From the Corner Seat of a Subway Car

I haven't had time to write.

Well... actually I've been typing up something everyday for work. But it hasn't gone on the blog -- and that's what you read, so please excuse me. 

Work is hard, money is tight, and the recent weather has been uncooperative in a misty sort of way. Yet look at this: it's mid-June and just as I'd hoped, I'm relentlessly occupied. We all are. The long days and short nights of summer are amongst us. Now if only it would stop raining.

Speaking of being busy, I'm writing this on the subway via my iPhone's "Notes" app. It's 11:46pm and I'll have to be up in six hours to scour the web for news stories to pitch at work. So personal writing will have to take place underground, surrounded by New York's finest.  

By the way, the man next to me smells weird. And the guy across the aisle is taking pictures of me, as well as the surrounding occupants of this subway car with a huge camera. No one stops him; I'm not sure if any of us care. Plus he doesn't realize I'm actually writing about him.

Two girls to my right have huge suitcases, packed full of who knows what, going who knows where. Someone coughs; someone sneezes. Three people are reading paperback books, while another flips through a Kindle. If there's anything I can say about New York, it's that we're forced to be well-read.

Four stops to go until we're above ground. The connection at Queensboro Plaza will probably empty out this train a bit. 

Why is our conductor repeatedly explaining the construction work affecting our commute -- and in perfect diction, no less? He knows we're all locals. Tourists rarely make it out to Queens past 10pm... (snort) if at all. Yet it seems when you're visiting the city, lost in Time Square, the train conductor makes sure to tell you that the next stop is "blahppsshblah" and that construction will re-route you to "scccreeetchpblah."

(Note: If this ever happens to you, just ask someone for directions who has a bagel, book, or baby.)

So this post isn't really about anything. I just wanted you to sit on the N train with me as we whip through Manhattan and fly into Queens. I want you to smell what I smell (which at the moment is a mixture of leather and rain) and see what I see. I want you know what it's like to commute home at midnight, observing our world from the corner seat of a subway car.

Maybe you found this entry intriguing. Or maybe you're pissed that you read all the way to the end of this post, only to learn a lot about nothing. But either way, I stole your time. You were with me, whether you wanted to be or not. And sometimes that's all we need to know.

Here's my stop. Now we shall walk 15 minutes towards home, past the fruit carts and buzzing restaurants, only to do it all again tomorrow. Can you keep up?

I do hope so. But I've been told I walk fast.

Sent from my iPhone. Pardon any misspellings.

From the Corner Seat of a Subway Car