I probably should have bought a bicycle when I moved to Boston.
I use the T, Boston's subway system, to get pretty much everywhere (for the first month I was here I kept calling it the "El," a la Chicago). I usually forget to charge my mp3 player, hence I'm helplessly trapped listening to whatever tinny "mmpsh mmpsh mmpsh yeeeah" the teenageer next to me is plugged into. People listen to their devices at such a high volume; I often want to demand them to "Change the channel!" like when I was a kid and wanted to watch Sesame Street but Mom was watching Oprah or Antique Roadshow, or like now when certain friends of mine still want to watch Susan Boyle sing "I Dreamed a Dream" over and over...
It's just that I like walking so much, and I fear a bicycle would get stolen anyway, even though I think it looks cool when someone walks into a party with one pant leg rolled up, all red-faced and tote-bagged: "Augh, man, I totally just biked here from Jamaica Plain in the rain but I still stopped at the co-op to pick up some organic freekah grains and IPA!" Well, I'll buy a bike in Madison for sure. And I will be rolling up one pant leg.
I've struggled with how to use my time on the T. I make a minimum of one round-trip to and from work every day, and there are at least two occasions per week when I take the T to work (about six stops), take the T back home, and then retrace the stops later en route to Harvard or Porter Square. That's like at least two hours invested in transport. I try to read or write or do something "productive", but usually end up wondering where the lady across from me bought her shoes, eavesdropping on Spanish-speakers (for practice!), trying to decide whether or not that guy by the pole is slyly executing a creepy up-and-down look in my direction (I get very defensive of my womanhood on the T)... Sometimes drunk people try to befriend me, which is humorous if I'm with a companion but a little frightening if I'm alone. In response, I pretend I don't speak English, or I just nod and stare absently at the window just above my intoxicated acquaintance's head until he or she starts to feel the cold, sobering drops of self-consciousness pooling. Kind of cruel, I know.
I was looking through my journal the other day and came across some of the experiences I've shared with the Good, the Bad, and the Insane of Boston.
1. I like the guitarist at the Arlington Green Line stop. He plays originals, I think, or maybe they are Mexican folk songs that I've just never heard before (not that I've heard many). The chords take their time echoing off the rounded tunnel walls, slow tunes as we all scurry to above or below. The overall effect makes me feel like an actress in a low-budget "indie" film, the part where she has something really heavy on her mind and is probably wearing fishnet stockings and smudgy black eyeliner and a corduroy blazer, or something with elbow patches anyway. His speakers are cheap, the acoustics suck, but the hollowness of the sound makes me feel both lonely, and hopeful and young.
2. Today when the train doors opened at Downtown Crossing there was a laughing couple holding the shrunken head of a wig mannequin between them. I did a double take because I thought a
small face had sprouted through their armpits. The man was fumbling a pack of cigarettes and one of them fell on a sweet little girl in a stroller. The mother grumbled, "She's too young to start" in front of the perpetrator, his girlfriend, and the grinning bodiless head. The child was making earnest and purposeful gestures towards my red purse and the mother said "She has no sense of boundaries" to which I replied, "It's ok. She shouldn't. She's a child."
3. Sometimes I wish it was more acceptable to speak to people on the T--we're all so smug and sad, shouting into phones, busily entering and searching data in blackberries like foraging insects.
4. (February 10, 2009) I get so distracted on the T. Today a swaggering, disheveled man boarded on at Stony Brook and immediately started spraying air freshener all over the car, holding a pint of brown-bagged mystery in the other hand. He tripped on a woman's backpack, who previously hadn't dared to bend over and pick it up for fear of attracting attention to herself. He looked with disgust at the offending strap and thrust it aside with his dirty leather boot.
And he stood there, adopting a wide-legged albeit unsteady stance, King of the Car, surveying us common, coarse commuters. Of course, the next logical thing to do as Ruler was remove the can of air freshener (with a flourish!) from his jacket. Within seconds the entire car wreaked of chemical-drenched potpourri. The wide-eyed woman and I simultaneously migrated to the opposite end of the car, ducking as though in military retreat. She remembered her backpack.
When I reached Downtown Crossing, I quickly exited the orange line, feeling a bit light-headed, and bolted for the red line that would take me to Cambridge. I could hear the train either approaching or leaving, and the doors closed dramatically when I was just a few steps away. When this happens, I usually feel like spitting on the door and stamping my foot, but I kept my tantrum to an irritated exhale. THEN, a normal-seeming middle-aged man approached me and said "I wouldn't have missed that train if I hadn't been staring at your boots."
Perhaps on any other day I would have assumed that "boots" was an entirely different plural noun,
but today I was wearing my very special Lobster Rain Boots. They are black with red soles and and tiny lobsters printed all over them. Even I can't stop staring at their waterproof glory.
I've struggled with how to use my time on the T. I make a minimum of one round-trip to and from work every day, and there are at least two occasions per week when I take the T to work (about six stops), take the T back home, and then retrace the stops later en route to Harvard or Porter Square. That's like at least two hours invested in transport. I try to read or write or do something "productive", but usually end up wondering where the lady across from me bought her shoes, eavesdropping on Spanish-speakers (for practice!), trying to decide whether or not that guy by the pole is slyly executing a creepy up-and-down look in my direction (I get very defensive of my womanhood on the T)... Sometimes drunk people try to befriend me, which is humorous if I'm with a companion but a little frightening if I'm alone. In response, I pretend I don't speak English, or I just nod and stare absently at the window just above my intoxicated acquaintance's head until he or she starts to feel the cold, sobering drops of self-consciousness pooling. Kind of cruel, I know.
I was looking through my journal the other day and came across some of the experiences I've shared with the Good, the Bad, and the Insane of Boston.
1. I like the guitarist at the Arlington Green Line stop. He plays originals, I think, or maybe they are Mexican folk songs that I've just never heard before (not that I've heard many). The chords take their time echoing off the rounded tunnel walls, slow tunes as we all scurry to above or below. The overall effect makes me feel like an actress in a low-budget "indie" film, the part where she has something really heavy on her mind and is probably wearing fishnet stockings and smudgy black eyeliner and a corduroy blazer, or something with elbow patches anyway. His speakers are cheap, the acoustics suck, but the hollowness of the sound makes me feel both lonely, and hopeful and young.
2. Today when the train doors opened at Downtown Crossing there was a laughing couple holding the shrunken head of a wig mannequin between them. I did a double take because I thought a
small face had sprouted through their armpits. The man was fumbling a pack of cigarettes and one of them fell on a sweet little girl in a stroller. The mother grumbled, "She's too young to start" in front of the perpetrator, his girlfriend, and the grinning bodiless head. The child was making earnest and purposeful gestures towards my red purse and the mother said "She has no sense of boundaries" to which I replied, "It's ok. She shouldn't. She's a child."3. Sometimes I wish it was more acceptable to speak to people on the T--we're all so smug and sad, shouting into phones, busily entering and searching data in blackberries like foraging insects.
4. (February 10, 2009) I get so distracted on the T. Today a swaggering, disheveled man boarded on at Stony Brook and immediately started spraying air freshener all over the car, holding a pint of brown-bagged mystery in the other hand. He tripped on a woman's backpack, who previously hadn't dared to bend over and pick it up for fear of attracting attention to herself. He looked with disgust at the offending strap and thrust it aside with his dirty leather boot.
And he stood there, adopting a wide-legged albeit unsteady stance, King of the Car, surveying us common, coarse commuters. Of course, the next logical thing to do as Ruler was remove the can of air freshener (with a flourish!) from his jacket. Within seconds the entire car wreaked of chemical-drenched potpourri. The wide-eyed woman and I simultaneously migrated to the opposite end of the car, ducking as though in military retreat. She remembered her backpack.
When I reached Downtown Crossing, I quickly exited the orange line, feeling a bit light-headed, and bolted for the red line that would take me to Cambridge. I could hear the train either approaching or leaving, and the doors closed dramatically when I was just a few steps away. When this happens, I usually feel like spitting on the door and stamping my foot, but I kept my tantrum to an irritated exhale. THEN, a normal-seeming middle-aged man approached me and said "I wouldn't have missed that train if I hadn't been staring at your boots."
Perhaps on any other day I would have assumed that "boots" was an entirely different plural noun,
but today I was wearing my very special Lobster Rain Boots. They are black with red soles and and tiny lobsters printed all over them. Even I can't stop staring at their waterproof glory. "Oh. They're cool, right?" I replied, nonchalently.
"Yes." He proceeded: "I like your hair."
I said, "Thanks man."
Then, eyes narrowed in a sudden display of skepticism, he asked "Are you Jewish?" to which I offered a completely blank star and answered, "No, no, not Jewish. Ummmm....sorry?"
He let out a slight sigh of relief and nodded, staring back, perhaps waiting
for me to articulate my Roman Catholic roots and small-town Wisconsin upbringing. But I didn't. I stared him straight in the eye for a solid five seconds before relocating focus to the Greek crossword puzzle I had been working on before the two-faced compliment. I almost wished I had lied and claimed false ethnic heritage just to see what he would have said. But I didn't, and he moved on to the next young-ish woman who sat alone two benches down from mine.
Anti-Semitism and a failed attempt at womanizing. Is there no shame in Boston's underground?
I said, "Thanks man."
Then, eyes narrowed in a sudden display of skepticism, he asked "Are you Jewish?" to which I offered a completely blank star and answered, "No, no, not Jewish. Ummmm....sorry?"
He let out a slight sigh of relief and nodded, staring back, perhaps waiting
for me to articulate my Roman Catholic roots and small-town Wisconsin upbringing. But I didn't. I stared him straight in the eye for a solid five seconds before relocating focus to the Greek crossword puzzle I had been working on before the two-faced compliment. I almost wished I had lied and claimed false ethnic heritage just to see what he would have said. But I didn't, and he moved on to the next young-ish woman who sat alone two benches down from mine.Anti-Semitism and a failed attempt at womanizing. Is there no shame in Boston's underground?
