People can be so rude on the metro! Last night, a young black woman (she turned out to be 24) got on the train pushing a stroller with a small baby in it. A young black man got on at the same time, and although they obviously weren’t together he kept asking about the child. He decided it was male (she corrected him), and then decided it didn’t look black enough (the baby was much more pale than either of the adults). He asked the woman, what’d you go do that for? She didn’t hear him the first time, so he said what’d you go messing around with a Spanish dude for? I was totally shocked that he’d say that kind of thing. Then this morning, a young guy got on the train at the end of the line and promptly slouched across two seats. He closed his eyes and listened to music, and the train wasn’t very full so he stayed all sprawled out. Several stops later people were standing, and he kept opening his eyes to peer around and determine which stop we were at. At one point he even leaned over himself in a very relaxed, I’m-falling-asleep-now sort of way…and I couldn’t believe he did that the entire trip (he got off at the stop before mine) without for one moment considering it would be polite to allow another person to sit.



Today has gone fairly well, even though the temp is proving herself only somewhat competent. She was ten minutes late yesterday with a quasi-reasonable excuse, but this morning she was twenty minutes late and said “oh, I just had one of those mornings” and gave me a list of stupid reasons. She’s been doing an okay job with office procedure, but I won’t be including her on the list of possible new hires for the future.



Accolate seems to be a real pain. I have to take it on an empty stomach, which means one hour before eating and/or two hours after. It’s a lot more confusing than it seems; I like to nibble throughout the day rather than eating big meals so this is going to be annoying.

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.)

So because my boss is out this week, I’m going crazy here at work trying to manage all the phone calls. Usually if somebody has the wrong number I try to help them out, but this week I’ve just been hanging up on them as soon as I realize they’re not actually a customer - I have other calls to get to, and I don’t have the time to help people who aren’t paying for our services. (They’re calling 800 numbers, too, so we have to pay for their wrong number.) Most people just check the number and try again, but sometimes they get uppity and hit redial. Last night, not long before it was time to leave, I had to lecture a woman to stop calling me - I don’t care if her invoice had this number, if she’s not calling for a teleconference then she has the wrong number. What just happened a few minutes ago, though, was more annoying. A woman called into the conference bridge at the same time a conference was beginning, so she wasn’t the only person on the line. She started asking for her sister who is a guest there or whatever, and I said “sorry, you’ve got the wrong number” and disconnected her. Sure enough, she called right back and started out with “well I don’t appreciate being hung up on.” So I told her how I’m the only one here, I’m very busy, and she has the wrong number. I realized what she wanted, though - there’s a hotel in Paso Robles whose phone number is always printed with PASO at the end, and people really like dialing 7270 - which gets them to me - instead of 7276 (the correct spelling). So I asked if that’s what she wanted, and she said yes, so I gave her the number. She said “and you have a lot to learn about how to treat people!” and hung up while I was sputtering out a really lame comeback. Excuse me? Bitch, you don’t know what I need to learn. I treat people just fucking fine when I have the time. I’m sorry I can’t hold your hand and walk you through it right now, I’m very busy and you are wasting my time and need to get out of my face.


Okay, that venting wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped. Oh well.

We came out of the movies Saturday night to find that someone had taken advantage of our dirty car to write crap like “YOU NEED DICK!” and “LESBIANS I KILL FAGS” across the roof and windshield. What loser does shit like that? (And it’s not going to stop us from putting queer-related stickers on our car, either.)

This morning on the metro a woman really irked me with her Palm m100. We were in the same seat, she had the window. We were both playing with our Palms - but she had the sound on. She had the sound on LOUD. Drove me up the damn wall. Please, people, if you’re going to use a PDA in a public place - make it silent. I beg you.