DAY 45

Subway etiquette means avoiding eye contact with others. This means that your gaze will frequently be cast downward. So what do you do? Check out shoes, that's what!

This morning we have: hideous and gigantic black orthopedic shoes, silver sneakers of an unknown brand (though this guy's jean cuffs feature rainbow colored thread in a zig-zag design), Burberry rain boots, LL Bean boots, grey and blue Pumas, and his&hers Timberlands.

DAY 44

Something you never want to hear from the train's loudspeaker during the morning commute:

Ladies and gentlemen we are waiting for police assistance.

It will add on at least 15 minutes.

DAY 43

A is in the station with open doors and a conductor looking out. As I walk through the doors they close on me and I'm the poor soul stuck (!) trying to pull my arm and bag into the train car.

If you're a conductor and you're going to wait for a passenger to get on, don't close the doors on them! Unless, of course, you hate your job and enjoy hurting others. There is such negative energy in this city sometimes.

DAY 42

Uptown A stopped at Chambers Street.

Conductor: Due to a situation uptown this train will be going back to Brooklyn. Everyone please leave the train.

No explanation of why I lost 15 minutes of my day.

DAY 41

Yes, that is a bottle of Georgie. And a crumpled metrocard. I am thankful that I don't know what went down on my bench.

DAY 40

Half of the sliding door won't open. Took extra long to get on the train. Broken.

DAY 39

There was a woman sitting on the tunnel walkway by the A train at West 4th street. She was holding a sign that said "need help no job rent food" and had a two-year-old boy near her. He walked down a few feet from his mom and started laughing as he urinated on the wall. Dozens of people were walking by. The subway is underground, but it is indoors! So vile. In ten years this kid will be peeing on the plants in his living room.

DAY 38

Uh-oh. Trouble. Via Gothamist.

Last night, subway service on the A and C lines was disrupted when a man was killed after touching the third rail at a Brooklyn subway station...around 4:45 p.m., the "man was electrocuted at the Broadway Junction A and C subway station Friday afternoon after landing on the train tracks and touching the third rail, authorities said."

DAY 37

A is for... antique, aging, absolute shit show, affordable, awful
C is for... crappy, cold, crumbling, chaos, circus, choo-choo
E is for... empty, excessive

DAY 36

AM: I waited 23 minutes for the train. PM: I waited 20 minutes for the train. And of course like five E trains went by in the meantime.

DAY 35

On a crowded downtown A, I reached out to grab a pole by the doors. A guy standing next to me was holding on so that his entire body was up against the pole.

This is a pet peeve of mine. It requires other passengers to squeeze their hands between the inconsiderate person's body and the pole. Not cool.

Saying "excuse me" did nothing. Do these jerks want to be touched or something? Why do people do this? This particular jerk was reading a book. The pages got too close to my hand and, yep, SLICE--paper cut.

DAY 34

Creepy guy (apprx 35m, white, runny nose) kept obviously looking down into my two grocery bags from Whole Foods. Eventually he turned and said to me, "So you have a sweet tooth, eh?" Creepy!

DAY 33

As I teetered around on my heels as I balanced in the center of the train car, I looked down and noticed a three-year-old boy deep in thought. He held onto his dad's hand and sometimes let go to play with his goatee. The train stopped at Fulton Street and they both stood up and pushed to the door. I was lost in Duran Duran so I did not notice that dad got off and the boy, who wore in a cute lime green puffer coat, was still on the train! (slight panic during "Girl Panic")

BUT the boy was holding the hand of a beautiful young woman who could not have been older than 20. She was complaining to another woman about the baby-daddy:

And his family just don't care! They say he already has two other kids so mine don't matter. A boy before and a girl after. When I brought my son to his grandmother's house, she looks down at him and says to me, 'aren't you gonna watch him'. They don't care at all! She could just say hi, how are you.

DAY 32

Optimism. As a train arrives at a station I can tell immediately if it is an A or C train just by the car exteriors. Sometimes the train letter displays don't work or are empty so this ability is actually useful.

DAY 31

Is the A train unsafe? It is definitely old and rickety. But it sort of holds up; kind of like that wooden roller coaster at Coney Island. The train today did not even have an A sign at the front if the first car. The doors of the train car did not stay open. Instead, they kept closing partially and opening again. Once closed, there was a strange buzz sound from the door area. So. So. So old.

DAY 30

Quote of the week: (by the train conductor)

"Step in or step out. This is not a private car."

DAY 29

A train spawn. Like every New Yorker, I had always fantasized about what the new second avenue subway line (in progress since the 1970s) would be called. I thought it could be a light blue H, I line. Oh well. There goes that idea.

DAY 28

Heard a strangely calming sound while on the brooklyn-bound A this afternoon. The Michael Jackson song "Billie Jean" played on a xylophone at the canal Street station.

DAY 27

I did not witness this personally, however I understand why a woman would go batshit about break dancers flipping around all over the car and blasting music. But sometimes kids have to earn a living somehow and why not by expressing themselves through dance. They really need to lower the music volume, though.

DAY 26

Yes, that really is what you don't want to think it is. I'm surprised people choose to engage in that sort of thing with the terrible lighting and hard, plastic seating.