Nothing to see here

I'm tapping this out while sitting on a crowded F-line train. Crowded! At 11 at night! Well, it is a Saturday, so I suppose that makes sense. 

Everyone around here is clearly on their way to or on their way back from a night out. Must be nice. I, on the other hand, am just returning from work. And I'll probably be pulling similar hours tomorrow. This whole week has been utterly insane because the big event in D.C. that we've been planning is next week, which explains my absence but doesn't excuse it. I swear to god, if I have to write another formal-ass, trite little email my head is going to explode. And the one thing worse than having to write trite little emails all day is your perfectionist boss demanding to proof-read each one to make sure they're conforming to Chicago MLA (?) style. 

So now I'm headed home and I have nothing really to say because I'm wiped and I'm edgy about this event and I'm annoyed that I have the strongest urge to go back through this and double-space after every full stop. Remember what I was saying earlier about an editorial eye? Yeah, this is one of those times when I'm perfectly happy to just pound something out, tappa-tappa-tappa, done. I've had quite enough of editing for one day, and I need to save my strength for tomorrow's epic 12-hour round.

So instead of introspection, have some people-watching! It's extrospection! 

-Everyone on this train has such a lovely tan. It must have been really nice out today.

-The girl in front of me is wearing a denim jacket that's only-just-too-small for her. and an oak-covered scarf with gold trim. She has shoulder-length chestnut brown hair, a huge navy Balenciga bag, and her ear lobes are chock-full of piercings! Oh… and then she turns her head and I see a close-cropped patch of hair above her ear, and under the downy stubble trails a flowery tattoo, and I instantly fall in stupid love. Subway love - it has to be the most powerful and most frustrating kind of love there is.

-Maybe all these people are heading to Coney Island. Wouldn't that be swell? Ferris Wheels and candy floss and the salt-and-oil scent of the boardwalk. Hot dogs and carnival curiosities all around! …okay, I'll admit, I have only the vaguest idea of what Coney Island is actually like.

-The man across the way has a very long, very thin head. It's balding on top: a perfect strip of bareness with a fertile patch of hair on either side, fencing it in, perched on his ears and clinging to the side of his head like a pair of fuzzy mountain goats. Actually, now that he turns his head, I see that the patches connect at the back. So imagine a tennis ball! It's kind of like that. He's wearing a pair of perfectly circular, perfectly twee glasses that are perched on his long nose - everything about him perches in some way, and his thin build makes him seem like he's going to topple apart at any moment - and he's reading some kind of pamphlet or booklet.  I can't see what it's about, but I'm imagining some delightfully, esoterically niche domestic subject like woodworking or lawnmower repair. 

-The woman sitting next to him looks incredibly edgy. She's staring at the list of upcoming stops like it'll determine her future, which I guess is right in a way. She looks to be in about her 50s, and she's clutching a plain black gym bag to her lap as though she's nervous of someone taking it. Her hair curls and explodes out from her head, which is probably making her look far more frazzled than she really feels. Her mouth is perpetually slightly open, like she's about to voice some protest against the world at large.

-Somewhere a toddler is howling. Howling! This kid is not best pleased with his situation! I can't hear too well from here because I've got my lovely headphones in and I'm listening to… well… ok. It's Evanescence right now. Don't judge me. You can't judge me, I quit! In any case, I can see him now - hid dad's calmed him down with something that looks crispy and sweet, so maybe that kid knows what he's doing. 

-Alright, Evanescence ended, now it's some so-no-koto traditional instrumental Japanese music. More classy, if no less nerdy. 

-Speaking of Asian music, I was listening to the Kung Fu Panda 2 soundtrack today. Now this is legit, because it was put together by Han Zimmer, and that man knows how to write great soundtracks. If him and John Williams get together and have a baby, that child will grow up to be some sort of compositional ubermensch. Like… the Kwisatz HaderBach. And now it's my stop, so good night and good luck!

The black will be grey and the white will be grey but the blues are still blue