Train people

There’s an Extremely Large woman with a paper fan sitting down below on the train.

She’s wearing a pale blue caftan. Her fan is pretty and flowery and matches her outfit.

She’s waving that fan as if her life depended on it. I’m thinking it does.
~~~~~~~~
There’s a Hispanic woman sitting across from me talking loudly into her phone. Just now, she stopped talking and picked up her book about Italy.

Maybe she’s Italian after all.
~~~~~~~~
To her right is a man who just opened a large can of Guinness beer that splattered all over his leg. He looks like an Angry Young Professional.
~~~~~~~~
Next to him is a tiny, hairy Hispanic man reading the Wall Street Journal. He’s wearing a black Souza tequila t-shirt and dark sunglasses in spite of the rain. His pants are covered with paint.
~~~~~~~~
Then there’s me: Pink t-shirt and an incredibly girly skirt; it’s a purple and white and pink flowery thing that blows up too high when the wind whips through the Loop. I have my headphones on but no music is playing so that I look like I'm not listening to the conversations going on around me.
~~~~~~~~~
The guy to my immediate left is some kind of marketing/art director dude on his mobile phone. At least he’s trying to talk quietly. But I don’t give him any credit for that – he’s in marketing, he should know better.

Right now he’s babbling about marking up a hard copy of something.

At the end of each phone call, he snaps his phone shut to let everyone know he’s Important. He’s on his sixth phone call.
~~~~~~~~
The best seven words ever heard on a train: “My phone battery is about to die.”
~~~~~~~~~
Large Marge is reading a magazine article titled “Every Breath You Take.” It looks like a medical journal.

This woman, who couldn’t be more obviously unhealthy, is reading a journal about health. And I’m thinking that every breath she takes could be her last.
~~~~~~~~~~
The hirsute Hispanic is finished with the newspaper and is cleaning his nails.
~~~~~~~~~~
Apparently the large lady walks with a cane. The cane is blue and flowery like her fan.

I don’t know why I’m surprised her accessories are so well-coordinated with her outfit.

Seems like if she’s that hyper conscious about her appearance maybe she’d put down the sammich once in a while.
~~~~~~~~~~
Here we are. Readers, talkers, sleepers.

Commuters.

The challenge is to feel connected with all these people.

I’ve said it before: All of us are heading in the same direction, but we couldn’t be more different.
~~~~~~~~~
Interesting: Of the people on the train today, all the ones I’ve chosen to describe here are still on as we make our last stop in Aurora.

I think for a minute that we’re in some twisted episode of the Twilight Zone where suddenly I’m a minor deity, choosing who gets to stay on and who gets off the train just by my thoughts.
~~~~~~~~~~
These talkers, I wonder if they ever shut the fuck up.

Really.

Two of them have been on the phone since we left the station.

Mr. Snappy just ended another call.

I bet these are the people who don’t do well with being alone. They don’t do well with silence.
~~~~~~~~~~
I realize the large fan lady might have some sort of gland problem. Maybe she eats one salad a day and still can’t lose weight.

Nah. It’s takes an assload of eatin’ to be that huge.
~~~~~~~~~~
Then there’s this: “I really wish that bitch in the pink shirt would stop cracking her knuckles. It’s so loud and irritating. And I know she can’t hear it because she’s got her headphones on. How annoying.”
~~~~~~~~~~
I am listening to: KT Tunstall – Universe and U
I am reading: Nothing
And I am: Disconnected