Snowy Subway Ride

I want to stay on the honesty train today. Manhattan has so much to offer upon which we can comment but I don’t want to exhaust lessons too soon.  I’m not even in Spain yet.   What if I find the same things there and then I can’t write about them because I wrote about them this week out of sheer boredom? I need to be thinking 5 steps ahead here if I plan on keeping this blog alive….

Anyway, honesty.  My mom and I were on the N train heading down to Union Square from mid-town.  It was about 4 PM so the train was populated by a manageable crowd.  There were enough seats for people if they wanted to sit and enough space for those people who chose to stand.   After a treacherous walk from Bendel’s to 49^th and 7^th Avenue through the snow storm, we were cold and exhausted and ready to actually sit.  I hate sitting on the subway but made an exception this time.  I looked like a drowning rat, with soaked hair, splotchy cheeks, and melting snow all over my white army style coat and shearling Donald Duck hat. Sure.  I know what you’re thinking.  “Karina, even if you’re soaked in snow and melting right before our eyes, why in god’s name do you own a shearling hat which you would describe as a Donald Duck hat?”  My answer to you, friends, is that that is completely irrelevant.  Although I appreciate your honesty, I like my hat and even if my dad thinks I look like a Mongolian hiker in it, I don’t care and I will persevere and wear it till you start to love it. 

Hat or no hat, the train is in motion and at 42^nd street.  To my right, a black woman in her mid-40’s enters our car.  She is homeless, blind, hunched over wearing wool blankets draped over her body.  I can’t help but feel like a spoiled brat, to have just lived in LA for a year and not really been witness to any homelessness.  My thoughts come back into focus as two white guys in their late teens shuffle onto the train.  Both are wearing baggy jeans with chains on them and black trench coats.  One has dry, dark hair that is pulled back in a small pony tail and a piercing underneath his bottom lip, right between his lips and his chin.  It’s truly a terrible place for a lip ring because Mr. Walking-Stereotype also has a terrible under-bite which is only further highlighted by the silver cone protruding from his face. 

As we wait for the subway doors to close and the train to resume motion, the woman deigns us with a soundtrack for our ride.  She sings a variety of songs, including some Jackson 5.  Let’s be honest, most homeless subway performers are not Juilliard Graduates, no matter what Jaime Foxx lead you to believe.  But, when you give money to a homeless person when they are singing it’s not because you appreciate their vocals, it’s because they need the money and they are doing more than sitting on the sidewalk.  She walks by slowly, singing and trying to keep her balance on a moving train as she holds onto her walking stick and a plastic container awaiting donations.  I can’t help but wonder, if she’s blind, how does she know what people give her and if store owners are honest with her about how much money she has?  In her position, she pretty much has to trust everyone.  I am sure there are good people at a church or a shelter who help her, but what about everyone else she meets on her way there?  My 2^nd daydream of the past 4 minutes has been rudely interrupted by the angsty caricatures standing in front of me as under-bite boy exclaims “god, get a fucking a vocal lesson.”

The train may as well have stopped.  Every conversation was cut short as all heads turned towards him.  The girl to my right says, “that is so inappropriate. I can’t believe you just said that.” The Midwestern guy across from us says, “god, you’re a fucking asshole man. Shut the fuck up.” My mother chimes in with “you should just get off the train. You’re probably not even from here and you should just leave.”  Then my mother says, “those boys are supremacists.”  Oh god.  Now we’re getting to touchy subjects.  The grungy commentator just laughs to himself.  At the end of the day, he’s probably 17 or 18, going through puberty, thinks he’s far cooler than he is, and isn’t actually equipped with intellect or wit to come back with any form or response or defense.  It’s clear that had his mother reprimanded him, his only response would have been to chuckle and say something like, “I don’t even care.”  Needless to say, if he can’t fight his mom, how can he battle the N train as its inhabitants flex their thew and remind him how worthless he and his scummy friend are especially under the looking glass of true New Yorkers.

I don’t think I need to spell out any lessons at the end of each post, right? It’s pretty obvious?

xo

February 24, 2010: Honesty

My Virgin America flight to New York was completely booked and I had reserved seat 5E for myself, thinking that if I can’t have an aisle seat at least I can be close to the front of the airplane so I can be one of the first people off it.  I overlooked the fact that the closer you sit to the front, the closer to the back of line you’ll be when boarding.  So, I was in group F, the final group which should otherwise be categorized as the group which is not afforded the opportunity to put anything in the overhead bins and is forced to check in their carry-on bags.  I was saved, however, by a 5’3” brunette who distracted the flight attendants by putting up a fight when they asked her to check in her coat.  I managed to slither through with 2 carry-ons, my sweatshirt strewn over my bags and my tennis racquet (a lethal weapon, it turns out, as you walk through the aisles and stumble on outward angled feet, causing you to grab onto the closest seat and allowing the racquet to swing to your inside arm and into the face of an unbeknownst recipient). 

Anyway, I’m digressing and honesty is, in fact, a relevant moral to this story.  As we waited in the aisles for the crowds to shift forward, the Napoleonette decided to make a call.  Standing in her black leggings, black suede knee high boots, wife beater under a grey cut up 80’s sweatshirt, black plasticky headband with heart shapes engraved into it and hair so tightly pulled back it made me thankful that hair is already dead and not experiencing the suffocating pain of being so wound, she readjusted her plaid wool winter coat, dropped her ticket and proceeded to have a conversation with her right leg lunged and her left leg stiff as a board.  I want to define my coming actions as eaves dropping, but I’m pretty sure that in any contained environment, such as an elevator, airplane, office, street corner, all is fair game.

“Hey,” she said.  “Thanks for watching Lola last night.”  Let me interject here and mention this was the first time I realized that thing under her arm was a heinous coat and not a matty discolored dog.  I’m assuming Lola is not her child but really didn’t put much thought into who Lola might be.   With a completely straight face and speaking at Olympic speeds, she quickly followed her thanks with, “well, you know, why would anyone want to get to know a crazy psycho. You’re a crazy psycho.”  Woah!  Should we send a search party for Lola?!  Did you seriously allow a crazy psycho watch your dear Lola?  Are you concerned at all??  You haven’t once asked about her well being!  She’s not your kid, right?  She’s a plant, right?  Please tell me she’s your pillow friend who you hide from everyone but the voice at the other end of the receiver.  Without any real remorse, she says, “I’m sorry but I’m just being honest with you. Have a safe trip to Canada.  What? You can’t find it? You need a passport to go to Canada?” I almost tapped her to say, “Friend, people like you make me think we should pass a law requiring a passport and a visa to go to New York.”  But no, she’s an honest person and, quite frankly, I’m not sane, my face is tear stained and my eyes are bloodshot so why would I subject myself to a tirade from a woman who left Lola with a crazy psycho.   All of a sudden, my ear tunes in behind me to a man leaving a voice message, “John, hey, it’s Jeff Smith.”  I stopped listening right then and there because I couldn’t help but feel bad for this 6’5” married giant.  Why hasn’t he changed his name?! Does he have identity and insecurity issues, always feeling like he doesn’t stand out and like he’s a nobody because he’s everybody? Poor guy.

Finally, I get to my row.  Yes, row 5.  All this has happened in the mere walk from the entrance of the plain to my approach to row 5.  I sit down.  To my right is a screenplay writing East Asian girl in yellow pants and to my left is a too cool for school dude with thick, black rimmed glasses, a cap, blue and yellow plaid shirt, boating shoes and tapered, rolled up jeans with a serious flatulence problem.  Here’s my chance, right? To implement today’s lesson?  Tell my compatriot writer that her dialogue (because, yes, I read over her shoulder) is boring and tell the white steve urquell to my left to please isolate himself in the bathroom until he feels ready to be in public?  Ahh, can I do it?? 

Ha.  Of course not. Instead, I’m writing it to everyone else.  But, baby steps, right?  It’s just day 1. 

Ugh. He just farted again.