« ...but that joke isn't funny anymore... | Main | hello brooklyn »

It's so hard to write lately because of the vanilla plainness of each day. Commuting, working, TV at home. Each day, the same things, the same order, the same nothing. Even the slightest variation echoes through the whole day and sometimes into the next.

I experienced a variation last week. In other words, Something Happened. On Wednesday morning (or was it Tuesday? Already the memory has been papered over with more sameness, more nothing) I was fumbling in my pocket for my MetroCard, remembering to use one of the far turnstiles, near the MetroCard machines, as the pair of closer ones invariably fuck up my momentum with repeated Please Swipe Agains. Assholes. As it was, my momentum was arrested that morning anyway, but, more pleasantly, by a voice. A voice calling my name. A voice that belonged to a boy with a long black coat and a backpack.

My brain took a moment to shift and re-focus. As any commuter can tell you, the morning trip is, paradoxically, a distinctly "alone" time. You're surrounded, in nearly intimate fashion, by hundreds of people, but they're not really people and the time spent with them doesn't really count. It's like, during the commute you cease to be individual persons and instead become part of some amorphous substance (commutant?), a bunch of book-holding, headphones-wearing molecules held together in stasis. Time starts up again when you reach your destination. Sometimes upon arriving at work, I even get the disconcerting feeling that hours or days have passed since I left my apartment.

So having someone speak to me during this period requires somewhat of an awakening from this hibernation state. When I shake off the fog, I recognize him. Jim! We went to college together, my second try, at Rutgers. It occurs to me that I didn't mention this to anyone before now. I suppose it's because I'm not really still in touch with anyone from Rutgers. And if I'm honest with myself, it's probably because of Jim, and something that happened involving him, me and my boyfriend at the time. I'm not going to tell that story, because honestly there's still not enough distance even now eight or so years later. I'll only say it's not what you think it is, it involves not sex but rather violence.

That said, it was really good to see him, as he was and is a nice, decent guy who is very clever and funny (as is his girlfriend who was with him in the L station). We all waited and waited and waited for the train, chatting about jobs and the lack thereof. He put my cell number in his cell address book (the modern urban card exchange) and we parted ways when he got off at Sixth Avenue.

I'd love to meet up with him for coffee or get his email address, but also I fear it. I'm not the same Beth he knew. In most ways that's an extraordinarily good thing, but as more recent variations have shown, also not so good. It's become apparent that I'm still working out what Beth I am right now. I appreciate your patience during these technical difficulties.

Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?

type this number in, to prove you're human, and not some spam-robot: