Monday, August 2, 2010
Books
Transitory
Dinner was a grilled Havarti cheese sandwich with a slice of tomato on it, buttermilk bread, in a pan with some bacon grease in it. It was delicious!
This evening was full of amusements -- this family of four from the western suburbs, nervously navigating the CTA. They asked me how to get back home, and I tried to help them, at least point them in the right direction. The wife was nervous, explained (repeatedly) how they had never taken the bus before and were more comfortable with driving everywhere, and didn't know how anybody could navigate the public transit system -- after trying to help them out, I pointed out the LED displays on the bus that indicate the streets being passed, and the robot voice that loudly announces whenever a stop is coming up. Not to be a smartass, mind you, but just told her that it used to be that those things weren't on the buses in the 90s, making navigating on them a lot harder than today. The CTA has made a lot of screwups over the years, but they've made their buses and trains so much more user-friendly -- with the robot voice announcing stops the way it does, a blind person can actually get where they need to go on them, which is a nice thing. Anyway, the family got where they needed to go, heading back to their tiny town (the woman said that a couple of times, too, almost apologetically, not that I held it against them -- kudos to them for venturing into the city at all).
Speaking of that, as I sat on the overcrowded bus, seated next to a nutball youngling who was tittering over his Blackberry (seriously, he was audibly cooing and hooting over it, and pulled an ultimate dick move on the bus -- namely, I got up to let a woman out, and the guy actually slid over two seats to take the window seat. Total breach of bus etiquette, since I was seated next to the gal who'd had the window seat -- I had "dibs!" And to make it worse, the guy actually got off a few stops later, so it was as gratuitous window-seat grab). Anyway, that aside, and the presence of the American Psycho lookalike on the ride home, I was reflecting on how much I enjoy the CTA -- each ride is a kind of adventure. You never know what you're going to get. Sure, there are regulars, but each ride is different (especially on the buses -- the El trains are more reliably familiar, although I did ride on an El in the 90s that caught fire, and we had to walk through the tunnels to get to the next stop, since we fled that train when it filled with smoke).
Anyway, each commute is its own kind of narrative, and I never get tired of it -- seeing who's on the bus, what they're doing, wondering what their stories are: families, execs, students, oldsters, divas, dowagers, goons, everything -- just an unending assortment of humanity in action and life.
I've commuted by car and by mass transit, and while the car is absolutely quicker (depending on where you're going, of course), it's also insulating and isolating. You're not really experiencing where you're driving -- you're just going from A to B, inoculated from the world around you. And that can be nice, for sure -- you have your own little solipsistic automotive world, there. You're master of your domain, right?
But I find when I take mass transit, getting there really is half the fun. I never complain about commutes because each commute offers up another slice of the city, a chance to talk to people, to watch and to listen, to experience, basically. It's a much more varied experience than an automotive commute, where the objective is very much on getting where you're going -- and when you're driving, you have to pay attention to what you're doing (at least I hope you are) -- and you can so easily miss details. As a passenger of mass transit, however, you don't have to worry about that, and can just people-watch. Sometimes the bus and/or train offers up great moments, surreal things, crazy stuff (one of my favorites was in the mid-90s, when this crazy guy got up and preached fire and brimstone to the El train occupants -- I mean, he was all blood and thunder. And I'm sitting there, watching him go, wondering why nobody else is reacting to it. And then I see some of the occupants do sign language to each other, expressions like "WTF is this guy talking about?" The train car had about 20 deaf passengers on it, and they got up and got off the train at the next stop, signing to one another. The would-be preacher was just floored by that, shaking his head, and he got off at the next stop, just pissed that his ad hoc sermon had literally fallen on deaf ears. I said to Exene, after he'd left: "The Lord works in mysterious ways!" I also said "Nobody's even going to believe we just saw that!" But that's what happens when you take mass transit -- you just see stuff. Humanity in all its incarnations.)
This evening was full of amusements -- this family of four from the western suburbs, nervously navigating the CTA. They asked me how to get back home, and I tried to help them, at least point them in the right direction. The wife was nervous, explained (repeatedly) how they had never taken the bus before and were more comfortable with driving everywhere, and didn't know how anybody could navigate the public transit system -- after trying to help them out, I pointed out the LED displays on the bus that indicate the streets being passed, and the robot voice that loudly announces whenever a stop is coming up. Not to be a smartass, mind you, but just told her that it used to be that those things weren't on the buses in the 90s, making navigating on them a lot harder than today. The CTA has made a lot of screwups over the years, but they've made their buses and trains so much more user-friendly -- with the robot voice announcing stops the way it does, a blind person can actually get where they need to go on them, which is a nice thing. Anyway, the family got where they needed to go, heading back to their tiny town (the woman said that a couple of times, too, almost apologetically, not that I held it against them -- kudos to them for venturing into the city at all).
Speaking of that, as I sat on the overcrowded bus, seated next to a nutball youngling who was tittering over his Blackberry (seriously, he was audibly cooing and hooting over it, and pulled an ultimate dick move on the bus -- namely, I got up to let a woman out, and the guy actually slid over two seats to take the window seat. Total breach of bus etiquette, since I was seated next to the gal who'd had the window seat -- I had "dibs!" And to make it worse, the guy actually got off a few stops later, so it was as gratuitous window-seat grab). Anyway, that aside, and the presence of the American Psycho lookalike on the ride home, I was reflecting on how much I enjoy the CTA -- each ride is a kind of adventure. You never know what you're going to get. Sure, there are regulars, but each ride is different (especially on the buses -- the El trains are more reliably familiar, although I did ride on an El in the 90s that caught fire, and we had to walk through the tunnels to get to the next stop, since we fled that train when it filled with smoke).
Anyway, each commute is its own kind of narrative, and I never get tired of it -- seeing who's on the bus, what they're doing, wondering what their stories are: families, execs, students, oldsters, divas, dowagers, goons, everything -- just an unending assortment of humanity in action and life.
I've commuted by car and by mass transit, and while the car is absolutely quicker (depending on where you're going, of course), it's also insulating and isolating. You're not really experiencing where you're driving -- you're just going from A to B, inoculated from the world around you. And that can be nice, for sure -- you have your own little solipsistic automotive world, there. You're master of your domain, right?
But I find when I take mass transit, getting there really is half the fun. I never complain about commutes because each commute offers up another slice of the city, a chance to talk to people, to watch and to listen, to experience, basically. It's a much more varied experience than an automotive commute, where the objective is very much on getting where you're going -- and when you're driving, you have to pay attention to what you're doing (at least I hope you are) -- and you can so easily miss details. As a passenger of mass transit, however, you don't have to worry about that, and can just people-watch. Sometimes the bus and/or train offers up great moments, surreal things, crazy stuff (one of my favorites was in the mid-90s, when this crazy guy got up and preached fire and brimstone to the El train occupants -- I mean, he was all blood and thunder. And I'm sitting there, watching him go, wondering why nobody else is reacting to it. And then I see some of the occupants do sign language to each other, expressions like "WTF is this guy talking about?" The train car had about 20 deaf passengers on it, and they got up and got off the train at the next stop, signing to one another. The would-be preacher was just floored by that, shaking his head, and he got off at the next stop, just pissed that his ad hoc sermon had literally fallen on deaf ears. I said to Exene, after he'd left: "The Lord works in mysterious ways!" I also said "Nobody's even going to believe we just saw that!" But that's what happens when you take mass transit -- you just see stuff. Humanity in all its incarnations.)
Allez!
I forgot to mention -- on Saturday, I had the boys at a particular playground in the 'hood, and was amused when B1 was playing with a group of five French kids (three boys, two girls). I was pleased to hear him using some of his French to talk with them (and him asking the kids if they were French, and the oldest girl saying, in a perfect American accent, "Yeah, we're French." Bahah!) Anyway, the dad finally came over to get his little brood together, and he spoke to them in French, and the kids blew him off, and then he spoke English, and this was my favorite moment -- he had a thick English accent (not Cockney, but a strong London accent) and he called to his kids again, punctuating it with an "Allez!" It was unexpected, that English accent! All of the kids had clearly French names, so I guess the wife must be French. I didn't see her, but it made me laugh, anyway.
Aluminum
SLATE's "blogging the periodic table" is a good series.
Weekend Wrap
It's frickin' hot and humid. Dog days of summer are looming. This summer's been kind of surreal, just in how quickly time is flying. The boys had a blast, and I got their room all sorted. I have them help me with it, but their library of books was a chaotic mess, and Exene sure as hell wasn't going to touch that, so I sorted through and organized it yesterday, and it looks great. I made it all functional -- activity books on the top, then nonfiction (divided between oversized books on one shelf and normal-sized books on the other), then a shelf of fiction for B1, and the bottom shelf being fiction books for B2. It looks great. I was very satisfied. It was cute, too -- while I was doing this, B2 came up and grabbed a dustrag and asked if he could help. He loves helping that way. It's terribly cute. I said "Sure, Buddy." and let him go, watched him very diligently clean the shelves with the dustrag. B2 is very much a joining-in type of guy, for all his impish pugnacity, he wants to help, so I encourage that when I see it. I think that'll work in a variety of settings, like food and chores -- like his desire to be in on "the action" (whatever it is at the moment) can have him playing ball almost despite himself. B1 is curious, because he is both more sensitive than B2 on some levels, and yet also more stubborn. I think that's a good thing, truly -- his stubbornness protects that sensitivity on some level.
My plan is to get B1 to eat a wider variety of foods by bringing B2 to the table to join in with me at dinner. I'd like the boys to eat more foods, not just their favorites. So, I'm going to try to bring them to the table by cooking good stuff and getting them to try some new foods.
Anyway, I didn't get as much written as I wanted, because I was busy with the boys, but the weather was nice, I got some reading done, and generally just enjoyed myself the way I usually do.
My plan is to get B1 to eat a wider variety of foods by bringing B2 to the table to join in with me at dinner. I'd like the boys to eat more foods, not just their favorites. So, I'm going to try to bring them to the table by cooking good stuff and getting them to try some new foods.
Anyway, I didn't get as much written as I wanted, because I was busy with the boys, but the weather was nice, I got some reading done, and generally just enjoyed myself the way I usually do.
More Than Meets the Eye
The Decepticons are apparently still trashing downtown Chicago. I had thought Michael Bay's production had moved on in their filming of "Transformers 3" but they're hitting Van Buren and Canal now, which now looks like a cinematic disaster area. Damn those Decepticons! They've been riding roughshod over the city! I have to hand it to Bay -- he's made the sets look convincingly devastated!
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