The A Train is a Zoo.

I've been taking the A train every day this summer for work and let me just say...once those doors go "bing bong" and close behind you, welcome to the circus. I've seen the following so far:

-a big bald black guy SCREAMING Bible verses and telling everyone that he knows people get mad when he preaches, but he'll do it anyway

-a black woman sitting right behind me reading verses from the Bible in a weird monotonous voice while I'm trying to read at 8 in the morning

-multiple young men selling candy for $1 -- "NOT for any basketball team, but to have a little money in my pocket and stay off the streets." I actually like this one because they've stepped up their game and now stock Welch's fruit snacks. I can dig it.

-young men with a boombox playing loud music, clapping, announcing "It's showtime! It's showtime!" and proceeding to back flips and such up and down the train car

-the conductor saying, "This has been the A experience. Have an interesting day" as people exit when the doors open at the various stops

There's also this weird thing I see every morning inside the Chambers Street station on the A. When I get off the train and walk towards the exit, there are always these two women sitting on those gross wooden platform seats with one seat between them. On that seat, there's a spread of slices of pound cake, muffins, bread, and other random stuff and the two women are feasting. I came home really late last night from an event in the area and I'm pretty sure I saw one of those women sleeping on that same platform bench. What's the story there?

Anyway...be careful on the A, man. There's all kinds of ridiculous shit happening on there.

Extra Baggage

Today one of those kids was selling candy on the train and I bought some Welch's Fruit Snacks to support his entrepreneurial spirit. I opened the bag and it's less than a quarter full. We all know when we buy a bag of chips or something that it's gonna be less than half full, but why do companies do it? Like, the jig is up. We know how much is in there by now. It's just tons of extra packaging -- which, along with being nonsensical and annoying, is also bad for the environment. Is there anything we can do to get companies to size the packaging so that it's appropriate for the content?

NBA MVP 2009

I am so deliciously glad it's not Kobe.

Wow.

Men (and experienced women): 

I NEED to know what you think about this. 

You're My Everything...Until Someone Else is.

Provoking piece in the Styles section of the Times today. They've been doing this "Modern Love" series for a while and this column was one of the more interesting installments I've read so far. It's about an American student who moved to Thailand to teach English shortly after graduating from college. One of her students (college-aged) fell in love with her and the story is about their interaction while there and then after she returned to the States. An excerpt:

Text messaging and chatting are the modus operandi, and everybody seems to consider it a tragedy of modern romance that these forms of communication make it so frighteningly easy to say nothing at all, to forge a relationship out of little more than a few well-timed expressions: “Where r u?” and “Want to meet up?” Maybe...expressiveness seems strange to us, or pathetic. But it has something to teach us, too, about the note of cowardice embedded in our romantic culture, about the intensity of emotion we have a right to, about everything we could say, but don’t.

Read the piece. Knowing you're all either in love or have been in love, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it.

Best. Commercial. EVER.

This Is What They Look Like?!

I just Googled images of actual wolverines (the animal). And wtf. I am sorely disappointed. How did this:



Turn into this?



Now I'm supposed to go watch this movie tonight and think about this adorable stupid animal while watching Hugh Jackman be all muscular and fierce? I'm pissed.