Except for the sneeze, true story. I was on the Q train listening to my iPod when I noticed that the subway announcements sounded particularly clear. Actually the first thing I noticed was the announcer joking along about the subway fare hike, and then continued to do the transfers announcement. Then I looked over to my left and saw that there was some guy (crazy? Not crazy?) who was doing subway announcements. He got off before my stop.
I sometimes like pretending I have a super human sensitivity to when the subway car is coming, but really I’m just waiting for the slightest breeze coming from the direction of where the train is coming. The consequence being that this reveals to me that homeless people still relieve themselves on the platform upwind from where I’m usually standing.
So far the 2-3, 4-5, L and N trains all have new trains running, but the Q is the newest one that I’ve seen so far. The Q train also has the LED stop list inside the car that changes each stop so that you can see what stop is next.
Only problem being that most of the new Q trains I’ve been on say that the next stop is 59th street for the entire trip and nothing else. Also there’s an LCD display next to it which only works when it’s showing the big Q circle. Whenever it tries to show anything else it looks like crappy streaming digital garbage or a DVD messing up.
The scaffolding on this corner has been there forever, making what was already a bottleneck area because of the elevator even worse. When scaffolding goes away it’s always a big event, it’s weird how you suddenly feel you can breathe when walking through those areas afterwards.
Before you ask whether or not he touched any of those ingredients with his hands, be reminded that it’s all make believe. Little side note, the dog poop is one of the first things that I drew when I was copying the drawings out of comics as a child. I had a ton of Doraemon comics (translated into Chinese though so his name was Xiao Ding Dong) and that’s how the mangaka drew poop of various types. I thought it was really funny so I remember using up sheets of paper trying to get it just right. I also used to make that shape in ceramics class or with silly putty when I had it.
Anyway, it’s officially summer and the stench of Chinatown is only going to get worse. If you walk around the Grand Street subway station in the evening either during or after business hours you’ll get a whiff of that unique Chinatown smell that’s an amalgam of all the things you don’t want to smell, COMBINED. Don’t ask me why I put Chinese cabbage in, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing because I really like Chinese cabbage (good in soups), I just needed another ingredient.
The way I explained this story to a friend of mine is that normally being splashed with an unidentified liquid is suspicious or worrisome as it is. But being splashed with liquid when you’re in CHINATOWN is just about worst case scenario. I was actually walking up the stairs of the exit at Grand Street when some water, not a whole lot, but enough that it was more than a spray fell down over the fench onto a couple people on the stairway. The person in front of me got hit the worst, I was on the outside of the radius, but instantly I was having paranoid reactions. When I got to the top I saw a woman with a plastic bag so I still don’t know if it was just water or something that there was Chinatown food floating in or some other unspeakable thing. I know above the Grand Street subway exit there’s a lot of food being sold so the possibilities were endless.
It’s officially fall now because the change in temperature caught me off guard and I now have a mild cold. I had already stopped sleeping with my fan on, but now I guess I gotta close the window or leave it open a crack so it’s not blowing on my face in the morning.
Actually, Canal street should be getting better now since it’s not as hot, but I couldn’t think of anything else cold-related.
I decided today that the smell at the Canal Street Q station can be official designated as an entity. I could’ve sworn that it’s gained the ability to come and go as it pleases. Sometimes I think the smell is displaced when a train comes in, pushing it towards and past me. When I was walking from one end of the platform to the section I usually stand at it gradually grew stronger which forced me to instead stand at one end where the smell was faint to imperceptible. Then when the train came in I held my breath and walked to the door I usually get on at. I actually do want to know what are the ingredients involved in creating such a horrible smell. Someday.
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