Almost the Weekend

This entire week, I've been putting off the front closet. Inside are all my coats and jackets and once the door is open it will really mark the end of summer. It must be the rain that slides me over the edge and I finally give in, grab the lightest thing I can find, and head out.

The jacket feels foreign on my body. Is it too tight? Have I gained weight since last year? Anyways, it is nice to have the extra pockets and I slip my headphones inside. I leave my apartment and there is a sign on the elevator saying it is out of order.

It takes a few minutes to get down the stairs and over to the station. In the tunnel I run into Miriam L. She makes a comment about running into me again, but I haven't seen her since last weekend, so she must have me mistaken with someone else. She runs into the elevator to get to Fort Wash and move her car, and as soon as she is gone I remember that I did, in fact, run into her just the other night.

On the platform, I find a seat on one of the benches and wait patiently for the next train. Estie H. whizzes past me but doesn't say hello or wave; I can't tell if she saw me. Sometimes I wonder if she even knows who I am, but then again I spend a lot of time wondering if I myself know who I am.

I get off at 59th, and lean up against a pillar to wait for the next train. Miriam C. walks right by me and I call out to her. I ask where she is coming from and she says she has just gotten off the A but was at the back of the train and is now walking up towards the front of the platform. I tell her I was on the same train but nearer to the middle. Then she asks me if it’s raining outside. I look at her blankly, till she realizes her mistake. That's going in my blog, I say.

Laughing Like Children

I leave my apartment and there is a tall, broad woman standing in the hallway, just outside my door. She has bleached platinum blond hair and is wearing white pants with a blue sweater, and is cursing into her cell phone with a Russian accent.

Down on Bennett, I see Gershon S. in front of the school building on 186th. He is a close friend and I haven’t seen him in ages. I try to catch up but by the time I reach the corner he is already gone.

I reach the station and wonder where Station Homeless Guy is, I haven’t seen him all week. At the platform, someone is playing the saxophone and I listen, until he stops, before putting my headphones on and listening to my own music.

On the train, there is a thin blond woman across from me. Her hair is long and straight, and her child, who’s gender I can’t quite tell, has the same color hair but in curly format. The mother puts on some lip liner, and the child – I guess it’s a girl - asks for some as well. The mother fishes through her purse to find some Vaseline Lip Therapy and the girl holds out her finger for it. A little dab on the index and then she spreads it on her lips. Suddenly, they both burst into laughter, and when they look at me and I laugh with them too.

Conscientious Hours

It is a common misconception at my job that I am often late because my alarm doesn't work. While there was such a period in my life, where no clock at all was even present in my room, this has never been cause for tardiness. I wake up on time. It’s what I do between the time I awaken and the time I leave for work that makes all the difference. I check email when I should be showering, surf Facebook when I should be shaving, and play Rock Band when I should be getting dressed. I am my worst own enemy; I need parental controls emplaced to limit the functionality of technology between the hours of 6:00 and 8:00 A.M.

Having left my apartment no earlier than 9:00, this is exactly what I think about as I walk briskly to the subway. The cool autumn breeze hardly counts as a tailwind but I make it to the platform just in time catch the next train.

The train is half empty, and sitting across from me is a young mother with a cute little girl who smiles personably at me and points it out to her mother when I smile back. The mother smiles too and they get off at the next station. I wonder if she noticed that I snapped a few candid photos for my blog.

On 59th I eagerly wait for the next train, and realize I will need to forfeit breakfast and coffee to make the 10:00 A.M. meeting. The B finally arrives and I fade for a few last minutes into the music playing from my Blackberry. Its Suzanne Vega's "Gypsy," from her Solitude Standing CD. "Hold me like a baby," she says, "that will not fall asleep. Curl me up inside you, and let me hear you through the heat."

Small Format

I am terribly late this morning, mostly due to my late arrival back home last night. One of the old women who usually sit outside the building spots me in the lobby, accompanied by her caretaker. She is awfully sweet and when she wishes me a Happy (Jewish) New Year I feel guilty that I don’t even know her name. I reciprocate the wishes and head towards the subway station.

Across from me on the train is an unusually tall woman, wearing a black t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, and listening to her iPod. When an elderly lady with a cane boards and sits next to her, the tall woman scoots to the edge of her seat and makes more room for the lady so that she will be more comfortable. Forgoing New York attitude and a little bit of comfort for someone else, the tall woman has reminded me that some of the most important things we do in life can often come in small format.

Script

I head over to the Laundromat on the way to work today. At the corner of 187^th, Josh C. sees me from across Broadway and waves. I make the drop and the woman behind the counter reluctantly agrees to have it done by the time I get home, which should be earlier than usual since it’s Friday.

Lazily, and armed with an unlimited metrocard, I take the bus three blocks to 184^th. I get inside the station and onto the platform and see Josh T. who for some reason looks a bit nervous. I take a seat on one of the benches and spot a Latin woman with a short checkered skirt and a black tank top. Her boots are made up almost entirely of two thin leather straps that start at the sole and twist back and forth around her feet and ankles and halfway up to her knees. They are funky but she is not cut out for this kind of outfit. When I board the train, the girl she sits next to me.

Sitting on my other side is a tall guy accessorized with a golf hat and dark sunglasses. His sneakers are missing the laces. He has a Mac laptop and is writing the outline of a screenplay call “Snowmobile Thriller.” In its current state the plot does not seem like blockbuster material to me, but Hollywood has churned out its share of terrible films so it could theoretically happen. I start to wonder if he is also reading the things I type out on my Blackberry.

Ironically, the woman sitting across from me is reciting the lines of another script out loud. She is tall, thin, and pretty. There is fat girl in a pink sweater standing between us who keeps smiling at me. I smile back but avoid further eye contact, and continuing to read one script while listening to another.

Chainsaws and Tats

A loitering man, armed with chainsaw, provides under normal circumstances a reasonable cause for concern. But in lobby of a Bennett avenue building I can safely say good morning as the man holds the door open for me.

Ilanit H. is sitting outside playing with her baby and talking to some local women. I walk to the station and on to the platform, where I see Aviva W. and Josh C. sitting on a bench near the stairs. We wave.

On the train, a 30-something man is sitting next to me, reading "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World." He is wearing checkered jeans and black felt shoes. His dark muscle shirt has a "worn out" look and has been meticulously stained with blobs of white paint. His skin is tan, and on his right arm, there's a tattoo of... He catches me eyeing his tattoo and fires a glare towards me.

On my other side is a women in flat shoes, black denim pants, and a beige, almost skin-toned sweater. She has fallen asleep with her head resting on a silver mug that is poking out of her large blue hand bag. One of her hoop earrings keeps clanging against the mug as the train rocks her head back and forth. We get to 125th street and the train screeches to a halt. The woman wakes up from the noise and then drapes over her head what are the largest headphones I've ever seen. They are painted with colorful designs (the cord attached to her iPod is yellow) and are branded “Skull Candy.”

The man's tattoo appears to be the cartoon of a penis.

Columbus Ave. Breakfast

I am surprised when I leave my building and find the air has actually become chilly. There is a man dressed in the full traditional Jewish garb of Tallis and Phylacteries walking casually down the street. Except in synagogue, its unusual outside of ultra religious neighborhoods to see people dressed this way.

I reach the subway platform and it’s more crowded than usual. I quickly spot Benny S. Also on the platform is a couple that lives in my neighborhood. I don’t know them at all except that I often see them together on the subway. A few nights ago they had been in a fight on the way home, and finally as they were getting off I overheard her apologizing. Today, he is wearing a light blue t-shirt with camouflage army shorts and is carrying two large bags, one from Kenneth Cole. She is wearing gray pants, a black hooded sweater, and her dirty blond hair is propped up with sunglasses. He is tall with a big nose, she is short and her nose is small and cute. Her big brown eyes always look sad.

At 59th street I run into Shifra G. and Devora K. who are talking to a nice guy, introduced as Dave. Devora mentions that sometimes she follows my blog. They all live on the Upper West Side and when Miriam C. who lives near me in WaHi, joins us, we talk about how 59th street is a good rendezvous point for people from both neighborhoods. Shifra advocates meeting again tomorrow, and assigns each of us to bring coffee, orange juice, muffins and donuts.