G-d bless books and smart phones

Posted on January 8, 2010 by 40andover

I am a prisoner of my blackberry(ies). I read books on my iPod. I am gidiot (idiot for gadgets).

They prevented bad things from happening one night on the subway.

A few nights ago, I was on a stalled train for 25 minutes. There was more than one would-be rabble-rouser in my car. But so many people had gadgets or books, that no one took the bait. I ended up having to walk through four or so cars to get to the front of the train in order to exit at my station. In each of those cars, the would-be rabble-rousers were unsuccessful in provoking any meaningful disturbance. People were reading or playing electronic games.

There is hope for our civilization. How ironic that, in this case, it comes packaged in electronics that in a larger sense rob of us of our identities and anonymity.

Only in America and only in New York

Posted on January 4, 2010 by 40andover

POST-SCRIPT: The part about the beer is my imagination running away with me.

I get out of the 96th Street subway station at 94th Street (if you live outside NY, just trust me on this) when I go to the gym. Invariably, I pass the same panhandler asking for change. He is not earnest in his request (“spare change?”) because he sits on a standpipe in front of the storefronts and doesn’t really work the crowd. I feel guilty not giving him something but I rationalize my hard-heartedness by concluding that if I were a beggar I would be the best damn beggar on the street and this guy is so mediocre at his job that he doesn’t deserve spare change. And this beggar is rather, well, blasé about the whole begging thing. You see why New Yorkers are a breed unto themselves; we even have jaded beggars.

So far, for a New Yorker, nothing new in this story. YET.

As I pass him, and he is saying a half-hearted “spare change?”, his cell phone rings and he answers, “hey, where you at? I’ve been waiting for you.”

What, to go out for a beer? Or does he meet his friend every night and while he is waiting, begs for change? A kind of “fringe benefit” or “value added” for his wait time?

I couldn’t make this stuff up and I am really sure I wouldn’t want to.

The World’s Best Chewing Gum

Posted on December 21, 2009 by 40andover

I was on the subway, minding my own business. I was reading a book on my iPod. A woman standing next to me asks her boyfriend (it is obvious by the end of this anecdote) whether he wants some really great chewing gum. He asks, “how good can chewing gum be?” She says, “it makes you want to stick your tongue down someone’s throat.” I had to look up. I said, “really?” She nodded. I looked at the boyfriend questioningly. He was too embarrassed to answer. I mentioned that it was too important a secret not to share with fellow strangers on a train. In fact, it would be downright cruel to tantalize and not deliver.

The woman told me what kind and what flavor (I won’t tell you until I confirm this urban legend).

Life altering experiences on the subway.

Blogger’s code of silence

Posted on December 20, 2009 by 40andover

A note to readers:

My sister’s friend, in visiting from a not-to-be-revealed other place, feared speaking to me because I write a blog and she thought that I would reveal too much detail about her life and people would figure out her identity. I told her that I protect my sources and use my powers for good not evil. Her fears were unassuaged and she conversed very little with me although by the end of the evening I was able to discern many, many things about her and her life.

But, true to my word, I can’t tell you. Mystery friend of my sister, I hope you are reading this.

~Blogger

Taxi cab stories

Posted on December 13, 2009 by 40andover

Since I threw out my back, I have taken a lot of cabs (the subway just seemed too much to handle).

Cab drivers like to talk to me. I must have “schmuck” written across my forehead.

One cab driver starts a conversation with, “you don’t look Christian.” Bait me, why don’t you. So, I say, “I am not”. “You are Jew!!” Oy, I think, this is going to be bad and all the world’s ills are being distilled in this one moment in a cab in holiday traffic. I say nothing. He says, “I know you are not Muslim.” So I respond, “Maybe I am Sikh or Hindu.” He laughs. He is a Christian from Egypt. He hates Muslims. He says all the Muslim cab drivers are terrorists. I knew that Christians had it hard in Egypt, but he went on a diatribe against Muslims for what seemed like an eternity. Then he says, “I don’t believe in G-d anyway. How do I pray to G-d who makes me short and fat?” I think to say, “and with enormous earlobes” but I think better of it. I get out of the cab, exhausted from the hatred spewing out of this guy.

That evening, in another cab, the driver asks me, “have you done all your holiday shopping?” I respond, “I don’t celebrate these holidays.” He says, “you are Jew!” [Now this is becoming weird.] He goes on without a response from me, “I am Muslim and I know you are not Muslim.” So I try my Sikh or Hindu line on this guy. He laughs, too. I ask him where he is from. “Egypt.” Ok, I don’t usually get Egyptian cab drivers and in this one day alone, I have an Egyptian Christian and now an Egyptian Muslim. So I ask, “who do you think will succeed Hosni Mubarak?” He answers, “Mubarak’s son will, but that is no democracy, that is a dynasty like Syria or Jordan. I would vote for Boutros Boutros Gali, but he is a Christian and a Christian head of state would never be allowed in a Muslim country.” I mention that no one ever thought that a black man would be president of the United States. He responds, “I live in this country and I am glad to have a job, so I do not worry about politics. But it would be great if Mr. Obama were President of Egypt!!”

An angry Christian and a grateful Muslim. Each the opposite of what the other envisions.

The next day I get into a cab and the radio is on. Someone is talking about global warming. “Miss, do you believe in this global warming?” I respond yes. “My village will be flooded in 2050! I must buy a boat!” Ok, no one has EVER been cheerful about global warming. Clearly, this guy is out of kilter, just like our ecosystem. “Where are you from?” “Bangladesh, Miss. Do you hear of it?” “Yes, of course, but I heard on CNN that the flooding [other than during rainy season and when India opens a large dam] in Bangladesh won’t be bad until 2100,” I say, trying to be helpful and upbeat [ok, now I am in his crazy world of surreality]. I think, wow, coastal cities in the US will be flooded. Good thing we live on the fourth floor. Now I am crazy enough to drive a cab.

Next week I take the subway, even if I have to crawl up and down the steps.

Just the G-d-Awful Flu

Posted on November 17, 2009 by 40andover

Since Friday, I have been felled by the flu. I don’t have mad sow flu, or H1N1, as it is supposedly called.

I am now recovering from the usual, seasonal, G-d-awful flu. It happens. The non-designer, non-pandemic one. I even had a flu shot which I have to say probably made it less horrendous than it could have been.

My sister the doctor was concerned that I was dying of the plague because I didn’t blog for days. Yes, I had to have been pretty hard hit not to blog, or, for that matter, to pay a shiva call to my friend whose mother’s funeral I attended last week (see prior blog entry).

The flu, once medicated, is the moral equivalent of a stubbed toe. Yet, I longed to hear my mother say, “my poor tsakele, if I could have it for you I would,” as she looked into my eyes and caressed my cheek in that way that mothers do that make you feel better just by having them there.

POB, partner of blogger, has been in the trenches with our son, getting him from place to place, while I lied in bed doing the least I could do. Really, the least I could do. And she is a trooper (who is now coughing, because I share too much).

I took a walk yesterday because I was becoming self-radicalized watching CNN and MSNBC in between naps over the last few days. I was woozy and thought it would be a great idea to go to the gym. (I need a personal attendant.) I went to the gym and did nothing except watch the people who are able to go to the gym on a Monday at 3:30pm, while I scrubbed with Purell. Luckily the medication dried me out so much that I neither blew my nose or coughed much. One general observation: the beautiful, the buff and the young don’t go to the gym in the afternoon. The older, schleppier and grayer do.

I left the gym having not sweat or done anything to shore up my sagging self and walked south for no reason (ok, no sane reason). I went into PC Richards and Sons and looked at Plasma TVs. I thought maybe if I bought a big plasma TV, I could tell POB that it was the delirium that did it. Even in my delirium I knew that was stupid, yet wishful, thinking.

Friends tried to make me feel better by emailing me stories of the weird and blog-worthy. My old friend started out his email by writing: “My dear son didn’t really do anything wrong (that’s what every parent says).” Followed by, wait for it . . .

“Gotcha!!!”

Walk-weary, I took to my bed and resumed doing the least I could do.

Dr. SOB (Sister of Blogger), are you satisfied that I am on the road to recovery?

The Blogger in my midst

Posted on November 11, 2009 by 40andover

So, after the funeral, I decide to work from home since most banks are closed (and my clients are banks). I return the rental car and make the mistake of hearkening back — with no one else in room — to the earlier conversation about menopause that I had with the same rental car sales assistant. She was not pleased. She had mentioned earlier that she has mood swings. I notice as I stand over the counter that she still hadn’t taken her vitamins. I decided not to mention that the name of the GPS NeverLost is a misnomer. And, I assume I am going to get a schmuck tax on top of the usual rental car costs. I am fine with all of it because, well, it is what it is.

I go to grab lunch and there is a woman sitting opposite me at the communal table in Le Pain Quotidienne. She looks at me as if she recognizes me. We hold a gaze for an extra second. I know that I don’t know her so I assume that she asked me a question and is waiting for a response. So, I say, “excuse me?” as if she said something. She didn’t. I apologize. I go back to my various devices of connectivity.

She types furiously on her laptop. I think she is a blogger. I wanted to say, “Hi, I’m 40andoverblog. Who are you?” But that would have sounded like the ookiest come-on line and that was not my intention.

I surreptitiously glance over at her from time to time, trying to see what she is typing. She catches me a few times. I have to leave now lest she think I have any interest other than uncovering a blogger and responds with interest or revulsion, neither of which I could handle.

I inhale my food and pay my bill.

I imagine that she is thinking, “wow, she reminds me of my mother”. I catch a cab and take to my bed.

Cell YELLLLLLL

Posted on November 2, 2009 by 40andover

Cellphones are sometimes blessings but, most times, curses.

When your 89 year-old father is running late because of city traffic, it is a blessing not to start calling emergency rooms around the city. If you are on a bus and a teenager is talking about adolescent issues and her first visit to the gynecologist, well, then, it is a little like being in purgatory.

Recently, on a bus going uptown on the west side of Manhattan, a woman in her mid-to-late seventies was having a conversation on her cellphone. To be more precise, she was YELLING into her cellphone as if she were hard-of-hearing or had never used a cellphone before (or both). A man in his sixties turned around and told her he was very sensitive to noise and ask very politely if she would mind lowering her voice.

Her response was to tell her friend, “can you believe someone told me to quiet down? If you were next to me and we were screaming to each other, no one would say anything to us.”

You can’t argue with that, mostly because all you would get out of it is a headache.

No-Where-istan Swears In Minister of Peace, Love and Happiness

Posted on October 29, 2009 by 40andover

Here she is, the Minister of Peace, Love and Happiness, plucked from the subways of NYC and into the ministry of Peace, Love and Happiness. She is wearing the official dress and head gear of the country in keeping with its cultural roots. There will be traditional dancing at the inaugural balls later on in the season. But for now, I give you, ladies and gentlemen, Her Excellency the Minister:

Is it me?

Posted on October 28, 2009 by 40andover

Last night’s commute, straight from my simultaneous note-taking on my blackberry (like Anderson Cooper on CNN blogging through commercials).

Man on the subway is talking about how horrible marriage is. He is really ranking on his wife. Says he doesn’t get why she wonders why he is always drunk. Also, he is a fund manager without a fund. And he is belittling his “friend” who is on the train. Now, he is pissed that his friend recently moved into a new apartment, asking his friend how come he is doing well if he can’t pull it together. He keeps asking about people they know in common and whether they are married. I am gathering that they don’t work together any more. They both get off the train. I guess it is my turn to stand up and ask women if they are wearing matching or clean undergarments. Maybe a therapist will start talking about his or her crazy clients or maybe a disheveled man who is homeless but no more or less crazy than the fund-less fund manager will walk into the car. Nope. Pretty ok although there is a straight guy reading a pink colored book called Sex and the Single Girl. Ok, he just checked out a guy. So, maybe a not-so-straight guy reading a book with a pink cover about single women’s sex lives. Ok, that’s weirder.

Ok ok ok ok. I am heading out of the subway on one of those exit-only stairs that have the out-only turnstiles with the horizontal bars all the way up to the ceiling. A man in his 70s who sports the bohemian, artiste look is aheading of me and climbs onto one of the lower bars the way my 7 year-old does, intending for me to pushing him through. So here I am pushing this strange stranger through the turnstile as I would my son. At least, the (strange) stranger didn’t say weeeeeeeeeee like my son, thank G-d. But I am standing on the street in the rain typing this on my blackberry, so who is the crazy one?

40 — oh wait, yikes!! 50 — andoverblog

Aging and living in urban US

Tag Archives: accidental audience