Today at work it was definitely one of the overwhelming days. I seriously doubted my own competence and it crossed my mind that I might not make it past my 3-month review. But I figure it'll get better.

On the L, this guy asked me, "Hey, guess what I just bought." Since I couldn't guess, he pulled out the Scorpions box set, which he had spent his dinner break from work taking the train downtown for. I spent the rest of the ride hearing about all the Scorpions shows he'd been to. He also relived their first live album ("In track 10 there's this AMAZING drum solo. Just when you think it can't get any better, the vocals kick in!").

There are only two acceptable activities on the train: reading and looking out the window. Except if it's really crowded, in which case elevator etiquette prevails and you have to find an unoccupied spot to gaze at. Anyone who is not engaged in these activities makes me uneasy. There was a girl the other day who ate Chee-Tos and stared at me -- not really at me, but into space that I happened to occupy. Once I decided she was probably high, it stopped bothering me.

An L-time pastime I've adopted is figuring out the unique way in which I dislike the people who get off at each stop. Now, I don't hate everyone on the train. I'm not that much of a grouch. But I do notice all the people who annoy me and, for obvious reasons, where they get on and off.

For example:
Fullerton - Loud cell-phone talkers. Frantically reading students who realize it's their stop long after I do and practically knock me over in their haste to get off.
Belmont - People wearing fluorescent fishnet clothing and scowls. Lammons would call them gravers, as in goth-ravers. Chee-To girl. People who sit in the doorway. (Unlike New York, the trains have no steps to sit on, so you have to really want to sit in the door.)
Addison - Clean-cut young professionals like my sister. Baseball fans. I don't mind the Addison people, but I notice them because it's my stop.


 

¶ 12:22 AM