I guess I forgot how much faster the 4\/5 trains are compared to waiting 10 minutes for the R. The reason for the wait had been the possible connection to be made with a woman I’d noticed some months ago. We definitely made eye contact and there was some fidgeting on her side of the subway car. But I don’t know. It seems to have flitted and flown. I don’t care. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here I am almost an hour early at the job, not feeling well and wondering why everything about today’s commute seemed different in some way. Brighter. Better lighting, or is it just my body telling me something. I think the problem started with the running out of the hot water while I was at the crucial point of my morning ablutions. To stop the water at that point would have left me covered with soap and with a head of hair still lathered with shampoo. Third world, I know, oh how I suffer. Running hot water is a privilige not available to all. But in this moment it kind of shocked my body. I felt cold to the core, and felt fortunate that this was not last week when temps were well below zero with wind chill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Removing myself from the shower felt like an escape. I was shaking and in fact I think I still am, but I deny it. I feel like a creep today. This CHAMPION brand swweatshirt I thought was so fashionable and keen wears like a dishrag today, and that is straight from the laundry. Everything I touch turns to mud. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I saw someone using a MetroCard a couple of days ago. I guess I didn’t do the reading on this but I thought they were dead as of end of January. THere was also something odd about the transaction. An individual used a MetroCard to purchase at least 4 tickets for an SBS Q53. WHy so many tickets? Additionally, this bus ride was unusual in that it was ambushed by MTA fare police who demanded everyone produce evidence that they paid their fare. I handed over my OMNY card, which passed inspection. A teenage kid in front of me pretended to be dead and osmehow got away with it. I don’t think he paid his fare. As soon as the bus emptied of the fare police he magically came back to life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
…<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not lost on me that thousands upon thousands of those among us have issues with heat and hot water in the apartments they pay for. But it’s going to be a drag if hot water becomes an ongoing issue. I’ve lived in that place for a long time and I recognize that everything has become too expensive. I don’t know what it costs to heat the building or to keep hot water constantly available. It would depend on the means, which I believe is a boiler. The hot water had been only above-warm after running it for several minutes. I don’t like to feel like I am wasting water but lately I’ve had to run the shower for at least 5 or 6 minutes before it heats up to a respectable threshold. The owner of the building is someone I do not like to interact with anymore. I would say it’s always been like that but really it’s been unpredictable with him. He has threatened me and stolen money from me but in the end I let it go because I perceive him to have more power than I in this arrangement. If the water is cold, the water is cold. I should master the art of vomiting silently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nice, I just stepped into the bathroom here and there ia dead cockroach on the floor. Just another reminder that my life is not one of luxury or finesse, not today at least.I’m reminded that a cockroach once climbed right up onto my desk, and that mousetraps are found throughout the premises. What kind of dump is this, really? The Financial District is home to some of the gleaminest, most modern and glamorous office buildings in the world. This is not one of them. It’s not a total dump, and I’m not complaining. Cockroaches are real, and so am I. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I think I’m calmed down now. Remembering some of the faces I saw on the trains today. Older men, mostly, but one older woman seemed to be glowering at me. I think she was just staring blankly and had no perception her eyes were resting on me, or anything\/anybody. A zombie of sorts. Her face had l ong, thick wcreases and her mouth frowned with the gravity. On the next train a man’s face looked remarkably similar. He was asleep, or at least his eyes were closed. A young woman, maybe even a teenager, sat across from me.She kept looking at something that would have been above my head and to my left, but I don’t think there was anything there. She just wanted to look busy and distracted and unavailable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I guess I forgot how much faster the 4\/5 trains are compared to waiting 10 minutes for the R. The reason for the wait had been the possible connection to be made with a woman I’d noticed some months ago. We definitely made eye contact and there was some fidgeting on her side of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paumAn-cpN","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47727","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47727"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47727\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wsbj.com\/sorabji\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}