Unmoved

My reflection flickers in the passing windows of the train as it pulls into the station: existence, non-existence, existence again, onoffonoff on off
on.

We crowd into the car, the tide of bodies spinning me so that I have to step in the door sideways, like a crab.

The people around me touch me on three sides, an arm here, a leg there, someone's shoulder against my back, but none of it is hostile or intrusive. We're all mutually neutral, pushed together, breathing and soft, unmoved in the thrust and motion of the train around us, thinking our separate thoughts, on our way together to separate destinations.
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One year ago: Mind the Light
Two years ago: The Apathy of Youth
Three years ago: Love Minus One
Four years ago: I Must Have Had "Soft Eyes"
Eight years ago: 5/31/09 - Wyckoff part 2
Nine years ago: 5-31-08 Camels of the Heights of Guam

So Quiet

We bike home through the misty evening after dropping the van off at the U-Haul place, up Third Street with its stately row houses. The overarching trees are already so thick they obscure the street lights, leaving us rolling through darkness with brief patches of leaf-shadowed light illuminating the sidewalks and streets.

For a while there's only the sound of us breathing, pushing pedals, climbing the hill past dark windows and parked cars

"It's so quiet," Katie almost whispers, and her voice is swallowed up in the night.

---------------

One year ago: Squares Are All About Undies

Two years ago: I Eventually Got It Working

Three years ago: At the Rock Show

Four years ago: Manhattanhenge

Eight years ago: 5/30/09 - Everything must Go!

Nine years ago: 5-30-08 Jesus Loves Me (but you may still be crazy)

The Fountain of Youth

Ellie the very old min-pin finally decides she likes Katie and sits at her feet, quivering slightly, while Katie gently strokes her fur. Coco has gone to the end of her leash and stands staring at nothing in particular, as usual.

"Our other dog, Lou, was a rescue too," Ellie's owner says (side note pointing out that very rarely do encounters with other dog owners end with an exchange of names, while the names of dogs are freely given and usually have to stand in for the name of the owner), "and he'd been so badly mistreated that we thought he was much older."

"Now that he's had some pampering, though, he looks a lot younger," he finishes with a shrug, and Ellie closes her eyes in bliss as Katie begins scratching her behind the ears.
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One year ago: Tap Out
Two years ago: Jet Fuel Can't Melt Cynicism
Three years ago: ADD After Spin Class
Four years ago: I'm Just Bigger Than You
Nine years ago: 5-29-08 Wherein I ask the eternal question, "Bitch, where's my money?"

Banal But True

"I know that it's real," says our roommate at the dinner table as the conversation turns to a discussion of this blog. "Some of the things you write are too banal to be anything else."

We laugh at this, until another friend at the table says, "I read it every morning. When I see myself in it sometimes, I 'm all, 'Yes!'"
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One year ago: Sharing
Two years ago: Feel Better by Doing Better
Three years ago: The Construction Workers Here Are Usually Quite Polite
Four years ago: A Constant Disappointment
Eight years ago: 5/28/09 - Just Biking in the Rain (wham! wham!)
Nine years ago: 5-28-08 And they Struck the Motherlode

Hello Darkness

The dog stops, starts, jumps left, then beelines right into my path, where I promptly (and accidentally) almost kick her, which sends her skittering off on another trajectory.

"Coco, you have such a neurotic walk," Katie says affectionately.

"Yeah, since she's practically blind," I say. "I wonder what it must be like to walk around with us in the dark."
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One year ago: Theater Kids
Two years ago: Sick Day
Three years ago: This is a Man's World
Eight years ago: 5/27/09 - Phbbbbtt!
Nine years ago: 5-27-08 Storm's Coming

Two Ways of Being a Couple

The couple walks by, she, dead-eyed, her voice nasally and dull, like a blunted knife, he, with a vacant expression, completely un-enthused to be doing anything at all.

I watch them go when another, different couple walk up, going the opposite direction.

She is wearing a school girl uniform, but she looks a little older than that, he's in jeans, t-shirt, and a beanie, and carrying a take-out box filled with ramen noodles.

She begins a little song I couldn't catch because it was in a different language, maybe, but as they walk past, he begins to sing too, and they float away, down Flatbush Avenue, holding hands, singing quietly to each other.
------------------------
One year ago: Up and Down
Two years ago: The Tension is Killing me
Four years ago: Sometimes, Giving Up is Okay Too
Eight years ago: 5/26/09 - Can't Make it
Nine years ago: 5-26-08

What Are You Gonna Do?

She's dressed normally, maybe a little drably: patterned tights, tennis shoes, a beige coat that looks a little too big for her, even her simultaneously flat and flyaway hair, which might be a clue to a disturbed condition in other circumstances, seems appropriate given the wet, spattering rain that's been coming down all day.

Then she steps off the curb at the corner, against the light, and walks out into the middle of the crosswalk as the SUV barrels down on her. It swerves a fraction at the last minute, missing her by literally inches (her jacket billows slightly in its wake), but her expression doesn't change as she hops backwards and then strides forward again, again being missed only by inches by another car going the opposite direction from the first through the intersection.

Safe on the sidewalk, watching her make it to the other side despite her apparent best efforts at vehicular suicide, I look to the woman standing next to me, if she saw it too, and she almost imperceptibly raises one eyebrow, and shrugs.
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One year ago: Asking
Two years ago: Meaner Streets
Three years ago: Anatomy of a Hanging
Four years ago: Starting Over
Eight years ago: 5/25/09 - Water Taxi Washing Machine
Nine years ago: 5-25-08 Your Guide to Firefighting