prometheus' itch

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.