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.