Susan Hwang

A couple of awesome things happened this morning, that I can’t not mention.

First of all, I saw this lady:

I saw her, and I thought, oh… I do this too.  New York City is an orchestra of facial ticks some mornings (and afternoons and nights).  And there’s an anonymity and permission allowed to you on the subway.  Is it like this in all cities?  I know about the NYC subway policy of behavioral leeway, because I’ve wept multiple times on public transportation, and once I had an explosive screaming fight on the Jay Street Metro Tech platform with a now ex-boyfriend.  It was all allowed. MTA decorum enforcers did not arrive with tissues or counselors.  They also didn’t say anything when I saw a man clip his toenails and eat fig newtons right there on the seat.  When a man tried clipping his toenails at Goodbye Blue Monday during one of my shifts, I had to ask him to stop.  He was a little indignant.  I said, “This is a public place.  You’re doing a private thing.  It’s not a bathroom.  This is something you should do in your bathroom…”  I guess I was the first person to explain this to him.  I told him not to take it personally; it’s just a societal norm.

The lady in the video has a job.  I’m assuming she has a job.  It was morning rush hour.  I don’t think anyone would sit on a train at that time if they weren’t going somewhere to get paid.  I wanted to follow that lady and see where she worked.  What does she do for a living?  What does her cubicle look like?  Does she like her coworkers?  Do they like her?  Hey lady!  Can I stalk you for a little bit?

The other awesome thing was also on public transportation.  I was on a different train–the 2 train going into the financial district.  I haven’t been in these parts for years.  I used to work at 85 Broad St. for like 7 years from the late ’90s on.  Being there was really bringing back the ’90s for me.  I had forgotten what a crush of human beings filled the train cars close to 9am.  We were all on top of each other, breathing each others’ air, withstanding the conductor’s whimsical breaking.  And nobody killed anyone.  Not even one murder.  People were even saying “excuse me” and “sorry.”  I heard it on the radio once… if we were all gorillas in there, we would have ripped each other apart.  Blood, mayhem, fury.  But we on the train, we didn’t even growl.  No one died.  Not even a little.

Everyone got off the train, and the other track let off its load, and then there was the effort to get up the stairs.  How is this ever going to work? But it did.  We all just moved as much as we could, not killing anybody, and we got through it.

AND I even overheard a man offering to carry a woman’s heavy rolling bag up the stairs for her.  A strange man asked to carry a strange woman’s bag for her and she let him!  Amazing.  I just wanted to say I’m impressed.  No one died, and a lady got help with her bag.

Okay, sometimes things can be so horrible they are amazingly horrible, and I’m not going to ignore those either.  This example comes from this past summer when I discovered a new form of subway torture… it’s when you’re exhausted, and all you want to do is go home and rest your pathetic struggling bones and you waited for 30 minutes standing for the train that finally came and then it stalls on the platform with doors open.  And there’s music playing.  And sometimes the torture is a singer-songwriter with an original song you don’t like and a voice that is wailing and little bit flat and a need to be liked that is huge–too huge for you to fill.  And sometimes it is a saxophone with a meandering solo

that makes you question your love of horns.  And sometimes it is this (but longer):

Bagpipes.  On the subway.  This happened.