For most people, riding to work on the Metro is a solitary event. Sometimes couples commute together and converse, or friends run into each other and start to chat. But for the majority of us, it’s a time to enjoy quiet pursuits without the intrusion of others. A great number of people read; newspapers are common in the morning while books are more popular for the ride home. Magazines can show up at any time (I was reading Newsweek before getting out a piece of paper to write) and not infrequently religious texts will be read, sometimes accompanied by barely-moving lips in recitation. Many people do their work on the Metro, marking up legal documents or other paperwork. Sometimes people review their datebooks, and the more geekly among us play with our PDAs. Nearly everyone is lost in their own word-filled world - but then some are not. Women occasionally start the trip by finishing up their beauty routines - fixing hair, applying lipstick, or whatever they need to do. But this morning I caught a girl working on what I’ve always thought should be a solitary grooming practice - tweezing her eyebrows. She had a little hand mirror with her, and carefully plucked out hairs I couldn’t even see - and not from the bridge of her nose, but from what seemed to be perfectly normal eyebrows. She left a red spot at one edge, where the sensitive skin was unhappy about being abused in such a manner, and though I also saw her applying some sort of cream I had to wonder why she chose to engage in such a delicate task on a swaying, lurching subway train.

(I should not that the activities described above are almost always performed by people who are seated. Those left standing sometimes fiddle with PDAs or read books, but more often the stand silently, staring out the window at the monotonous tunnel interiors.)