lgk

I saw them in concert when I was in grad school in Wales - *awesome*.

For Joel and Lilia - two more chapters (and one to go!!), both from one year ago today, May 1, 2006...

Chapter Five: Sisyphus
I got to 4th and Townsend a couple minutes early, bought my monthly pass for May, and boarded the train. Having discovered on Friday, when Michael got on the train and interrupted my conversation with the woman with the hypnotic eyes and amazing smile, that she was going to Point Reyes for the weekend with "John", my Chronicle perusing stayed uninterrupted and unencumbered from trying to keep a seat free to 22nd. When she got on I politely asked how her weekend was, but reined in my award-winning grin knowing that they were in short supply and that I'd need to reserve them for whoever I was foolish enough to envision growing old with in the urban equivalent of a house with a white picket fence this week. Or at least that's how I'd expected my Monday morning to play out as I walked down 4th Street in the sun.

I bought my Chronicle from the little old Chinese man who always tries to up-sell me to the New York Times, freed $139.25 from my bank account for the monthly 3 zone Caltrain pass, and headed out onto the train platform and up to my regular seat. The train remained surprisingly empty for a Monday morning, and I didn't suspect that it was due to a lot of the Peninsula commuters participating the in the "Day without Immigrants" protests and marches. Still at 4th and King as I finished with the front section, I wondered if I still worked in the restaurant if I'd have been taking the day off to stand in solidarity. While pondering that, hypnotic eyes and perfect teeth takes the seat opposite and across the aisle with an extra measure of bounce, and smiles at me.

"How was Point Reyes?", I politely ask over the edge of my paper.

"It was great - one of the guy's mom owns a little cottage up there, and we just hung out having drinks and BBQing all day, and then yesterday there was another BBQ. Lots of eating for the entire weekend. How did the dinner for your friend come out?"

I tell her that it came out fine, and settle back into the paper after an uncomfortable silence. Michael stops by her seat and rests a knee on the edge of the adjoining one, and asks if she was OK on Sunday morning. She answers that she was, that she just needed some coffee to get rid of the headache - he laughs at her, she says no, really, that once she'd had the coffee the headache went away. He removes his knee and heads back to his seat, I head into the Sports' section hoping the Red Sox can pull it out against the Yankees later in the day, and she and I meet up at the crossword about the same time. She seems pre-occupied, almost sad or disappointed, the capped end of her pen pursed between her lips.

I finish the crossword just as we pull out of Palo Alto, put the Classified section's crossword and cryptoquip away in my bag along with my pen, and get up as we jerk past San Antonio.

"Have a nice day," I say. She looks up and says, "See you tomorrow."

Chapter Six: Waiting for Godot (with a beer in hand, on the 383)
I'd planned to leave work at 5:00 to catch the 5:10 shuttle to Mountain View for an exciting evening of dipping into my earthquake preparedness kit, Jeopardy, and Law & Order re-runs. At 5:05 I knew that wasn't happening... let's just say that the reasons I'd taken this gig had passed months ago, and the levels of incompetence flying around made me want to leave pronto. But since quitting on principal wasn't an option after a year of working on my own project and running up the credit cards, I swapped out my usual scowl, and suggested we could revisit issues in the morning. And then I strolled out the door.

Standing on the northbound platform at Mountain View, doing the math in my head as to when my bills would be paid down and I could quit, I watched the train pull in just on time. Once the seven bicyclists got off, I got on, and made a left into the forward-most car, where hypnotic eyes and perfect smile was sitting next to Michael.

"Would you like a beer?", she said to me as I cleared the doorframe into the car. "I'd love a beer," I replied, was given an ice-cold Tecate, and took the seat behind them on the west side of the train, against the window so I could see the sun on her face through the back of the seats. I drank my beer and smiled as she finished hers and cracked open another, and pretended to do the Classified's crossword.

Things learned: Michael's moving to Atlanta to be with his girlfriend; neither of them know that the history of having a lime in your beer was to prevent scurvy; she has a garden and likes Powell's Soul Food, didnt' realize they'd re-opened over on Eddy and Fillmore, rides a purple Specialized messenger-bike style bike, and has a great black-outlined flame tattoo way down on her back.

She stayed on until 4th and King. I broke the Caltrain rules of bicyclists getting off the train after the walkers, letting her detrain before me. We walked together to the terminal, and I thanked her for the beer, wished her luck with her gardening this evening, and said "see you tomorrow". She smiled back with a smile that said more than the absence of words in the din of the train station.

Tomorrow: The Final Chapter!

Show us some fish.

Goldfish

6 comments

Here you go, Lilia:

Remnants of the Cold War (on a Thursday morning)
Finishing the Cryptoquip between Mountain View and Palo Alto on the 373 Wednesday night (O equals F, and "QO L ULVUDXX YLF OLCZDC VDCD MLTTDB LMB JSK QM JCQXAM, YD ZQWYK KCP KA WDK ASK AM TLUD" equals "If a lawless hay farmer were nabbed and put in prison, he might try to get out on bale") I read my horoscope. Horoscopes, as a rule, are vague enough to tell you what you want them to about your upcoming day. I'd always found that reading them at the end of the day made them prove their merit. And Wednesday's wanted to: People are ready to go. Why are you riding the brake? Don't let anxiety call the shots. The only way to tell if things will work is to try. Maybe I should have read that before the woman with the hypnotic eyes and perfect smile took the crowded three-top one row up instead of the empty four-top I was holding for her on the 324 that morning. Maybe then I would have eked out more than a "see you tomorrow?" as I de-trained at Mountain View and have gotten more than a hesitant smile in return.

Union Square smelled of freshly cut grass as I walked through it the next day at 7:30am. Whether it was the spring air or the day before's horoscope or the Negronis and burgers from the previous night, I decided that today would be the day I said something to the woman, be it aloud or via a clandestinely passed note on the airmail stationary I'd tossed in my bag as I left my apartment on Bush.

The short, thin, married woman with the 4 inch Frankenstein platform shoes reading Motherhood Without Guilt, "Without" presenting itself in a self-empowered underlined Sharpie-style font, capitalized and giving the finger to Chicago style, snarled at me as I absently flipped the pages of the Chronicle while looking to see if my recent obsession had gotten on at 22nd. Ignoring my thoughts on horoscopes I found myself in the Classifieds and read A matter that was supposed to be signed, sealed, and delivered is suddenly postponed. Don't react too hastily. This could be advantageous. Somewhere, someone's glass is half-full.

Audio: It's 70's music Wednesday.

...the story continues: 

Horseshoes and Handgrenades
I woke up, muscles sore from having recently doubled my workout, eyes bleary from a three-scotch-and-soda consolation prize for not seeing the woman with the hypnotic eyes on Caltrain 379 last night. As I walked down 4th and crossed Howard and passed the carousel and underused Yerba Buena Gardens, I decided that if she was on the train again today I would actually talk with her, and get her name, and see if she wanted to go out for a drink.

I got on the train and took my usual seat, and by the time the doors had closed at 4th and Townsend my stomach had butterflies and I kept willing the window seat in front of me to stay empty. The train jerked out of the station and the seat remained free.

Caltrain has been conducting a survey over the past week or so, same one both directions, with the usual suspects of questions: where did you get on, how did you get there, where are you getting off, how are you proceeding from there, what type of ticket do you have, how long have you been riding Caltrain for, did some marketing thing that Caltrain did last August convince you to ride more frequently. Part of me would like to believe the surveys are to figure out how to better provide service to those of us stuck on a train an hour each way each day. That part is beaten up regularly by the part of me that knows that the surveys will be used to cut back on trains and stops. Trying to stick up for the part of me that was being beaten up, I took the survey again after telling the woman that I'd taken it the week before, and she explained that they wanted passengers to fill it out in both directions. Screwy, and I'd love to know how that skews the numbers. However, it did distract me for a fraction of a moment.

By the time we approached 22nd the butterflies had evolved into giant Tongan fruit bats, and I looked out the window to see the guy with the short hair, off-the-rack suit, and sneakers dawdling down the stairs as he always did, slowly validating his ticket, taking his sweet time as the train waited for him. I turned my head and saw the woman from the day before come up the stairs to the second level of the car, ringlets of hair playing over her eyes, grey corduroy jacket and light green skirt, a tease of skin just before a different pair of black mid-calf boots. Her eyes met mine and we both smiled. The window seat across from me was still empty, but she opted for the seat directly across the aisle and facing me. She sat and gave me a look that I have an afternoon set aside for, and proceeded to reach in her handbag. She says that she almost didn't make the train this morning, pulls out an iPod, smiles again, and pulls her laptop out of her work bag. Maybe she has to catch up on some work I thought, until she grimaced and put it away, looking at me as if I knew why. My guesses were "dead battery" and "clever ruse to talk with me". While I'm not sure if I was right on my first guess, I knew full well I was dead wrong on the second, as she pulled out the new Wired, put in her earbuds, and started reading.

All of three minutes had passed since we left 22nd and I didn't know what I should do. The train delaying off-the-rack suit and sneakers guy took the window seat, and the survey woman came round again to get the passengers who had just boarded. The woman with the green skirt takes one, as does the guy who's sitting where she should be, and I page through the rest of the paper, not reading a word of it.

When we arrived at Hillsdale my crossword was a mess of black ink and crossouts, and I wondered what day in school I'd missed where they taught how to have social skills. I couldn't exactly force a conversation, and I certainly couldn't just give her the business card I'd subtly extracted from the wallet in my left back pocket to my right back pocket and suggest we go out sometime. But I sure as hell couldn't just let this lie.

As we left Palo Alto my time was running out. My second-to-last ditch chance to talk with her would be when my favorite conductor came through to check tickets: she'd take her earbuds out, and then I could at least talk with her a little, how was work yesterday and your name is and that kind of thing. The one day he doesn't do it, and it's today. The best laid plans of mice and men, and I was definitely a mouse.

My last ditch chance to talk with her was a failure from the moment the train delayer got on at 22nd took his survey. I thought I could wait until we got to Mountain View, and as everyone was getting up and me talking wouldn't pierce the dead silence on the train, I could then say, "by the way, I'm Luke," and suggest going out for a drink sometime. But having glanced at his survey, his destination was San Jose, so he'd be sitting right there the entire time. "Fuck it," I thought, "he doesn't know you, and you don't give a shit anyway." And then she'd be stuck on the train with him for the next 13 minutes, and might feel as awkward as I was not wanting to saying anything in front of this guy. Again, I wondered what day of school I missed.

"Now arriving Mountain View, Mountain View station", and I rose as the train stopped, and she looked up and took an earbud out. I said "I hope you have a nice day - see you tomorrow morning?" She grinned and said so long as she made the train.

In that Joel and Lilia felt left hanging, the next chapter to this morning's post...

Monday Evening on the 379
I gave the product manager the rundown of where things were at and "next steps" at 4:59pm and left to catch the 5:10pm shuttle to Mountain View station. Lighting a cigarette as I stepped out of the semi-permanent temporary offices, the grin on my face tore straight through and I wondered if the woman with the hypnotic eyes had had a similar day, dealing with work, toying with thoughts of the morning commute, hoping her subtlety of "I take the 5:45 train home" had caught.

Shelley dropped us off at 5:31pm, six minutes before the next Baby Bullet to SF, 27 minutes before when the 5:45 out of San Jose would stop at Mountain View. Lighting another cigarette I laughed to myself and happily let the 373 blow by, took my time smoking it, and meandered over to the northbound platform at Mountain View. I stopped at a position that would allow me to get on the first car, hoping that the mention of the 5:45 from San Jose was a flirtatious gesture, and that I'd see her and we'd talk on the way back to the City and I'd either ask her out for a drink or at least get her name.

The train arrived 2 minutes early; I got on at the most northward car, and proceeded to walk through - girl on cellphone, guy with far too many bags, couple headed to the Giants' game, nothing. Next car, same story, all the way through five cars to the back of the train.

Taking a seat in the last car of the train, I took out the morning's unfinished crossword. Until that point I'd been in a better mood all day than I'd been in a long time. While the couple in front of me played with their season's tickets and worried about the train getting them to PacBell in time for the opening pitch, I finished the adjoining Cryptoquip and kicked myself for hoping that she'd sit in the same seat tomorrow morning.

So besides seeing Hot Fuzz over the weekend (which was *awesome*), having dinner at Caffe Macaroni, and watching the Red Sox sweep the Yankees (and hit four back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs in the 3rd), ain't a whole lot to Vox about as late. And so, on this fine spring day, I give you another entry from another blog from a year ago today.

Prometheus Scratches an Itch (Crosswords on the 324)
According to the 2003 US Census, of the 751,682 people living in San Francisco, 369,828 of them are women, and the folks at the Census Bureau must be married and/or get enough on the side that they don't see the value in breaking that data set down into "age range" and "availability".

On any given morning, Caltrain transports roughly 16,016 people to and from the Peninsula. If one were to arbitrarily apply the US Census' breakdown of SF's population being 49.2% female to that, it would make 7,879 north and southbound commuters on the train women, making some 3,940 of them going one way or the other. And on any given Caltrain Baby Bullet, there are 675 seats, spread across five cars, which if the the train were full should statistically see 332 of those seats occupied by women, 66 per car. The trains are seldom full, and the math started to fall apart somewhere around the point where the Census stopped at their breakdown of their data.

I boarded Caltrain 324 at 7:57am and took my usual seat on the west side of the upper section of the bike car, unzipped my new North Face jacket, and started flipping through the Chronicle. Two married women in their late 50s were talking with each other and the sleepy early 20s guy across the aisle from them with his sneakers on the floor and his feet on the seat in front of him. The train left 4th and Townsend and I'd coursed through the front and the Bay Area sections by the time we arrived at 22nd. As I refolded the Bay Area and the train lurched from 22nd I noticed a woman sit diagonally across from the guy with his feet on the chair, up one and diagonally across from me, attempting to wake him so he'd move his sneakers from in front of next to his chair, and the conductor mumbled an announcement over the loudspeaker. She looked at me and with her eyes asked if I heard what the conductor had said - I shrugged my shoulders in response; even if I'd been able to make out his mumblings, my focus was ruined for the rest of the trip.

Captain Kirk style jeans hemmed to just above her mid-calf black boots, patterned brown lace-up shirt, leather jacket, short fingernails, no ring, the most exquisite smile and perfect teeth, curly ringlets of black hair to her shoulders, and eyes that could convince you to do anything they wanted them to. She took out her copy of the Chronicle, folded it over at the back section of the Datebook section, and got points for reading Miss Manners and Dear Abby. Between glances and grins she folded it over again, tapping it four times, onetwothree----four with the forefinger on her right hand to flatten the crease, and took out a pen to do the crossword as I was scanning the baseball stats and scores I already knew. About three minutes later I was just about caught up to her, below the fold of the back page of the Datebook, respect to Dear Abby for explaining that you can't get AIDS or Hepatitis from shaking hands with your co-workers, and folding my paper into quarters to do the crossword. I rolled my pen across my knuckles as she tapped her pen to her chin, and we caught eyes again, her perfect teeth smiling at me, my grin tearing a hole in the left side of my face. I burned through the crossword, and flipped to the second crossword in the Classified section, and quickly lost interest as the train paused at Hillsdale and there was some other announcement about us being on our way shortly. As far as I was concerned we could stay there all day, so long as she kept smiling at me.

The train started moving south and the woman and I locked eyes again. "Good to see you again," she says. "You too," I manage past my lips, knowing full well I've never met this woman before. We continue to talk a bit, her asking if I'm still contracting down here, me saying that I'm trying to figure it out; her saying she's been doing it for two years and you get used to it, me thinking get her name you fucking-spineless-excuse-for-a-human-being. She asks if I get off in Mountain View, I say yes, and while I've known since 22nd that she's getting off in San Jose from the backpack that has her company's name embroidered on it nestled on the window seat next to her in front of the sleeping 20 year old, I ask her where she gets off, but not in the tone of voice I'd like to have. She says, "San Jose," I nod, and as the train is now leaving Palo Alto I start to gather my leftover crossword for the commute home. The air is static: I want to ask her her name, her eyes are asking more than her lips are saying. I stand up.

"So what train do you usually take back to the City?" She says the 5:45 from San Jose, and we're now approaching Mountain View, and I say it was great talking with her, she says the same, and I say have a good day through the gaping hole in my left cheek. I get to the foot of the stairs and tell myself to go back upstairs and introduce myself, and the train pulls into Mountain View. I get off the train in a better mood than I've been in for over a year and a half, and decide on the shuttle ride and walk to the semi-permanent temporary offices that I'll be taking the connecting 5:58 Mountain View train home this evening.

Dude, it so is.