had totally scraped the back of my head and then gone back to reading as if it was nothing.
My initial response was an incredulous “what the fuck!”, which I immediately felt guilty for, ’cause I wanted to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, and you can’t just go around what-the-fucking everyone who gives you a bump in a city so crowded. But then I saw that he was wearing headphones and
a) hadn’t heard me because of them, or
b) was using them as an excuse to pretend he hadn’t heard me.
He was too tall for me to see his eyes over his book to be sure, but given five more seconds to think about it, I would’ve without question and without pause
a) slapped the book out of his hand and onto the ground, hopefully bending some of the pages in the process,
b) yanked one of the earbuds from his head and what-the-fucked the hell out of his eardrum, or
c) tapped him gently on the arm to get him to lower the book and then PUNCHED HIM IN THE GUT.
But as the girl in front of me was entering the train, I felt the pressure to get on before the doors closed and decided to just let it go. Which is, you know, the mature thing to do. But I made sure to get on real slow-like to piss him off a little, because I’m not actually mature at all. I breathed deeply and tried to forget about him as I grabbed the pole in the middle of the train, but then he followed me to the pole, wrapped one arm entirely around it, leaned his body entirely against it, and smashed my hand entirely to the metal in a mass of wool coat and bag strap and bony twentysomething torso. He was one of these really perfect European-looking young guys with the hair so black it gleamed and the nose so sharp it could be used as a shiv in a pinch during a prison brawl, and I felt very aware of being short-haired and Chuck-Taylor-wearing and not at all the kind of girl he’d pay attention to. And to make matters worse, when he’d consumed the pole with his armpit, he’d done it with his back to me, so I was for all intents and purposes completely invisible to him.
I thought about stepping on his clunky black boots or tearing his armskin with my fingernails, but I figured that’d be too obvious. I wished that today had been one of the days when I was carrying a huge structured shoulder bag so I could turn around, take a step backward, and thrust the bottom corner so far into him that his spine would touch his ribs. And then turn back around and say, “OMG, I am so sorry,” in an obviously unsorry way. But since my mama didn’t raise me that way, I merely reasoned that assholes turn out assholes for a reason and that I no doubt lead a much happier life than he does. But I’m really hoping that he turned out an asshole because of some past anal rape. Ta!
