October 2008
2 posts
F Train, 2nd Ave
At the Second Avenue stop, my coworker tapped my shoulder. I’d been in an iPod hole for most of my trip home. The rest of the time, I’d been staring at a little girl in her stroller. She had a box of fast food mozerella sticks and was peeling off the fried. I approved (I mostly hate fried food).
The tap on the shoulder from my coworker came as a surprise because truly: had we been in...
Guest Ride: I Married A Dead Woman
He stood 2 inches taller than I, skinny and aged. Skin that clung to his cheekbones and eyes but not to his lips intensified this mans presence and made the thought of him in a heated debate beyond frightening. He bumbled around a pole fidgeting, visibly anxious or annoyed, fishing in pockets and backpack. A scar/branding on his right inner forearm added more to this mans mystique. His tight eyes...
July 2008
2 posts
F train, Smith / 9th
If you’re going to sell something on the train, let it be poetry. Riding the train with my friend Wally last Sunday, a poetry-selling-man got on at Smith / 9th St with a stack of books. “Poetry!” “Buy your poetry.”
Best of all: he made a sale. And then he UPSOLD, convincing the woman that she should get TWO books instead of ONE. Excessive caps only because this seems...
LIRR, 4th of July
Riding back from a Long Island BBQ to celebrate the 4th, the train was near-deserted. I would have expected more brown bagged beverages, but actually, the train seemed more exhausted than eager to drink. Along with my two friends, I plopped into a six-seater, which housed a Snapple bottle already. We gingerly moved that to the floor, where it rolled back and forth all the way from Rockville Center...
June 2008
4 posts
I Thought This Was Important While Tipsily on the...
At Jay St / Borough Hall, a man-sized woman gets on the train. At first, I think she is actually a man. Her manly size is emphasized by her man-style suit, complete with black suit pants, a politician’s red and black striped tie, and orthopedic looking shoes. She is carrying a small, fake designer clutch bag—it looks delicate and fragile in her hands, as though she is carrying it for...
Moleskin Notebook
During the bleary eyed morning commute, it’s noteworthy when a blonde business-type woman screams out “hon, hon.” Do people other than waitresses really say “hon” when referring to others?
“You forgot this,” the blonde said to another woman, just as the garbled voice of the announcer, the pre-door-close ritual began. She handed the moleskin notebook off...
F train, evening
At Broadway Lafayette, the heat is hotter than other train stations. After two V trains bypass the station it’s even more extreme. When the F train finally arrived today, I scurried up to the train door, and reached down to my bag to check that my sweatshirt hadn’t fallen off. But when my hand extended down, instead of grabbing my black sweatshirt, I instead connected with a (not...
heading home from Coney Island
Around 11 PM, heading home from Coney Island, we sat across from a man reading one of those pseudo-homosexual-magazines-for-straight-men that feature muscles under the pretext of teaching people to get bigger muscles. The gent had lots of white hair, was wearing shorts, and had a enormous magnifying glass. Picture a regular magnifying glass that you might use to examine a jewelry stone, and then...