Thursday, August 23, 2007

Wednesday, August 22nd

The morning was very gray and the ground was damp, but the threat of rain had passed for the day.

Mid-60s.

N: Arrived without much fuss.

7: Quiet transfer.

G: Waiting for us. The 9:06am left on time.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tuesday, August 21st

Consistently, drenching rain (front-end of Hurricane Dean). Mid-60s.

N: The platform was almost overflowing with human beings, unhappily huddled under the overhang for shelter. I pushed my way past the crowds onto the exposed part of the platform as a train came barreling into the station.

The A/C wasn't really on, so all the body heat and wet clothes, hair, and hot breathe fogged up the car and made me feel like I stuck my head inside the dirty dish washing machine of a filthy Chinese restaurant.

7: Train arrived as we arrived, not many people on the train. Saw Bulldog on the lookout at the other door.

G: Doors closed as I approached the train. I think, worse than missing the train is making eye contact with the conductor, seemingly powerless in an it's-not-up-to-me-talk-to-my-boss-who-makes-these-crazy-schedules kind of way, as they pull out of the station. Anyway, I sat on the train and read more of my Paulo Coehelo book. Not many people joined us on the commute.

In light of last week, I was happy to just be able to ride the rails.

Monday, August 20th

Threat of rain. Umbrellas on everyone's arm (we didn't use them until nightfall).

Mid-70s.

N: I ran into a dear friend of mine in the first car of the N train! I love it when that happens, QB Plaza sneeks up on you.

7: Train was patiently waiting for us to make the transfer.

G: Train doors closed as I got on the train.

All around, an easy commute.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Monday, August 13th

At first, the sky was choked with grey, puffy clouds.

But, further inspection revealed blue sky attempting to peek through. Scared by the threat of being caught in the rain, I fruitlessly dragged my umbrella all over the city. By midday, clouds returned, but fear of rain did not.

6:45am.

Met up with friends early in Murray Hill, so I took another route to work: N to the downtown 6, off at 33rd Street. Going to work, I got back on the downtown 6 at 33rd, switched to the downtown 5 at 14th Street and got off at Atlantic in Brooklyn. Everybody and their mom gets off at Bowling Green, near Wall Street. That station is orange.


I've always had a thing with orange stations.


Little conspiracy theory: I think there's something strategic behind the citrus-colored tiles. I think they make stations on the other side of a borough a bright color so it catches the attention of the commuter who might otherwise not notice. Instead of hating those glaring warnings declaring, "You are headed into an OUTER BOROUGH", I created a positive way to ignore them.

When I lived off the F train at Queensbridge, I used to play the game, "Don't look at the orange tiles." Which, basically, meant I had to close my eyes until after Roosevelt Island (the first stop uptown after the orange tiled 63rd Street) or 57th Street (the first stop downtown after 63rd Street). The F train rarley had working intercoms announcing stops, so it was easy not to cheat and it really tested my knowledge of the order of the stations. But, if the train was crowded, I had to keep my eyes open for leverage and saftey sake. That added a level of difficulty because I had to avoid catching the day-glow ceramic in my rods and cones. It also meant that I ended up drilling my eyes into the back of some woman's head, much to the consternation of fellow commuters.

Wow. I'm impressed if you're still reading after that tangent...

Anyway. Nothing to report except there is a bend in the tracks at 14th Street, where uptown 4/5 trains scrap against the steele so loudly, I had to plug my ears (with headphones in), but one woman seemed so used to the deafening noise, she didn't skip a beat in conversation with a gal pal.

Didn't skip a beat in coversation.

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Friday, August 10th

Chilly, grey, rain.

69 degrees.

10 am.

Let me preface this by stating that New Yorkers in the rain wielding umbrellas are as dangerous as LA drivers in the rain.

N: A train pulled into the station as I started up the stairs. I attempted to run up the stairs to catch the train, but was trapped by slow walkers. I tried to verbally and physically make my way around them, but the one old lady wouldn't budge from her set course on the right side of the staircase and the young, hungover couple monopolized the entire left side of the staircase.

Who are these people, why are they in no hurry to catch a train mere feet from them, and how come they are so rude they won't let anyone else try to make the train? Don't they get that little push inside of them to move faster as they are overwhelmed by the deafening brake screeches overhead? Do they weigh their options at the fourth stair and seriously decide, "Well, I could move a little faster and make this train, but seeing as I have nothing to do, I'll just keep at the same 1 mph pace and wait 15 minutes for the next train."

Good thing it was an express train and blew right by us. While I waited, I avoided getting my eyes removed with aluminum-capped nubs by many passing commuters' golf umbrellas. After a drenching (and harrowing) ten minutes, a W rolled through.

At QB Plaza, I had no qualms about checking three small Indian men who barged onto the N the second the doors opened and smashed into me. As I held my elbow steady and ran it along their ribs, I wrote them a letter in my head:

Dear Sirs,

If you don't let the people off, you're going to get an elbow in the ribs, and no amount of yelling "Bitchface!" is going to make the slightest bit of difference until you learn this simple rule.

Cordially,
Bitchface

7: Fine ride. Some 40-year-old with wire-rimmed glasses bumped into me on the way out the door, without recognition, in order to be the first to go down the stairs. But, instead of stealthily gliding down the stairs he so desperately wanted to be the leader of, he walked down slowly, clogging up the entire staircase! I couldn't believe it: another slow walker!

I took a deep breath, and scooted by him out the turn styles.

G: Got a seat, read in "Running with Scissors," laughed out loud and got off without incident.


GOING HOME:
At 5pm, I caught the B to 34th Street, bought a hoodie at Old Navy because it was about 25 degrees colder than I had prepared for, met up with friends outside Times Square, popped on the F to Delancy for my boss's birthday in the LES, walked over to the uptown B at Broadway/Lafayette for my boo's comedy show, then, we caught the N home.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

Thursday, August 9th

Sunny, crisp blue sky, easy breathing.

75 degrees.

With the ease of which I commuted today, one would never (ever) guess that any disruption happened throughout the entire subway system yesterday...

N: Arrived as I reached the platform. Everyone was reading newspaper articles about how f-ed the commute was yesterday.

7: Arrived as we reached the Plaza.

G: Left as I sat down. Easy peazy.

Wednesday, August 8th: epilouge

Getting home was much easier. Whew.

At 7pm, I left Brooklyn for 34th Street on the B (which arrived after just a few minute wait). At 9:30pm, my boo and girlfriends and I caught an N home (it arrived as we arrived, I HEART same-time arrivals), no problem.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Wednesday, August 8th: final chapter

96 degrees. Bright sun.

12:38pm

Made it to work. It took an hour and a half. The concrete was hot, drivers were severely agro and I breathed in lots and lots and lots of bus fumes.

Half of my co-workers are working from home.

I could take a nap right about now.

Wednesday, August 8th: continued

Sunshine. 99% humidity. 88 degrees (and rising).

10:19 am.

The news on every channel is reporting nothing but anger and frustration from commuters using the MTA.

There is currently no service on the G, the Q/N into Brooklyn, the 1, the E, the F and on and on.

Ok. So, I have no choice but to avoid the subway completely. Sigh. The only way I'm getting to work is on my bike.

It'll probably take me 45 minutes to ride about 10 miles. I'm going to pour over my NYC Cycling map for most bike-friendly route.

Here goes nothing!

Wednesday, August 8th

7:58 am.

I was suprised to see a few rain drops on the window when I opened the bedroom curtains this morning. The lights on my A/C unit were blinking, suggesting I'd lost power. I flipped on NY One to find out if something happened. It turns out, this morning between 6:30-7:30 am, southern Queens and southern Brooklyn had a tornado warning!

The severe weather is now headed east over Long Island, but in it's wake, it has caused street flooding throughout every borough, high wind damage (broken tree branches, roof damage, etc.), cancelled Metro North service in and out of Grand Central, and massive delays on every single subway and bus line in the system in every borough.


Hmm. How will this affect my commute?


Train
The MTA is giving a rare piece of advice: "The MTA recommends that commuters avoid the suways for the time being."

An MTA official on NY One said, "Please stay home. If you're about to leave your house: don't. We probably won't be able to get you from Point A to Point B. Every subway and bus line is affected. The commute will get better as each hour passes. Wait 30 minutes. "

The MTA website is all but shut down because so many people are hitting it. NY One's morning news anchor, Pat Kieren, tells me there's so much water they're removing from the tunnels, it's causing massive delays.

Ok. So, I can't take the subway. Let's suss out my options here...

Bus
Normally, this might be a good option, but with the roads so unpredictable and as it is a part of the system, I feel like it might not be worth the frustration. Also, the buses will probably take the hit from the subway commuters and NY One reported "highly frustrated commuters" at the Times Square bus transfer where there were too many people for the amount of buses. Yikes, no thanks.

Car Service
I'd bet, with the major roadways taking the traffic from the smaller roads that might be flooded and with the majority of the redirected and highly frustrated commuters already out there, this isn't the best option. Also, I don't want to pay $35 to get to work.

Bike
Well, this seems like it might be my only option right now. My only hesitation is that I've never made the ride. So, it's about what my body can do right now and what the streets between me and Fort Greene look like. The more I watch news and stretch on the floor, the more I hesitate to hop on my bike.

Yikes. I dunno. I'll check back in a few...

ASIDE: Here is yet another reason why I freakin heart New York: As a Midwesterner, I grew up with tornados (or threat of tornadoes) as a part of normal weather patterns. So, watching Brooklyn Boricuas describe how the winds in Bay Ridge sounded like a freight train was amazing, "Oh my God! You don' even understand! It was like, 'WHOOOOOOOOOSH!' I was like, 'Oh my God!' De whole apartment shook and I was like 'I gotta get unda somefing!' Y'know? "

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Tuesday, August 7th

Bright, humid, and hot. So muggy that when you move, you sweat.

85 degrees.

Before 9am.

N: Waited 20 minutes for the bleeding train to come. Four outbound trains crept by on the opposite side and I couldn't help but think that the massive delay wasn't caused by a train malfunction, but rather, a brain malfunction.

Who was the poor bureaucratic bastard, trapped inside his tiny, hot prison of an office at the end of Ditmars station, magnificently unconcerned about the swelling numbers of morning rush commuters multiplying on the edge of the platform? As the trainless minutes ticketed by, what was this unknown schedule he had to stick to that restricted him from sending off an inbound train, when 4 trains were at his disposal? Why why why must it be so freaking hot and--thankfully, the train arrived with A/C on full blast to relieve my brain from the suffocating August air.

7: Waited another 10 minutes for the 7 train to come into QB Plaza.

All the regulars were there like an introduction to a comic book: Vet (cane at the ready, unsuccessfully trying not to melt like Frosty in summer), Hound Dog (the petite, possibly West Indian, greying woman with bejeweled glasses straps and her sunflower dress, who obediently looks out the train windows for anything out of the ordinary. Her watch is only the length of a single stop, but she guards the train gallantly. I was standing beside her the day she got her calling: it was a breezy June morn as we passed the spaghetti-like on-ramps of the Queensborough Bridge, she, the lone witness, cried out, "Oh my God!" Seconds later, I followed the invisible line her rigid, pointed finger made out the scratch-bombed windows to see a leather-clad man sprawled on the concrete, his motorcycle lying sideways 15 feet from where he lay.), Fussy Asian Doctor in scrubs and the rest of the motley crew: Annoyed Day Laborer, Blasting iPod Man, and Tireless Baby. The only one missing was Italian Stallion (the frustrated, squat, middle-aged woman who always gives me disapproving looks when I wait along side her at QB Plaza).

Finally the train arrived and we manned our posts: Vet melted, Hound Dog stared, Asian doctor fussed, and I wondered what I'd do if I found out that I was linked genetically to a reckless and evil villain like Voledmort.

G: The commuter flood washed over me, I copped a seat and tried to fight the encroaching migraine (thanks to my constricted sinuses)...which felt like my scar was burning...

Monday, August 6, 2007

Monday, August 6th

Overcast, humid, threat of rain. 75 degrees.

Before 9 am.

N: A striking image of old-world-meets-new greeted me at the top of the platform stairs: a woman in a floor-length navy blue burka, a shadowy sliver for eyes, and black silk gloves was chatting on her hot pink Razor phone.

A new train arrived as I reached the mid-point of the platform.

Once on the train, I recognized the mousy brunette standing next to me, but couldn't remember how I knew her. I tried to place her in context for a few stops, but aborted the attempts to connect myself to her as she absent-mindedly leaned her whole body against the pole, crushing my hand with her back.

7: I smashed into a few aggro commuters who plowed into me as I got off the train. Train arrived as I reached the end of the platform.

G: One of the only seats open was at the end of the first car where I found a blond woman in her 20's wearing cut-offs and an iPod. She made the unorthodoxed decision to sit in the middle seat of the three-seat row, and put her oversized bag on the far seat next to the door.

I looked down at her, silently urging her to move over so we can have a seat of bags to separate us. She defiantly stared back at me, daring me to sit down next to her. The doors closed with a bing-bong, I pursed my lips and sat down beside her. She scoffed and got off at the next stop, but I hardly noticed because I realized I only have 150 pages left in Harry Potter!