Runaway Train Never Coming Back
I started my new job on Monday and besides being completely exhausted from getting up at 5am every morning it seems to be working out all right. PK is frustrated with the early rising and has been a bit bitter about me working in the city but I think she’ll forgive me eventually. We’re really only leaving the house 15 minutes earlier than we used to but switching back to that from being home for a month is a bit of a toll. Still, we do what we must and carry on right?
I was kind of looking forward to taking the train because I imagined that it would give me time to myself for thoughtful introspection and all that blahdy-blah-blah stuff. I figured I’d have almost 3 hours for reading each day which would make me a calmer and possibly saner person. Plus, no road rage! And those things have happened, but what I didn’t figure in what the anxiety that would replace all the other stuff.
I’m one of those habitually late people. I have no solid grasp on the concept of time and its inevitable passing. I often get lost in a thought or activity and lose track. This has always been a minor nuisance but not a major problem because I could easily make up for tardiness by driving faster or staying later. No longer. I am now a slave to the train schedule. So far nothing disastrous has happened and I’m hoping that inflicting this on myself will help me to become a better person and all, but I’m doubtful. Thus the anxiety. I think that after the first time I miss my morning train and the sky doesn’t fall I’ll end up not worrying quite so much, it’s just the unknown. Because no one can convince me that the sky doesn’t care about me messing up the morning routine until the heavens prove their disinterest by being disinterested at the appropriate time.
Once I’m on the train it’s not so bad. The morning is easier on me because I get on and sit there until we hit the end of the line, then everyone gets up and that’s my cue to close the book and start walking. In the evening it’s a little trickier. I listen to my music and read my book and try to keep track of where we are along the line but today I the car I was in didn’t have good speakers so I had trouble hearing them announce the stops. I was so engrossed in my book that I didn’t notice the passage of time and it’s dark out so I couldn’t glance out the window to see where we were. Fortunately I was able to make out the announcement when we stopped at the station right before mine and I was able to scoot my tush to the back to deboard when we hit my stop.
Then there’s the last annoyance of the train. The people. In general I like people and I don’t have a problem with sharing a seat with a stranger. If I keep my headphones on or my nose buried in the pages I seem to attract like-minded traveling companions who don’t wish to chat but will pull out their own iPods or newspapers or whatnot and leave me alone. Yesterday, however, I had my first brush with a not so considerate person. Since I’m one of the first stops on the route I am able to grab and empty seat and I scoot over to the window to make room for other passengers. I’m just polite like that. So this guy gets on yesterday and I saw him out of the corner of my eye and thought “not this one!” but he sat down anyway. He was a very tall gentleman and rather portly. He looked at me and I avoided eye contact. He then tipped his head straight back and went to sleep. You all know what’s coming next right? As he slept he began to slump over in my direction. Long story short, by the time we hit the city I was getting overly friendly with the window and couldn’t even reach in my pocket to adjust the volume of my iPod when it started blaring in my ears. The dude woke up and didn’t even apologize for taking up 4/5 of the seat. BLECH!
So that’s that.
