Ticket To Ride

I like trains...a lot. I like riding them, I like to look at people who ride them. I mostly enjoy watching the entire world pass by from a box. A large box with comfortable pleather seats. Yes, I like the seats too. I like the sounds. I just like trains.

First of all they're a great place to think. There always seems that there is going to be a big conclusion at the end of a long train ride. Some un-asked question that mysteriously answers itself.

Taking the 10:15 ride out of Jersey to get back to the city was not how I planned my Monday. I like any kind of change of plan (unless it's hideous or involves giant robberies with guns and chicken sacrifices or malls..haha) so I was for it. My cell phone (my poor very un-used mostly turned off cellphone) however was not all for it and promptly told me in it's unwelcoming female voice..."Your balance has expired"...which really means "You ungrateful little dip! How dare you not use me every five minutes! How dare you forget to run to radioshack to buy a pre-paid card! Spending all your money on art supplies and music...turning me off when people want to call you...who said I ever wanted to be an emergency phone??? I could have been a contender! I could have been a contender! Maybe this train will crash and you'll be stranded without a connection...how would you like that????"

I'm sorry cell phone.

I'll try to use you more.

Now, although my cellphone was against the whole train ride, it still was a perfectly lovely train ride. I sat and looked out my window the entire time my knapsack filled with dirty clothes cradled on my lap. There's an eerie naivety to suburbia when you're not involved in it. Visting Jersey to see family for a few days becomes oppresive simply because of the strange attitude that lurks in the area. But sitting in this little box on wheels allows the entire world around you to appear just like a little electric train set. Everything looks richly painted and thought out...and completely fake. As each stop progressed the world outside my window changed from the quaint little houses and overgrown plants to the houses right under the tracks with sparse backyards and then to the giant factories with companies I'd never heard of. Finally it began to urbanize itself. The overgrown plants turned to concrete, the factories turned to deli's, and the quaint little houses turned to apartments.

The world was changing at a very rapid speed. Suddenly at the stop before mine I saw a janitor sweeping dry leaves off of a few stairs. A thought came to me, what if I were to just get off the train there. It was in the middle of seemingly nowhere. I could walk through the bushes and just walk. Or I could just talk to the janitor for awhile. There was no one else there. I didn't. I don't even know why I felt that way. I wanted to go home. I wasn't putting anything off. But at the same time I just wanted to walk. And walk, and walk.

Instead my tongue felt around in my mouth for the one wisdom tooth that had broken through. I only had one tooth of wisdom. I still wanted to leave the train.

My stop, walked off the train and unto another...and then onto the E where I got off at the wrong stop and could not transfer. Oops.

And walked the wrong way simply because I have no sense of direction :)

Then I walked the 40+ blocks through central park (which really doesn't count because it's pretty) back home passing the merry go round playing once upon a dream, and the squirrels who were all desperately trying to fatten up.

Weeks ago, I stared up at the trees beckoning them to turn orange purple and red and to fall to the ground crunched and mixed with the dirt. Now there they were on the ground crunched and smeared. I looked down confused..when exactly had this happened?


The world was changing at a very rapid speed.


Happy Monday :)

Here, take the beatles with you for the week