Man, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I totally love the subway. I guess that’s why I don’t really mind so much that I live an hour away from everything. I love that it runs all night, I love that you always see crazy people, I love watching people fighting to stay awake, I love getting up to offer my seat to a pregnant lady, I love watching tourists be all confused or freaked out. OK, I don’t totally love seeing dudes spit on the floor of the car, or being in subway stations in July. But I love everything else.
Yesterday, I was on the A train going downtown, and a couple who were obviously from out of town got on the train. You can identify people who come from a land of driving by the way they refuse to move on the train without tightly clutching onto something with both hands. It’s kind of amazing. Some kids got on the train at the same time, and it was obvious that they were going to start dancing. Of course, not to the tourists. I guess the boombox wasn’t enough of a tip off. They stood, huddled together, grabbing the pole nearest to them. The kids politely asked them to move, and they just squished themselves closer together instead of moving further down the car. As soon as the kids started dancing, the tourist dude pulled out his cellphone to take a video. He kept being like, “I’m gonna put you guys on YouTube!” in his amazing out-of-town accent. (Midwest? Florida? Who knows!) The best part was watching these two scramble for seats when they became available; they seemed so afraid of falling down, so they moved really fast to sit. New York must be so exciting and huge and fast-paced to them.
Part of me is starting to wonder if I’ll miss New York when I move back to California…but I’m guessing not too much.
