Tuesday, April 21, 2009

musings on my third home

1) Whenever I am kind of unsure about what I'm wearing, I feel a hundred times weirder about it once I step onto the subway. The unflattering lighting + the blank stares + the preexisting insecurity about the tight corduroy pants = trouble.

2) When there's some kind of performer / jokester / homeless person making a scene in the middle of the car, all of the commuters -- who typically, of course, operate as though no one around them exists -- suddenly think it's cool to make sly eye contact and trade sheepish grins with one another. It's this disconcerting "that guy is totally batshit crazy but we're so normal" camaraderie.

3) The subway situation I find to be most awkward is when a seat frees up and you kind of eye it and then look up and realize the pony-tail girl with the backpack is sort of itching toward it, too. You hesitate in order to let her sit, but she stops herself, too. "I've been sitting all day," she says, "you take it." But obviously you look like a weirdo if you sit at this point, so you guffaw (guffaw!) and insist, but the whole thing has been going on for too long at this point, so she doesn't sit either (she brushes her hair back with her hand). So you both just stand there until you reach the next stop, neither of you taking the seat.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I saw this and it reminded me of this post (which it took me a while to find - dedication!) - http://www.oddee.com/item_96720.aspx

- Rachel