HI! Whoa. Is this thing on?
Well, Stephanie and Laura have been blogging for some time now, so I guess it is time for me to enter my first blog.
First let me write blog one more time. Ok. On your mark, get ready … BLOG!
The weird thing is, I used to have all of these random thoughts in college, but there wasn’t really an outlet to share them. I tried to use “away messages” through AIM to share funny thoughts, and well, I guess that kind of worked. However, I had longer, more luxurious weird thoughts that didn’t quite fit into the AIM character limit. Instead of writing them down, I merely shared them with Karen, one of my college roommates. For example, I thought a good idea for a movie would be a romantic comedy that was pretty standard in plot and characters, except they could also fly. There would be no mention of this ability; it would simply be something people could do along with walking down the street and buying groceries. Anyway, my point is that now that blogs exist, I have nothing left to say.
I’ve been walking around New York City since the creation of Apartment 3R, just waiting for something blog-worthy to happen. Turns out, things are pretty normal around here. Two weeks ago I was riding the subway to work in the morning on a relatively empty L train (Empty L train? I know! Weird!), and I chose to stand near the doors, leaning against the metal bars with my gym bag at my feet. A middle-aged man in business attire got on the train and stood right in front of me. As most straphangers know (look at THAT term! I’m a real New Yorker!), if someone stands face-to-face with you when your back is at the door, it usually means that A) the train is crowded B) that person is your significant other, or C) that person plans to exit the train at the next stop. None of those things were true. This guy basically had me cornered, the train was practically empty, I was not dating him, and he didn’t exit the train at the next stop or any of the next 4 stops. I should have said something rude to him or just moved, but I decided to stand there since gathering my gym bag would have been a difficult maneuver at that point. Instead, I opened my copy of Metro (look! Another thing REAL New Yorkers do!) in his face. I had my arms fully extended with the paper fully open, creating a barrier from face to just above the crotch region. If this didn’t give him the message that he was being an asshole, I’m not sure what would have. Still, in this city, that’s not such an outrageous story, and I’m not sure someone would want to read about it in a blog.
Before I moved to The City, I lived in the suburbs of The District. There, subway rides and riders are a little tamer. Sure, the NYC subway is relatively quiet during the morning commute, but it doesn’t really compare to the silence on the DC Metro during rush hour. No one speaks. No one looks up. Therefore, if anyone makes any sort of noise or movement that doesn’t resemble reading the Express, listening to music through earphones, or sleeping, it upsets the herd. For example, I’ll never forget the time this old, Asian man got on the train when we were at West Falls Church on the Orange Line heading toward DC during the morning rush hour commute. I had seen this guy before. He liked to share his love for Jesus through song, especially during the holidays. I found it rather obnoxious, because his singing made it difficult for me to listen to my iPod. However, this one time he got on the train, and the guy sitting in front of me (the seats on the subway trains are different in DC, don’t you understand? The seating is like that which you would find on a bus or Amtrak train) was not having it. The Asian man stood near the door and began singing a song about loving Jesus, and the guy in front of me yelled very loudly. His message was something like, “DO I HAVE TO SIT HERE AND LISTEN TO THIS! WHY DON’T YOU SHUT UP!?” I guess I was a little surprised that the Asian man was not fazed in the least by this yelling. I mean, this guy was really yelling. At this point, I was getting irritated because the singing and now the YELLING was really drowning out my iPod. Come on, people! Pipe down! This is DC! We’re all dressed in black, navy blue, or khaki; can’t we get along? The guy in front of me continued to yell, and then this woman across the aisle got up and told the guy in front of me to be quiet. “Let him sing his song!” She felt so strongly (I think about Jesus) that she got up and stood behind the Asian man trying to sing along with him from him book of hymns. I was nervous that the guy in front of me would start throwing punches. Random people were yelling at both the Asian guy and the yelling guy to shut up. I think the Asian guy and the woman (and possibly others on the train) really felt like they did something for Jesus that day. A real triumph for Christianity, if you will.
You see, in NY, the Asian guy would have been singing his song, but life on the train would have continued on as usual. Meaning, girls on their way to high school would continue to talk loudly about whom they plan to beat up and whom they plan to fuck (you can replace high school with middle or elementary school as well). The homeless guy or gal on the train would have continued to panhandle. The hipsters would have continued to read Nietzsche and generally look and feel ironic. No cause for agitation or hard feelings. Nothing unusual.
Anyway, so I’ll continue to look for things to blog about, but when the weird and unusual is standard, it’s like WHAT DO I BLOG ABOUT, you guys?
