Noise noise everywhere

Dear American universities,

If you're going to charge exorbitant tuition for your often dubious services, please at least teach our young women how to formulate sentences without peppering them with likes and whatevers so I don't have to contemplate the joys of ritual suicide.

No love,

The woman whose patience is wearing thinner than ever

Also.

Dear idiot man-child,

Please stop playing your loud racing game on tour handheld while sitting next to me in one of the few benches in this station. The revving noise is making me peevish and the bloops are making me want to use your skin as a rug.

No love,

Me.

She is the Klutzy Queen

It's undisputed fact that in normal life I am the clumsiest woman in the world. I trip on flat surfaces, walk into chairs, tables, doors, sprout mysterious bruises from unknown collisions... You get the picture.

But when I move with purpose, like for example like when I'm playing the speed game, I am invincible. When I'm playing the speed game, I am an urban ninja, I bump into nothing and no one, trip over nothing, I am graceful and agile.*

So could someone please explain why the universe felt the need to make it up to me yesterday by surrounding me with runners up to my klutz queen crown? Including the guy who was hanging onto two rails in the subway car but still stumbled back and stepped on me.

Really universe I give myself enough bruises. Don't help.

*hyperbole not included in your daily service rates

Stairs and Manhattanites

When I am walking down the stairs and I get stuck behind a heavily pregnant woman and a suit clad middle aged man, guess which one I expect to be the slowpoke...

Dear middle aged suit man, the very pregnant woman got down those stairs twice as fast as you. Be embarrassed. And stop slowing down foot traffic.

No love,

The woman whose speed game you are messing up.

Monday Maniacs

Please strange man do not sit next to me smelling like you've been pickled in stale alcohol and sounding like you have consumption.

It's Monday morning which is my peak homicidal urges time. If you're after ending the torment of your existence peacefully, this is not the way.

I could suggest other options if you like.

No love,

Vixen

Kids on my lawn... Err train.

Dear young people,

I do not know what has induced you to cuddle in the train doors, clinging to each other like the boy is going off to war. For all I know he may be, though I doubt it.

Nonetheless. Next time please take your cuddling where you would not be blocking people from entering the train. Especially when the train wasn't even due to depart for another seven minutes.

Silly kids.

Love,

The totally not old lady who passed by you and didn't even shake her head.

Me and the MTA

This is the third day that the up escalator at my train station has not functioned. The slow simmer of aggravation has now escalated into crimson eyed homicidal rage.

Yes, yes I know it doesn't take much to make me homicidal. But that's part of my charm.

The relevant point is that the city expects me to walk up a broken escalator before 8am. I can't walk up stairs when I'm fully awake. Never you mind what I'm like on half asleep autopilot - shuffle, shuffle, chooocolate!!!

What this leads me to conclude is that the mta reads my blog and secretly wants me to rain fire and destruction upon it. Right? Right?

Right. So, remember, no one panic when bad things start to happen at the mta headquarters. They will be liking it.

Exception Tests the Rule

If you must do the dreaded running shoe (which you must NOT), then at least do it with panache like the young woman this morning - a sky blue sneaker with bright orange laces. That's not comfort, that's bucking the establishment.

I still hate the running shoe with office clothing but she gets points for being fun. If the train was stuck for a few hours (which is always an option in the city), I think we could bond and talk about city adventures - yes I do judge strangers based on shoes, why do you ask?

Pretentious Train Adventure

Please, do not make me hear the words "what up, homes?" ever again. Especially from a suburban white girl in her twenties.

My soul feels whithered.

Thank god for the watermelon half filled with alcohol that my sis and I consumed before I got on this train.

Or heads would be rolling, yo. Homes.

Alternate

Today I saw a petite, elegant Asian woman in a little black dress with waves of dark hair to her shoulders. One hand securely wrapped around the metal subway pole, the other held a salmon colored - sepia in the uneven subway light - newspaper. Her hair brushed her cheek, her face intent on the article and, when I glanced over, the truncated headline that caught my eye was "What would Roosevelt do". The rest of the words were insignificant, hidden behind the fold.

Who was this Roosevelt? Teddy? FD Eleanor?

Caged by the antique sheen by the paper, for a moment I wondered it might be one of them, the paper decades old, the elegant stranger a walker through time.

Or maybe a walker through possibilities. Maybe she came from another world, another reality, another 2012, with another powerful Roosevelt emerging on the field before the looming election. Another Roosevelt with no patience for nonsense and a penchant for accomplishment.

When she exited at her station, I wondered if I could follow her there.

(In the interests of full disclosure the paper was the Financial Times.)

Quotes of the Day

Sometimes, I think I'm funny. Other times, other people do.

"I don't need a lightsaber. I am the dark side of the force."

"It's kind of like an awesome tennis match except there's like at least a dozen people playing and it's not really tennis balls but various shiny things they're throwing around and the rules keep changing and sometimes you win if you let the thing through!!!" - in response to being told that my mind is made of random goodness.

The Shoe Hammer

Dear women of New York,

I've tried to hold this in. I've kept this back all summer. But I can keep quiet no longer.

With all of the attractive warm or cold weather shoe options available, there is no excuse* to wear running shoes with your business or casual business clothing.

*This does not include women with foot medical issues although I wonder if there are better options there too? A cute Mary Jane perhaps? With extra cushioning?

The running shoes stick out like a gnarled, infected thumb, always some other pale color that completely clashes with the outfit. It's what the lovely ladies at GFY call a scroll down fug.  Great look till you get down... to the feet.

There are sandals or flats for warm weather and boots for cold.

So no. No more running shoes, women of New York, unless you're actually running.

Love,

The crazy shoe addict who is yay close to tearing the running shoes of off you all...