Bad Posture

This morning, I found myself walking down the steps of the subway bidding the R train farewell in a frustrated way, when I was supposed to be cheerfully greeting it. And I was only 10 seconds late! So I became one of those people you frequently see muttering to themselves in New York City. I muttered that I couldn't believe the train came sooner than it was supposed to. I muttered that I was now going to be late for work. I muttered that this was just an awfully bad thing to happen to me. But I muttered all this in awfully unprintable language. I know, I know, if we don't learn to let go, we could suffer an undignified heart attack and fall like used up tissues onto the third rail. So I took a deep breath, let it out slowly and opened my book (the recently recommended No Night is Too Long by Barbara Vine). While reading about how a young straight man became a young gay man in 20 pages or less, the train finally arrived! But, sadly, after missing the train I usually catch each morning, I discovered the ensuing train actually attracts more clientele, and therefore offers less seating opportunities.

The R train is one of those that have three seats against a wall and two seats projecting outward. It's always preferable to sit in one of the two seats projecting outward, since the person in the outside seat will generally move his or her self closer to the aisle to allow more space for the person in the inside seat. But when you're forced into one of the three-seaters, you learn new things about yourself - like, how much you dislike brushing up against strangers on a train. The first of the plastic, square-cut seats in the three-seater is up against a wall framing the doorway and on the other end the similarly-sized square-cut seat is up against the person's legs who is in the inside seat of one of the two seats projecting outward. The person who created these square-cut seats is either a munchkin whose Lollipop Guild candy has rotted his brain along with his teeth, or someone with quite a sense of humor. These squares are each approximately 12 inches by 12 inches, and if you take a ruler and hold it up against your behind, you'll undoubtedly find that's just a touch less than what might be considered a comfortable space on which to perch. What's more, although I don't have the very broad shoulders the very beautiful Matt Damon has, my shoulders are a tad wider than my hips (this is standard for men, I assure you) and I therefore find it difficult to sit up when I'm forced into the center square-cut seat in one of the three-seaters on an R train. And that's what happened to me this morning.

So, hunched over and reading about a guy who's just discovered he's gay, I began my morning. As I so often do, I was wondering how the story I was reading might fare as a film starring, let's say Matt Damon. The character I'm reading about is an aspiring writer and I'd love to see Matt play another writer (Wilhelm Grimm was a writer, wasn't he?). Of course, as I'm being jostled about on this most uncomfortable journey, I'm wondering if the movie of this book might have any nude scenes, because I haven't seen Matt nude since The Talented Mr. Ripley.



Well, there are those photoshopped internet things, but they don't really count, do they? Even if they do tend to give me a tingle in the nether region.

At last the train arrives at a large station and a great number of people squeeze their way off and I get to move from the center square to the one next to the wall by the door. This looks promising because, just like at the urinals in men's rooms, people tend to leave a space between themselves and the next person. Unfortunately, at this station, a great number of people squeeze their way onto the train and I end up squashed against the wall by two women who look like they've enjoyed a good deal of Edy's Gourmet Ice Cream (probably a registered trademark should go here).

I'm now wondering why a person like me, who's really never done anything to hurt another living soul (except for that one thing I did to my first boyfriend Danny, and I was 12 for God's sake!), should have to be pressed up against the wall of an overcrowded subway car when I was only 10 seconds later than usual in arriving at the train station. It's unfair, I tell ya, unfair! Tomorrow, I vow to arrive at the train station twenty seconds earlier, so I can go back to thinking about Matt Damon's possible nude scenes in upcoming films, instead of about how I'm suffering a backache brought on by forced bad posture.