Cranky commuter: Hormonal edition

I could have walked to the Metro from my office last night. I probably should have. But even though that's under two miles, I decided to save my energy (I don't have much left these days), so that I could fix enchiladas for dinner when I got home and then could go walking with Brian.

I should have started walking when I waited for the bus for 20 minutes and none came. But by then I'd waited 20 minutes, so one had to be coming soon. Right? Well, only if you count 25 minutes after that as soon.

I should have waited for the next bus when I saw how crowded the first one is. They usually come in packs when they're that far apart, so there was probably another not too far behind. But I couldn't see one coming, so I boarded the crowded one. I wasn't too offended when no one offered me a seat. I wish they would, especially on the bus where I feel less stable than on the train, but it's not the end of the world to have to stand. I'm just confused because people were offering me a seat when I was 5 months pregnant and I thought one might just think I had a bit of belly pudge. Now I'm quickly approaching my due date, and it's rare that I'm offered a seat. A seat on the bus did finally open up near me part way down Wisconsin Avenue and I grabbed it.

I started wishing I had walked (I would have been there so much faster!) as traffic crept along and the bus remained jammed full. A man who I would judge to be about in his 40s ended up standing near me as the bus made its way down M Street. He was casually dressed and carrying a heavy leather bag, sort of a cross between a brief case and a duffel bag, if that makes any sense, slung over his shoulder. I moved my head out of his way as he came by so it wouldn't hit me, just as I had avoided a college student's backpack earlier in the ride. But this man stopped right by me, and I had to keep my head out of the way. Not that that helped. As the man swayed with the turns of the bus, his bag kept hitting me in the shoulder. I tried to move out of the way, but unless I wanted to sit on the lap of the man beside me, I didn't have many options.

"Excuse me!" I finally exclaimed when the man turned for some reason and his bag hit me sharply in the ear. "Could you please be careful with your bag?"

"It's a crowded bus, lady. What do you want me to do?"

"I don't know. When I'm on a crowded bus with a big bag I usually hold it it's handle so it's down towards the floor, not whacking other passengers in the head."

"You wouldn't be having the problem if you would be respectful and give up your seat to someone older than you," he told me.

I thought about ignoring him, but I was cranky and annoyed. Plus, traffic was moving slowly enough with the lights approaching Washington Circle that I knew I could make it to the Metro faster than the bus by walking. So I stood up.

The man with the bag promptly sat down as a woman across the aisle protested that I was pregnant and shouldn't give up my seat.

"Ain't my problem," the man said. "Ain't my fault." The woman protested again and began to offer me her seat, but I shook my head and told her I was getting off soon, as the man muttered something about "Bitches always gettin' pregnant, wantin' special attention for it."

I got off the bus and walked toward the Metro feeling angry and overwhelmed, and wondering how much of it was just hormones. It was 7 pm and I had left work at 5:45, which was ridiculous, and I was exhausted. Nine minutes until the next train, I saw, once I was down on the platform. I sat down on a empty bench to wait, thinking that at least it was late enough that the train wouldn't be too crowded.

There were a few open seats on the car that I boarded. I was at the front of the car, and turned toward the very front of it, where I saw two open seats. A woman ahead of me took one. When I got to the other, I saw that the man sitting next to it had his bag there.

"Excuse me," I said, quietly, the way you do when you need someone to move their bag a little so you can sit down.

He just looked at me. "There are open seats over there," he said after a moment, nodding toward the center of the car. He was right, and as the train pulled out of the station, I turned and went to take one of them.

***

I don't know why people are suddenly so rude. Perhaps it's the stress of the holiday season? I am used to a certain amount of indifference among commuters here, but yesterday seemed exceptional. It was a relief to get on my last bus home, with the driver that a classmate and I nicknamed "Speedy" four years ago, because we knew if we didn't make it onto his bus at Braddock Road by 8:40 PM, we weren't going to make that bus at all because he is always so prompt and will drive faster than seems smart in order to stay on schedule. The bus driver smiled when he greeted me. When I sat down, a neighbor whose name I don't know asked me how I was feeling these days. Another man got on the bus, handing over his transfer and then putting two dollars in the fare box. When Speedy stopped him to ask him what he was doing, the man explained that in the past couple of weeks drivers had let him ride a few times when he didn't have the 35 cents with him to pay the transfer fare, so he was just trying to make up for that. It only took a few little things to improve my mood and make me start thinking that the Metrobus and Metro parts of my commute had been almost funny.

More nesting and other miscellany

Brian and I survived a trip to Ikea over the weekend. That's right, we are both alive and still married. Not only that, but we survived putting our new dresser together (no fighting and Brian only swore a little bit), and didn't even have to make a return trip as a result of missing or broken pieces. The Swedish furniture gods must have been smiling down upon us.

The store was amazingly calm for a Saturday morning. We got there just after it opened, found parking easily, wandered the store without being overwhelmed by crowds, and were able to bring the car around to the loading area without any problems. It was quite the contrast from when I first introduced myself to the gargantuan blue monster just off the freeway in Emeryville. That was shortly after it opened, and apparently everyone in the bay area needed cheap Swedish furniture. I was by myself, and somehow managed to enter through the exit. Since I didn't know anything about Ikea at that point, I was confused about why everyone was so excited about a big warehouse of flat cardboard boxes filled with furniture pieces. Eventually I found my way to the showroom, where I was overwhelmed by crowds as I moved in the opposite direction of the big arrows on the floor. I was never brave enough to return to an Ikea until after we moved to the east coast, when we made the mistake of attempting to buy new furniture the same weekend that all the new students did. That trip required about 3 return trips, all of which I made Brian do on his own on his way home from work. (I'm not entirely sure that Potomac Mills was on his way home, but he was the one who was taking the car each day, and his job was in Vienna which is in Virginia and Potomac Mills is in Virginia, so I assumed they must be near each other. My concept of the layout of this area still leaves something to be desired.) So making it through the store so easily was something of a relief. And we only came out of the Marketplace with three things we hadn't planned on buying.

Plus, now I have a cute little dresser that will be used as a changing table and can hold all of Sticky's cute little clothes. My nesting instinct is once again temporarily satisfied, even if I didn't convince Brian that we need a new dining room set. I figure all I need now are diapers and a carseat. That's all one really needs to have in order to have a baby, right? Well, and boobs to feed her with, but I've decided not to shop around for those and just use the ones I've got.

***

(Who needs a segue when you can just put three little stars up there and change the subject? Worked for Herb Caen.)

(Ha. I just compared me and my blog to Herb Caen.)

I've always believed in the mind-body connection, but in the past year that I've been regularly attending yoga classes--what I think of as real yoga classes, not just stretching classes--the connection has become even more clear to me. In my first trimester I was incredibly anxious most of the time. I continued to attend my yoga classes, find that they helped me relax for the hour and fifteen minutes I was there, and that that relaxed feeling often continued with me for a few days. I struggled with the balance poses, though. I've always been able to find my balance fairly easily and enjoyed the challenge of poses like tree and eagle. But during May and June, I felt incredibly shaky in those poses, often moving closer to the wall in order to give myself more of a sense of security

Yesterday I woke up in a foul mood for no apparent reason--the kind of mood that would have me bursting into tears when Brian asked me how I was feeling. I coaxed myself out the door to my prenatal yoga class, telling myself and Brian that yoga would straighten me out. It didn't occur to me until the teacher had us move into tree pose that my mood would affect my practice, but as I began to shift my weight onto my left leg--usually the side where my balance is the best--I felt wobbly. It took a few tries before I could remain in the pose without tipping over. Balancing on my right leg was even more of a challenge, and even in a warrior flow series I felt shaky.

Today I woke up in a much better mood. I'm going to a regular hatha class tonight, and I think my balance is going to be better.

***

My short term memory seems to be fading. I print a document, leave my office to pick it up from the printer, forget what it was I was doing, go into the kitchen to get a snack, and then return to my desk. Then someone else finds my document on the printer and brings it to me. I keep a notebook of all my phone calls at work, but I think I am going to have to record the details of all the in-person conversations I have as well.

***

I saw my first Monty Python movie over the weekend. Somehow, all I'd ever managed to see were Flying Circus episodes. A friend in college had a box set or something of those, and Brian and I spent a weekend with the flu our senior year crashed out in front of the TV watching those. Anyhow, the movie was hilarious, and I don't know how I went so long without that silliness.

***

Brian and I have met with a couple of doulas recently, and we settled on one easily. I had worried that we wouldn't like the same person, but in the end it was no trouble at all. One woman we met with for what we assumed would be a 30-minute interview. We talked with her for two hours and thought she was fantastic. Another came by our house over the weekend. Within a few minutes of her arrival, both Brian and I knew that we wouldn't be able to have this woman attending Sticky's birth. I feel like such a freaking hippy for saying this (but hell, I'm talking about doulas, so why not?), but the negative energy she gave off left me stunned. I have a feeling that she and I agreed on most things, but her approach to things that she didn't like were hostile andaggressive . We spent about half an hour with her, and after closing the door behind her, we looked at each other and said "Not her." At least she helped make our decision simple. And it was nice to know that Brian and I are on the same wavelength.

***

It makes me happy that there are nice people out there. I worried when I got to the Metro this morning and saw "MAJOR DELAYS" in red letters on the screen. My sciatica was killing me (I blame Ikea), and I didn't want to wait forever for a train. I only waited a couple of minutes, though, and when I boarded the crowded train, a woman promptly smiled and stood up to give me her seat. Most of the time, especially in the morning, I don't take a seat when it's offered, as I don't really feel like I need it. But since my seven-minute ride took half an hour, I was relieved to be sitting down.

Don't tell the Blue Jays

Overheard on my bus home yesterday:

Man #1: Y'hear about that guy that shot up that school in Canada?

Man #2: Man, that wasn't in Canada. That was Montreal.

Man #1: Montreal is in Canada.

Man #2: No, it ain't, man. The Nats was the Montreal Expos 'fore they came here. They don't got baseball in Canada.

Milestone

Yesterday on my commute home, someone offered me a seat on the train.

I was so suprised that I refused her offer.

How to entertain yourself on Metro when you've finished the Sudoku

I stepped onto the nearly-empty last car of the train, sat down in one of the first seats, and immediately regretted my choice: the young man behind me was talking on a cell phone. But even though he was talking in a loud cell phone voice, he did at least seem to be wrapping up his conversation.

“Excuse me,” I heard a woman behind me and across the aisle say after he hung up. “You aren’t from this area, are you?”

“No,” he told her. It was a safe question on her part: from the conversation he was having, it had been clear he was in town to visit friends.

“Well, they recently passed a law about using cell phones on the Metro. It’s actually a $25 ticket.”

“Oh, I didn’t know.” He sounded very apologetic.

“A lot of people who aren’t from here don’t. It just passed and they don’t have signs up on all the trains.”

I bit my lip and tried not to laugh, as the young man apologized and the woman assured him that it was all right, that she was just trying to help him out. I wanted to turn around and look at them. Because of where I was seated I couldn’t even glimpse their reflections in the windows, but the man across the aisle from me was also suppressing laughter.

Last year for Christmas Brian gave me a book of lies to tell children. I’m thinking there ought to be one of fun lies to tell tourists.

Because "WTF?" didn't qualify as kind or helpful

Last night I stepped onto the right-hand side of the escalator down to the platform at the Foggy Bottom Metro station. I heard some grumbling behind me and turned to see commuters making their way around a family of tourists who were standing (single file, at least) on the left.

"Number one rule for riding Metro is to stand on the right on the escalator so people can pass on the left," I told the tourist mom in what I hoped was a kind and helpful voice, "especially at rush hour."

"Oh, but we need to get the train on the left side," she replied.

At the Foggy Bottom station there is ONE escalator going down to the ONE platform where trains in BOTH directions arrive. I tried to find a way that her reasoning made sense, and opened my mouth to say something else, but then I walked away to wait for a train that would be arriving on the left side of the platform.

True fiction

On my way out the door this morning, I grabbed a copy of the New Yorker that was sitting on the coffee table, this summer’s fiction issue. I read through “Talk of the Town” and a couple of the short memoir pieces during my commute. They were all interesting stories, memories from war time, but none really engaged me.

On the way home I turned to one of the short stories, Uwem Akpan’s “My Parents’ Bedroom.” I was immediately drawn in by the voice of the narrator, a young girl in Rwanda. In the first column of the story, I learned that her mother was Tutsi and her father Hutu. Maybe that should have been enough warning. Maybe I should have stopped reading there.

I didn’t.

Standing on a crowded train somewhere between Foggy Bottom and Rosslyn, I finished the story, fighting back tears, willing myself not to sob on a crowded train. I concentrated on the little diamond at the end of the story, watching the words on the page blur in and out through my wet eyes. The Rwandan genocide, which I had paid only vague attention to when it was in the news in the 1990s and which had been touched on in the commentary on Darfur that I’d read on my morning commute, was suddenly gruesomely real to me. It’s fiction, I tried to tell myself. But it’s not. These things happened.

Are happening.

Brian was a little traumatized by my arrival at home. I went upstairs and cried, sobbing for the family in the story, for the real people who lived through genocide (or didn’t), for the people in Darfur. I tried to tell him about what I had read (he’s not so much for the fiction issue), and as I attempted to explain how this story had somehow made real for me the stories I had read in the newspaper, something different occurred to me: what if this story hadn’t been about Rwanda, or about any real place? What if this had been some sort of science fiction story, about tragedies in a made-up world? Would the story have had the same impact on me?

I don’t think it would have. Even if an author had written such a story as a metaphor for Rwanda, it wouldn’t have been as powerful. Akpan’s narrative, written in the first person and set in a real place, made the story and the history live. The narrator’s story became truth and the history became personal.

Water-logged brain

Before I turned on the computer yesterday, I knew it had rained a lot--enough that one of the air conditioning units in my apartment was leaking wander and that a wet spot was growing on my wall because the condo association doesn't do a good job cleaning out rain gutters--but I didn't expect to see that they had measured seven inches of rain in 24 hours over at National airport. I didn't expect the news that several Metro stations in the District were closed due to flooding. Those stations were beyond where I exit the station, so even though I knew it would likely slow my commute I didn't worry too much.

When will I learn? It took me more than two hours to get to work yesterday morning. I wasn't alone. A lot of people in the DC area reported two- to three-hour commutes. But it was still annoying. I rarely drive to work. It's a 20 minute drive with no traffic, but 40 minutes or more during rush hour, so normally I'm happy to accept a 45-minute trek on public transit. At least then I can get some reading in.

When I reached the Pentagon station, I asked the station manager about buses to Foggy Bottom or Georgetown. He told me what to take, but also point out that the roads were pretty packed too. I'd see that on my bus ride to the Pentagon, and decided to take my luck with the trains.

Much like when a stuck train had caused delays on my evening commute a couple of weeks ago, I made a couple of new friends in the station. We peered down from the upper platform, watching people try to crowd onto the yellow line train that was headed into the District, shook our heads at the people who yelled angrily when they realized they weren't going to make it onto the first Largo train that arrived on our platform; wondered aloud at the people who arrived at the station and seemed surprised to see it so crowded, unable to figure out how they had missed the morning news.

Not everyone became friendly, commiserating with fellow transit riders. There were the angry yellers and people who called colleagues on their cell phones to gripe about being late.

Over an hour after arriving at the station, a blue line train arrived that I thought I'd be able to board. The platform had cleared a bit, and the train wasn't so crowded that arriving passengers couldn't clear off. As I slipped through the doors, a woman with a carry-on sized rolling bag and a brief case pushed towards the doors and stopped.

"I'm getting off at the next station," she explained to people who pushed by her, trying to fill in toward the center of the car so that others could board.

"The doors open on the other side of the train at the next one," I told her, trying to be helpful to her and others. There was room near the other doors and if she moved there, there would be more room for people to board.

"No, they open on the left."

"At the cemetery? No, they open on the right there."

"They open on the left when the trains are traveling in this direction," she said. "It does't just change sides. I think I know that by now."

Baffled, I shrugged and gave up. "Sorry. Didn't realize this was your normal train."

"Oh, it's not. But I'm here a couple of times a year on business."

The train pulled out of the station, and a few minutes later we arrived at Arlington Cemetery. The doors opened on the right. A few people nearby responded to the woman's "excuse mes," as she attempted to make her way across to the opposite doors and out of the car, but no one stepped out of the train to help make way. There wasn't anyone at the station waiting to board, and the doors closed before she could escape.

As the train began to move forward again she turned back to find a pole to hold onto. I noticed that she avoided making eye contact with me.

There was that time that the man with the Southern accent was talking loudly about how no one else was talking

On my first day of orientation at Georgetown, I met another woman who had just moved to Washington from California. “Have you noticed how much less friendly everyone here is?” she asked in a low voice. I shook my head. So far everyone had seemed very pleasant. A few of my neighbors had introduced themselves the night that we were moving things into our new apartment from our U-haul trailer. The bus driver on the route that went by my house had been helpful in explaining how to get various places. The majority of the people I knew so far I had met that day in orientation, and of course they had all be very outgoing and friendly. Earlier in the summer, when I’d visited to find a place to live, I’d had a grand time with some women I’d met in the hostel where I’d stayed, and several of the prospective landlords had been friendly and helpful when they learned I was new to the area. Basically, everyone seemed great to me.

But eventually I did begin to see the difference. It wasn’t necessarily a difference between being in a big city and being in a beach/college town. The friend who had pointed out the difference had been living in Los Angeles. The place where I really started to notice the difference was on the Metro.

The summer after college, I worked for The Husband’s aunt at a law firm in Oakland (we call that “nephew-tism”), commuting on BART from Martinez. I always had a newspaper or book with me, but most days I had at least one conversation either on a train or in a station, with someone I didn’t know. People would comment on the banana slug on my sweatshirt (um, it was a rather casual law office) or the book I was reading. They would sit down on the bench where I was waiting with a big sigh, and I could ask them, “Long day?” One day, on a crowded Pittsburg-Bay Point train, a seat near me opened up. A man in a business suit gestured for me to take it. I smiled at him and sat down. A few minutes later, as the train pulled into the Walnut Creek station, I felt someone lightly touch my shoulder. The man who had let me sit down was looking down at me. I met his gaze, and he winked at me, handed me a business card, and made his way toward the door. (I tossed the card when I got to North Concord-Martinez, but I made sure to tell The Husband about it when I called him that night.)

On Metro, there aren’t the same casual conversations. Occasionally some tourists will ask me for directions and I may chat with them for a bit about getting around, the museums they want to visit, or places to eat near their hotel. But the casual conversations with other commuters are few and far between—they pretty much only happen when buses are running late or the weather is doing something extreme . Mostly it’s not something I notice, and I don’t mind having quiet commutes.

I’ve noticed it this week, because people seem to be breaking the rules. They are talking to me. I picked up a copy of Isabel Allende’s most recent novel, Zorro. People notice the cover and say something. They want to know about the book. Is it really about that Zorro? Is it the traditional story? Is it good? On Thursday and Friday, every time I got on a train and once when I got on a bus, someone had something to say. And while their questions and comments do take me away from the book (which, like every other story I’ve read by Allende, has me totally captivated), I enjoy this chance to talk with random people. It’s occurred to me that if I want to meet new people, I should just continue to carry this book around with me, tucking whatever I’m really reading inside. But that might be weird.

One of these things is not like the others

I noticed her as soon as I got on the bus: a thin woman, with long, wild, ratted brown hair. She was wearing big sunglasses and a fur coat that looked old, and had a battered, hardside briefcase on the seat beside her. As I passed by and sat down in the seat behind her, I realized that she was muttering to herself, the same phrase, over and over and over.

"Prostitution, Social Security, and incest," she said. "Prostitution, Social Security, and incest."

And yet I don't just move back to California

Weather or commute…weather or commute…..I’ll go with a weather post today. Or maybe...both.

Today is the vernal equinox. A couple of weeks ago we started having some very spring-like weather. Last Monday, highs were in the 80s. Today the high was around 50 degrees. Tomorrow? Tomorrow it is supposed to snow—snow, which will turn into “wintry mix.” The first time after moving to DC that I saw wintry mix in the forecast, I asked a friend from Michigan what exactly that meant.

“Nothin’ good,” he told me. And then he went outside in a t-shirt to smoke a cigarette, because it may have been cold, but it wasn’t as bad as Michigan.

I have very clear memories of classes being held outside on the lawn at UC Santa Cruz in February. So I don’t cope well with icy weather in March. It just feels wrong. And I fear the wintry mix tomorrow, because last year we had wintry mix in March, and it just didn’t go well.

I woke up at a reasonable hour and got ready for work, but I missed my regular bus because I couldn’t find my umbrella or keys. When I finally got my act together and went outside to wait for the next bus, the bus that came sped by me without stopping. I chased it for a few steps, hoping that someone on the bus would see me and tell the driver to stop, but I was too afraid of slipping to be willing to chase very far. I went back into the house to wait awhile for the next bus, since standing outside in the icy rain wasn’t proving very pleasant.

The next bus stopped to let me on, and when I arrived at the Pentagon station, a blue line train was just arriving. It was fairly full, and with several people standing in the doorways, I wasn’t able to push my way on. I waited for the next train, which ended up being good: the train was empty enough that I got a seat, and for an added bonus, the conductor sounded just like Sean Connery.

As I came up the escalator at Foggy Bottom, I was pelted with more icy rain mixed with snow. Wintry mix, indeed. I opened my umbrella, but as I turned onto Washington Circle, the wind snapped two of the spokes of the umbrella, rendering it pretty useless. I told myself that with wind like that the umbrella wouldn’t have done much good anyhow, and dropped it into a trash can I passed. I took a hat out of my backpack, thinking that would keep at least my head warm and dry. Which I’m sure it would have if I hadn’t promptly dropped in into an icy puddle. I picked it up and shook it off, debating whether I ought to try to wear it anyhow. Deciding against it, I hurried toward the bus stop.

I waited and Pennsylvania and 24^th for the light to turn. As cars rushed by me in one direction, three buses stopped across the street and pulled away in the other. I thought as many swear words as I could as the light finally changed and I proceeded across the street to wait for the next bus(es).

I shivered at the bus stop. Finding camaraderie in the chilly day, my fellow bus riders and I grumbled about how the buses were supposed to be ten minutes apart, but they came thirty minutes apart in packs of threes. We waited there, with me getting wetter and chillier as the rain continued, and I began to feel less affectionate toward the other people waiting as they began to comment on my lack of umbrella and hat.

“Boy, you look cold.”

“Shouldn’t you be wearing a hat?”

“Forgot your umbrella today, eh?”

Bastards, I thought, and politely explained my predicament. A man about my age offered to share his umbrella with me. Actually, he offered me his hat, too, but that seemed weird, and I only took him up on the umbrella offer until the next pack of buses showed up.

When I arrived at the office I dropped my things at my desk and went to put my lunch in the refrigerator. There were several women in the kitchen, making their coffee and tea and talking.

“Have you been outside?” one asked. “Or did you just wash your hair?”

I explained about my wait for the bus and went back to my desk, leaving them laughing in the kitchen. A co-worker stopped by my cube asked me if I wanted to run to Starbucks with her. I declared that I was not going outside ever again, and gave her money to get me a peppermint hot chocolate.

Someone apparently mentioned it to The Boss (no, not Bruce Springsteen; my boss), because he stopped by when he got in, just as I was recounting the tale of my morning to a friend in an email with the subject “Today sucks. A lot.” I told The Boss that it was a damn miracle (or a sign of my stupidity) that I didn’t turn around and go home after I dropped my hat in the puddle, or even after I saw those three buses passing me by on Pennsylvania. I could have gone home, curled up under the nice, warm covers, and tried again the next day. Or perhaps the next month. It’s never snowed on me here in April (Am so knocking on wood, here). He agreed that I showed remarkable dedication to my job, even when faced with evil wintry mix. But he didn’t offer me a raise or a cookie.

So wish me luck tomorrow, would you? And cross your fingers that this doesn’t kill off the cherry blossoms before they even get to bloom.

I think I’m going to move this site to hereswhathappenedonmywaytoworktoday.blogspot.com, because really, that’s all I ever have stories about.

I got on the bus outside the Spanish embassy this morning. As I swiped my SmarTrip card, I realize that there was a man at the driver’s window and a little black Mercedes parked just in front of the bus with the door open.

“You cut me off. You almost hit me,” the man at the window was saying. “Do you know who I am?”

I moved back into the bus and settled myself at a window on the left side so I could watch what was happening. I could no longer see the driver, but I could keep an eye on the man. The bus driver at first apologized to the man, offering some sort of explanation about not seeing the car and needing to move over.

The man at the bus window, a white man with grey hair and glasses, wearing a dark suit, continued to berate the driver and threatened to call his supervisor. The bus driver lost his apologetic tone, and asked the man to move his car so that he could continue his route. The angry driver repeated his threat.

“Call my supervisor. Here’s the number. Here’s my name.” It’s actually not the first time I’ve seen a bus driver offer this information to someone who was harassing him. The last time it happened, the bus driver then ordered the angry passenger off the bus, on a route where the buses ran only every hour. I had been glad to see the woman gone, as she had been terribly rude to the bus driver—something I think should be a crime, since I depend on these folks to get me around town.

“Don’t think I won’t,” the man said, grabbing a slip of paper away from the driver. “Do you know who you just cut off?”

“An asshole in a fancy car,” the bus driver replied. “You’ve yelled at me, you have the information, now get in your car and get out of my way.”

Without another word, the man went back to his car. I wish I could have figured out who he was, since he clearly thought he ought to be recognized. It would have been awesome to post his name on the internet.

Still a cranky commuter

While tourists who stand on the left side of the Metro escalator irritate me, I've discovered something much worse. I grumbled to myself about tourists last night as I was held up on the escalator by someone standing on the left a few people ahead of me, talking to his companion. Then I noticed the person was wearing a business suit, and I thought that whoever had organized the conference that this person was in town for should have offered some training on Metro etiquette. But when I reached the platform and hurried toward the still-waiting train, I glanced at the man who had been blocking the way and noticed the lanyard and badge he was wearing. He was a federal government employee.

Locals who stand on the left during rush hour? Way more evil than tourists doing the same thing.

I slipped onto a crowded Metro train this morning, and made my way past the people crowded around the doors, to find a place where I could easily hold onto a pole with one hand and balance my book in the other, as the train pulled out of the station. (I’ve decided to read Taylor Branch’s civil rights histories. I am finding that 1,000-page books are not the easiest books to manage on public transit.)

“Excuse me, girl,” the man sitting to my left said, as we pulled into the next station. I looked down at him, a stout, older man, probably in his seventies, with white hair and a mustache. “Excuse me, girl.”

“Yes, sir?”

“What station is this?”

“Arlington Cemetery.”

“What?”

“Arlington Cemetery,” I repeated, raising my voice.

“Thank you, dear.” When he said that, he reminded me of The Husband’s grandfather. No one got off the train and the station was empty. The train pulled away, and I went back to reading my book.

“Excuse me, girl. Excuse me, girl.”

“Yes?”

“What station is this?”

“Rosslyn.” I started out loud this time.

“Rosslyn?” I nodded. “Thank you, dear.”

People behind me were trying to exit the train, so I moved ahead of them and stepped off, then reboarded. It was less crowded now, but there were still no seats. I leaned against one of the poles across from the old man, trying to finish my chapter as the train crossed below the Potomac. Looping my arm around the pole to keep myself steady as the train slowed, I tucked the book into my backpack as we approached the Foggy Bottom station

“Excuse me, girl.” His voice seemed louder this time, now that the train was emptier and I was a few feet away. Perhaps he felt he had to raise his voice to be certain I heard him from where I was. Or perhaps I was beginning to feel self conscious. “Excuse me, girl.”

“Yes, sir?”

“What station is this?”

“Foggy Bottom.” I hoisted my backpack back onto my back and touched my coat pocket to make sure my wallet and farecard were still there.

“Is this your stop?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you for your help, dear.”

To the beat of a different iPod

I noticed him from across the train—noticed the almost-rhythmic nodding of his head, the movement of his shoulders. His back was to me, but I still felt weird about staring. The train was quiet and not very crowded. I could hear the tinny sound of music from the iPod of the young man standing next to me. I kept glancing toward the front of the car, trying to decide if the movements of the man with close-cut grey hair were my imagination. Sometimes he seemed to be dancing, but other times I suspected it was only the swaying of the train.

I spotted him again when I stepped out of the train at Foggy Bottom. He was coming out of the next door down, wearing a wool overcoat open over a charcoal suite and a burgundy tie, with white ear phone cords coming from his coat pocket and a briefcase in his hand. Even though I’d only seen his back on the train, I knew it was him, because he was lip-synching. I bit my lip, trying not to smile. Then, just before we reached the escalator, he began to play his briefcase like an air guitar. I told myself not to stare, but kept right on staring.

He caught me looking. He smiled at me, threw back his head, and played the next few silent chords with even more passion.

I am a cranky commuter

When I was in London last week, I admired the signs on tube station escalators instructing riders to "stand right, walk left," wishing that Metro would put up similar signs. Looks like my wish has been granted: according to this morning's Washington Post, Metro will soon have signs instructing riders to "stand to the right," and is making other attempts to make people flow more smoothly on and off of trains and into and out of stations. I hope the tourists read the signs on the escalators. I have my doubts about whether the signs on the floors with arrows will really get people to stand out of the way, but that's not one of my major pet peeves anyhow. If only Metro could help post signs to help with the things that do bother me:

<kvetch>

• People who stop at the top of the escalator to look around (or to tie their child's shoelaces). Please move away from the escalator so the rest of us can get off. Given the nature of escalators, we can't just stop and wait for you to get the hell out of the way.
  
• People who lean against the poles near train doors. I need to hold onto those poles, people. I have begun to just go ahead and grab the pole, even if that means "accidentally" poking the person who is doing the leaning. But when they decided to lean on the pole when I am already holding on and smoosh my fingers? That's even ruder.*
  
• People who stand in train doors as others are trying to board.** If you want to keep that place, step out of the train and let people on. Otherwise, move further in. People get left off of trains with plenty of room because they have board single file because there are people in the door way. You are the reason my backpack got caught in the door on Tuesday morning. Punks.
• People who brag that they never move out of the way when they are standing in the train doors when I'm complaining about it. Y'all are even bigger punks.
• People who talk loudly on their cell phones, or even just with one another. Keep your voice down. I'm trying to concentrate on my Sudoku.
• Tourists who complain about crowded trains and rudeness of commuters. If you don't like it, don't travel on the trains at rush hour. I was (mostly) kidding this morning when I said to The Husband that in addition to a farecard, people should have to show a local driver's license in order to board trains at rush hour. I generally try to be nice to tourists on Metro, no matter what time of day. I will help you figure out which platform you need to be on, or where you need to transfer. But no complaining if you get jostled around because the trains are crowded.
• People who complain about tourists not following basic Metro etiquette on the weekends at the Smithsonian station. Yes, I am standing up for the tourists. They are tourists at Tourist Central. If they bother you that much, go to L'Enfant Plaza or Foggy Bottom and walk.

< /kvetch >

*Also: If you are tall and you can reach the overhead bar? And if by doing so, you make it easier for a short person to reach pole, so that she doesn't have to swing from the overhead bar and topple into people when the train starts and stops? Just hold onto the overhead bar, okay? Thanks. You're awesome.

**Metro does have an advertising campaign that addresses this issue. It is not working. (Although I haven't tried shrieking "You doorkers!" at offenders. Maybe next week.)

Minnesota is so ghetto

For the past two and a half weeks, the bus I take after work from my office to the Metro has been full of teenage ballerinas, here for a summer program with the Washington Ballet. They are very thin, usually wearing shorts and t-shirts over pink tights, with their hair up in buns. For the most part, they are less obnoxious than most groups of teens on the bus.

The dancers come from around the country, and I’ve found their conversations amusing to overhear. I heard one talking about Kansas, and one day a girl who was obviously from New Jersey was teasing a girl from Atlanta about her accent. Last Friday, most were trying to reach their parents by cell phone in an attempt to get permission slips faxed to Washington so that they could attend a Harry Potter midnight release party.

It took willpower to not giggle out loud at the conversation I overheard today. One ballerina sat reading a magazine, and another girl came up and asked her what the article she was reading was about.

“Something about Prairie Home Companion.”

“Prairie Homecoming?”

“No, Prairie Home Companion. The radio show.”

“Oh. On the radio here.”

“No, Minnesota, I think.”

“Oh….Ghetto!”

Sashay on the left

One of the cardinal rules of Metro is that you stand on the right on the escalators. There are no signs to explain the rule to anyone unfamiliar with the system, because Metro is afraid that it will encourage more people to walk, which will lead to more people falling, which will lead to lawsuits. So Brian and I coach all of our out of town visitors on this important rule, in hopes of keeping our guests alive when they travel on the trains, especially at rush hour, when the locals are rushing and cranky. When I am stuck behind someone on an escalator, I sometimes excuse myself and try to pass them. One of my friends has been known to yell “Stand on the right” on the escalator at the Smithsonian station, when it was full of tourists standing on both sides. I don’t have the nerve to do that, but sometimes, like this morning, I do want to tell the person ahead of me to sashay on the left.

Last year, Brian and I went to see A Streetcar Named Desire at the Kennedy Center. As we came out of the Foggy Bottom metro there were three women on the escalator. They were standing in a group talking, and two of them were on the left. We weren’t in a hurry for our dinner reservation, and there was no one else around, so we didn’t say anything.

We rode up behind these women. They were older, white, probably in their sixties, and two of them were rather heavy. They wore denim shorts, and they all had some sort of American flag pattern, or at least red, white, and blue—on a shirt, a vest, or a ribbon around a straw hat—almost a uniform of a certain class of DC tourists.

Behind us I heard a loud voice yell, “Stand on the right please.” I actually felt a little bad for the women—even with the “please” the loud voice seemed rude. I turned to look and saw an African-American man, probably around my age, coming up the stairs in long strides. He had extremely dark skin, a shaved head, sunglasses, and was nicely dressed. The women moved to the left.

“Thank you, ladies,” he boomed. “We stand on the right here. If you’re on the left, you have to sashay.” He was either flamingly gay, or did a good impression of it, and he continued past them, chanting, “Sashay. Sashay.” The women began to laugh, and Brian and I did, too. We took the opportunity to pass the women, and we turned in the same direction as the man, toward Washington Circle.

“You got to sashay, ain’t that right, beautiful?” I felt a hand rest on my shoulder for a brief moment. Then he passed us, saying to himself, “Sashay, sashay, sashay.”

Don't talk to strangers

In the first few months after I moved to Washington, I noticed that strangers didn’t talk to me on the Metro the way they did on BART. Other Californians in my graduate program also noted that people were less friendly with strangers on the East Coast. I don’t think of myself as someone who talks to strangers. I rarely strike up a conversation with someone I don’t know—I’m too much of an introvert. But when someone speaks to me, I nearly always answer. Usually it’s a tourist who needs directions. Occasionally, someone will ask me about the book I’m reading. I will commiserate about the weather when a stranger offers to share his umbrella at the bus stop on an unexpectedly wet day. And these superficial conversations with strangers don’t make me uncomfortable.

There has been a man on my bus in the evenings, who has decided to initiate conversations with me. Something about him made me uncomfortable the first time, a few weeks ago, but I wasn’t entirely sure what it was. I was sitting near the front of the bus, talking with Marvin, the driver. When we pulled out of the Pentagon, I opened my book.

“Excuse me? Miss?” I was totally engrossed in my book, and it took me awhile to realize I was the one being addressed. I looked up. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

I looked at the man. I had noticed him when I first boarded the bus. He had been talking on the cell phone in a loud, slightly twangy voice. He was sitting near the front of the bus, and I had wished he would go to the back to finish his conversation. And now, he was sitting not too far from me, wanting to know if he could ask a personal question.

I glanced at Marvin. I could tell he was listening.

“Okay,” I said, not totally comfortable with it, but not feeling that I could say no. Besides, if the man was out of line, I knew Marvin would make him get off the bus.

“How many pages have you read?”

I was relieved. It seemed like a silly question, but it wasn't exactly personal. I looked down at my book, checking the page number. I don’t usually use a bookmark, choosing instead to note the page that I’m on, so I knew how many pages I’d read since I’d left work, how many I’d read on the Metro, how many I’d read on the bus from the Pentagon.

“Of this book?”

“Just since you’ve been on this bus.”

“Um, eighteen.”

“In what? Four minutes? Are you some kind of speed reader?”

“I—no. It’s a good book.” [Actually, it was a great book, and if you haven’t read The Kite Runner, you need to. Now.]

He apologized for bothering me. We exited the freeway, and I got off a few stops later.

I didn’t think about him again, until I was waiting for the bus earlier this week. Brian and I had ended up on the same train coming home, and I was talking to him when the same man interrupted me to ask the time. I answered him, and turned back to Brian.

“Now is that really the time? You aren’t one of these people who sets your watch 5 minute ahead or something?”

“No,” I told him. He, Brian, and I had a brief conversation about people who set clocks ahead. Then the bus came, and Brian and I spent the ride home talking with a woman who lives in our building. When we got home, and I mentioned that the man was the same one who had asked me about the book, he agreed that something about the man made you think he was weird.

Yesterday it happened again. I had noticed the stranger in line behind me for the bus. I settled down to read, and tried not to notice the man when he sat down across the aisle from me. Marvin wasn’t driving, and I was not up front near the driver.

“Excuse me, miss?” The bus was moving off of the freeway, merging onto the traffic circle. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

I didn’t want to say yes, but I wasn’t sure why. His last personal question had been harmless. But I felt uncomfortable. It wasn’t just that I didn’t know him. I didn’t know the man who had offered to share his umbrella with me while we waited for the Metro bus outside the Spanish embassy a few weeks back. But I had taken him up on his offer, and over the course of a few bus rides we had gotten to know each other. His name is Miles, and his wife had a baby girl back in December. He’s not a stranger anymore, but he started out that way. Why did this feel different?

I didn’t say yes. I just looked at him, waiting.

“Have you ever considered growing your hair longer?”

I turned away from him, looking straight ahead. I noticed that the woman in front of me had stopped reading. I didn’t know her name, but I’d smiled at her in greeting as I got on the bus, as we use the same bus stop and we have spoken casually before. I could tell she was listening. I wished Marvin was driving.

I didn’t know what to say. It was a personal question, and while I couldn’t say exactly why I didn’t like that he had asked me, I was certainly uncomfortable. I considered not saying anything.

“I’m not going to talk with you about my hair,” I told him at last, not looking at him, as the woman in front of me pulled the cord to request the next stop.

The man apologized, and I rose to follow the woman whose name I didn’t know but who was not a stranger off of the bus.

We had gotten off one stop before ours, and walked up the hill together. She told me that I had been right to not simply ignore the man, but to be direct with him. She had requested the stop, thinking it would be a good idea to just get away from that man. She turned to walk down her street as I walked up the stairs in front of my building. Next time I see her at the bus stop, I will ask her name.

Commuting into Washington

Yesterday was a normal day, aside from the fact that I was a little earlier than usual. Marvin, who drives the 7:40 bus, greeted me when I boarded his bus outside my house with “Hello, stranger,” reminding me that I hadn’t been able to get myself out the door before eight for over a week. I found a seat and read a few pages of my book on the way to the Pentagon Metro. Before he opened the bus doors at the Pentagon, Marvin called out for us all to have a good day, which is what he says every day, unless the weather is bad, in which case he tells us "Now let's be careful out there." For some reason I noticed a tall woman with short blonde hair and a long red coat alighting from nearby bus as I stepped down onto the sidewalk. I followed her up the escalator toward the Metro.

On a lawn near the entrance to the Metro, a group of about 20 people joined hands to form a circle, their heads bowed in prayer, while one woman read aloud from a Bible. There are often demonstrators in this area during my morning commute, especially on days when I am early, though not usually a group this big. Last week I saw two women holding up signs that said “Thank You.” More frequently, I see a group of four to six people with anti-war messages printed on their signs. One woman regularly carries a sign that tells soldiers heading into the Pentagon “You are killing and dying to make Bush and Cheney rich.” The demonstrators never chant or yell. They just talk to each other and stand there with their signs.

Yesterday was different. The group was larger than I’d ever seen it before, and there were at least a dozen Pentagon police on hand to supervise. Six or seven lined the walkway between the demonstrators and the Metro entrance (although they didn’t stand between the demonstrators and the commuters on the way into the Metro). One sat on a motorcycle nearby, and several others stood talking to him. Maybe these police officers wouldn’t have surprised me—I’ve grown accustomed to seeing bulky men with large guns around Washington over the past three years—but there was one that stood out. The lawn sloped up beyond the demonstrators, and at the top of the rise stood a single officer, holding his gun in front of him, watching as they prayed in the damp chill of the February morning.

I didn’t read any more of my book on the Metro ride. Instead I thought about the scene I’d witnessed. I don’t know the politics of the people praying—they had laid their signs on the grass while they prayed. I hadn’t been able to hear the woman who was reading. I hadn’t even stopped to watch or try to hear, though I slowed my pace to take in the scene. Now the image of that military policy officer holding what looks to me like an automatic weapon is burned into my memory. I considered who he was protecting. The demonstrators? The commuters? The building? And what was he protecting them from? He seemed more threatening than protective to me. The other soldiers seemed less imposing, less ominous. In spite of the guns slung over their shoulders and dangling in front of them, I was less concerned by the men who stood casually talking than by the man who stood silently in the background, his feet apart and his gun in hand. I wondered if that officer could hear the prayer, if he listened to what the woman with the Bible was reading.

When I came up onto 23^rd Street to head for my next bus, music was playing from a boom box. The melody was played by some sort of low woodwind, and it sounded African to me. A man was setting up a card table so he could sell hats and jewelry. Another man was loudly greeting commuters and handing out free newspapers. A siren screamed as an ambulance made its way around the traffic circle to the hospital. Shuttle buses lined up at the curb, and a woman with long blonde hair and a long red coat climbed out of a cab. I fell in step with the rest of the crowd, hurrying toward my next bus.