Several Observations As I Ride The Subway Home: Monday 10-1-12 - By Allan Raible

1.  I am not sitting anywhere near the map, having learned my lesson on Thursday.  However, there is a woman leaning down over me as if she is looking at the map.  I suspect she is checking out her own reflection in the window.  From within the confines of the dark tunnel, the light gives the window a strong, definitive mirror-like quality.  I only look at her for a brief second, but I get a pretty good view of her.  She's forty at most, but her face looks weathered.  What causes this?  Smoking?  Too much sun?  It could be the fact that she's probably a bit thinner than she should be.  In a few years, the weathered look that has given her face character may spread down to her neck.  Whatever the cause, whether outside or simply genetics, it makes me think about how it's all a crapshoot.  We end up aging the way we do because of a simple luck of the draw.  That's how some people at fifty still look 25 and others look like they are 75.  She wears a pair of those ipod earphones. Have you ever sat next to someone wearing those?  Noise leaks out like crazy, reducing everything to a tinny static.  And usually, when that happens, they don't even have to be very loud!  It's crazy.  

2. Another woman down the way keeps catching my eye.  I don't know why.  I look at her.  She looks back.  Then we pretend we aren't looking at each other.  What is this?  She's probably ten years younger than I am and it's probably just that we just happen to be in each other's eye-line.  Interestingly, she, too is wearing the stock ipod ear-buds.  Did I miss something?  When did people stop buying decent headphones for themselves?

3.  It's a bumpy ride and it gets a little surreal as my music switches from the Bees' "I Really Need Love" to "Washed Out's "Feel It All Around."  As the latter track's woozy beat thumps us each that much closer to our chosen destinations, I watch the bodies sway back and forth from my seated viewing position.  It's as if they are all passive victims of gravity, moving at the train's will.  

4.  We are living in a very ugly time, fashion-wise.  Not that I have any fashion sense, myself, but I've never seen so many ugly plaid shirts as I do during my daily commute back and forth.  There's one guy in a somewhat reserved, but still heinous red and white number.  He's wearing Dockers and conservative business shoes.  I have no idea what he is listening to.  Judging from his look, I'm guessing it could be anything from the Dave Matthews Band to Michael Buble.  He seems to be doing a rather spastic neck dance, so I'm thinking it might be something harder. Perhaps some Slayer or maybe even some Ice Cube.  As I'm noticing his neck movement and subconsciously mocking him for it, I realize that I'm doing the same idiotic move, myself to my music!  People is glass houses.....   Then I wonder, what kind of music do I look like I should be listening to?  If people were to guess would they be right?

5.  As the train heads out of the tunnel, I attempt to take a picture of the sunset against the deep, blue sky, thus momentarily freaking out the woman sitting next to me until she realizes what I'm doing.  I take this picture too quickly and it comes out blurry.  (See side exhibit.) Not wanting to freak the woman next to me out anymore, I stick with it and put my phone away.  

6.  There's a woman across the way from me who is listening to something funny.  I know this because she keeps laughing to herself.  I've been there.  Listening to comedy albums while you ride the train can easily make you seem like a crazy person.  She gets off of the train the stop before me, being followed by a guy who for no reason seems to be giving me the stink-eye and a guy who looks like Butch Vig's straight-laced yuppie older brother.