man in the subway
It is a good thing I am more or less anonymous because no one I know would believe me when I say that I love twitter. Let’s set some ground rules: there are inane tweets and spam tweets and creep tweets. But there are moments when it is a social support system. A few days ago, a mother with a young child tweet that she was feeling as if she had nothing left to give her child — she was worn out and out of patience. I tweeted her to give her support and tell her that every parent reaches that point many times in the first few years and it gets better. I also told her that people who make it look easy are lying. Others tweeted their support. Real time support for a true (and virtual) stranger who was overwhelmed and needed a reality check.
She tweeted her thanks. That a few words from me helped a stranger made my day. And I am grateful.
Ah, sweet tweets.
Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. Every time I watch a reality TV show, I last through the first 3 minutes. My tastes are not mainstream (but they are not crazy weird either). Every time I pick a check-out line, it is the line on which a person doesn’t have a credit/debit card and wants change of $100 bill for a 89 cent purchase. So, what was I thinking when I was looking on Amazon for DVDs to purchase? I was looking for indie films — not ones that made the big screen because I am trying to support living artists. I went by customer reviews. Based on the reviews, one would think the ones I bought were cinematic experiences of a lifetime. My partner and I settled in to watch one of the movies and we were sucked in, not by the plot line but, by the low quality of the writing, the acting and the cinematography. It was a cinematic car crash — we couldn’t look but we couldn’t look away.
Ok, I learned my lesson this time. But next time . . . .
Tonight, on the train, there is an older man with great posture and bearing with dreds piled on top of his head wrapped in a turban the color of ivory with a hint of pink. The turban is high like a Cat in the Hat hat. My first thought was “penis head”. Remember, I’m a lesbian and my heterosexual man-woman sex days were decades ago. So, believe me when I say that it looks like a penis because that is not the first thing that might pop into my mind unless compelled from my memory cells deep in the recesses of my brain.
I decide not to share this with elegant-man-but-for-the-penis-on-his-head.
My sister — who is a frequent contributor of ideas for my blog — sent me this announcement from New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. This was one of our mom’s favorite causes.
Let’s do something about the gun violence in our city and our country.
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Do people who don’t wear deodorant know that they smell bad at the end of the day? A man was standing over me holding on the handbar on the subway this evening. I had to move but I was too tired to ask him about it. My mother would have asked. Once she moved her seat on the bus so that she could be next to a stranger to whom she turned and asked, “you’re such a handsome man, why do you pick your nose in public?” Now, that was a spunky (and fearless) lady.
A colleague walked down the hall with a Costco size bottle of orange listerine. Time for the afternoon gargle in men’s room. (Of course, that is better than a colleague who brushed his teeth in the convenience kitchen until I suggested ever so gently that it was gross.)
There aren’t many people at work, after all of the layoffs and attrition, so this was an exciting event in the work place, worth of twitter and blogosphere entries.
On the way to work today, I heard a strange flushing sound. I realized it was civilization rounding the drain. Two elderly, infirm people were standing on a crowded subway (as was I) and no one offered up a seat. How do young able-bodied passengers not see the infirm or pregnant passengers? Do these young able-bodied passengers think they are themselves invisible to the righteously indignant third party observer (me)?
Of course, there are people who get up for an older, infirm or pregnant passenger. Sometimes, these people go overboard, though. Just in the last two months, two young women have offered to get up for me. Now, I have gray hair and have a few lines on my face, but I am fit AND I act like a child (ok, the latter is not that relevant). Because these two young women were so earnest, I didn’t have to heart to torture them and ask, “do you think I am pregnant?”
Actually once I got up for a younger woman who looked pregnant. Then she realized that I was older and got up for her and she asked, “do I look pregnant?” Thank G-d it was winter so I said that I wasn’t sure since she wore a bell shaped coat. Actually, it wasn’t the coat; she really did look pregnant. She was too young to have developed a beer gut but if she weren’t pregnant, it was not a pretty sight. Yes, I can be snarky even in this situation. I am not a very nice person. I knew that.
A woman who looks like a retired anthropology professor — unkempt gray hair, chino shorts, fanny pack and birkenstocks — had cobalt blue nail polish on her toes.
A man who was trying to look like Mick Jagger, Keith Richardson and Rod Stewart — impossibly skinny with the UnDead look, with form fitting bizarro clothes and lots of necklaces and sunken eyes — failed miserably.
Ok, I hate flying more than ever. Before blogging, I gave the following report via blackberry to my friends while I was in the San Franscisco airport some months ago. It was a turning point in my view of air travel as a pleasant means of getting from point A to B.
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There is a woman walking around with a pillow. A full sized pillow with a case that has a pattern of small flowers. She is our age. I see her point but I am not wearing my jammies and fluffy slippers.
Did you know that wheel chairs come in LARGE now? I wish that I could read a book but I am too uptight and stressed. All I want to do is get on that plane and drift off to sleep.
Oooohh, give me a seat boys, come free my soul, I wanna get lost in my reclining seat and drift away. Music fades.
There is a screaming child. A screaming child on a red eye. Excuse me while I throw myself onto the tarmac.
I am freezing in this airport and other people are wearing thin clothes. I know it’s California, but it was cold and wet today in San Francisco.
I have to go to the bathroom but it has probably gotten too much use today and maybe I’ll wait and be the first on the plane to use. It is a delicate balance.
Should I ask the man across the seats why he picks his nose so blatantly and then rubs his discovery on his pants? Maybe I can borrow his books. Noooooo.
Baby’s cryin’ and my patience is all gone…. Oh, S. Frisco. (As in JT’s “Mexico”).
