By Beauty Damned

A Harried Week

Thank god the weekend is in clear view. I feel like I was practically ejected out of the tranquility of the breathtaking desert and my heartwarming family vacation directly into a packed subway station with smelly strangers breathing down my neck.

The winter is difficult in New York. Difficult in the sense that it gets very cold and no one wants to walk anywhere so the subways are packed to the gills every day. There has only been one day this week when I wasn't a half hour late to work due to train delays. Monday morning was frustrating. My first train came on time, but when I made my first transfer where I usually catch my express train, the train arrived on the local track. After boarding I caught the announcement that due to signal problems on the express track all trains would be making local stops. If you haven't already guessed it, this also means that twice as many trains are on the local track so that each train is forced to stop for an average of ten minutes at each station.

It is an excruciating experience, especially if you are not wearing the most comfortable shoes, which of course, I wasn't. They're not UNcomfortable. They have a wedge heel and all that but my back begins to ache like a son-of-a-bitch and I start to feel grouchy. In fact, everyone starts to feel grouchy which doesn't exactly promote harmony and brotherly love. It totally sucks. So that was Monday. Tuesday I almost managed to get there on time, though the trains were packed and slow moving (as they will be for the remainder of this winter), there were no ten minute stops.

My good luck ran out right there. On Wednesday my express train from Brooklyn was running smoothly and I thought I was home free, except that when I transferred to my third and final train at Union Square the trains were all backed up due to a sick passenger at 77th Street. I am not making this up folks. It took me more than twenty minutes to go ONE stop on the express train. I know. It sounds impossible. But it's for real. And that wasn't the worst thing about Wednesday morning. The worst thing was that I woke up to the sound of my cat Matilda knocking a glass of water off of the nightstand and realized that the reason she'd knocked it over was because, obviously, she was thirsty. Why was she thirsty? Because although I'd asked Robert to give her food and water before he fell asleep on the couch in front of the tv the night before, he had not done said chore and Matilda was very hungry and very thirsty. And I was very pissed.

This is where I will refer to Darcie's post where she helped me to define the origin of my increasingly jacked up emotions this week, aside from the basic fact that living in this city can be stressful for a hormonally balanced individual, much less a temporarily imbalanced one.

I yelled at Robert about not feeding and providing hydration for Matilda. Then I slammed the door on my way out to go to work. Then I got on the train and everything was fine until the Union Square transfer (though I stayed steemed at Rob for awhile). The subway platform was about five people deep on each side with a narrow path leading through the throngs of waiting passengers. When the train finally came, as many of us fit as the doors could hold. But the doors didn't close quickly as they usually do. They stayed open and the announcement was made about the sick passenger and that we were being held due to resulting congestion. It's amazing the hatred you can feel for a sick passenger when they are the one who is making you late for work. Of course we know that if you're sick there's not a damn thing you can do about it, but we all wish you could get off the train and out of the way a whole lot quicker so that the thousands of people waiting don't all have to get fired from their jobs for being late because of all the sick passengers, signal problems and track suicides. How insensitive is that? I think I win the major shithead award for that sentiment.

No but wait, I haven't even begun to tell you how crazy I can be. So we are all waiting there and the doors are open and I am sandwiched between the seat bars and some dude with a giant black case big enough to carry two bodies, when one final woman decides to squeeze herself onto the train right next to me. As I am shoved into an even tighter position between the bars and the coffin and my anxiety level begins to rise, I take my ipod out of my ear for long enough to look at her and say, "you're kidding me right?" Actually, I cursed at her, but I'm trying to make myself sound like less of a bastard. I said the word "UNfuckingbelievable." I might have said it twice.

But if you think a person couldn't possibly be capable of acting like more of a jerk than that, you didn't see me squeezing a path on the escalator and snapping at the woman at the top who was keeping everyone from walking up on the left side. You see, there is a rule in New York that tourists and people who don't have jobs to get to don't quite understand. The rule is that if you're on an escalator, people on the right stand still and people on the left walk up. If you are on the left and your feet are not moving, you're the asshole. That's just the way it works. And people like me think it's okay to enforce that rule when we are in a hurry, even if it means snapping at a perfectly innocent bystander. "Stander" being the operative word. So after snapping at the woman who had to squeeze herself in next to me on the train (which I probably would have done too if I were her), I squeezed by the lady on the escalator, saying, "people on the left walk up." As I was forging ahead I heard the lady on the escalator say in her thick Long Island accent, "Oh. I'm soo sorryy hunnyyy. I didn't knowww." I could hear the genuinely apologetic tone in her voice, with that motherly sweetness that made me melt a little bit, as I walked on and felt my stomach collapsing inside of me with guilt. But I just kept walking because I was late and I couldn't stop and say I was sorry for being one of those people who doesn't have the time or the patience to just be kind.

I walked through the grand concourse and up the next set of escalators and the next one after that until I finally reached my elevator bank. As I stepped into the elevator I was consumed with a feeling of self loathing and frustration. I made my way immediately to the pantry and swallowed a cup of ice cold water before heading to my desk. I set down my things and went into my boss's office to explain why I was a half hour late. As I looked at his expectant face and told him about the train I could feel my lips beginning to tremble. I excused myself and went to my desk. Then I crumpled. I couldn't stop it. I tried to hold it in, but I think Darcie says it best when she describes it as the "tears lining up at the gates." Mine were lined up since the moment I'd stepped foot into the elevator, and they came crashing out as I plopped down in to my chair. I cried because I felt like a horrible person. I had created all of this hostility towards others out of my own frustrations and I had made other people feel bad. There are much better ways to behave. I felt ashamed and devoid of class.

Anya rounded the corner with her cup of steaming tea and a look of sympathy came over her face as she saw what a teary mess I was. She brought me her big box of tissues and listened to me while I told her about my terrible morning and the whole stupid week. She's a good friend. She listened and commiserated about public transportation and getting it all out to her made me feel a lot better. I told her all the jerky things I'd said and done since I'd gotten out of bed that morning and she forgave me, even though it wasn't her that I'd stepped on.

Today was another difficult morning and commute. My emotions have been on full blast the past two days. But I did myself a favor and bought something I've been wanting for a long time that finally went on sale; these super soft Arianne pajamas that I bought my mom for Christmas last year. I've been wanting a set for myself ever since and they were finally at a price I could feel okay about spending. So I brought them home, poured myself a glass of wine, lit some candles, put in a couple of Tracy Chapman cds, and took a bubblebath, which I rarely do because I'm too wound up and I like showers. I got all scrubbed up and put on my new pajamas and it all made me relax and remember that if I could allow myself to be a little bit less influenced by my surroundings when they're negative, and a little more appreciative of them when they're positive, I could really be on to something.

When I was away from my crazy commute, and relaxing by the palm trees in Arizona, nothing in the world could have made me act the way I did yesterday. But when I allow myself to get caught up in the aggression and insanity of New York, it doesn't always bring out the best in me. I look forward to not having any more days like that one in my near future.

Posted by Maria at December 1, 2005 09:19 PM | TrackBack