A Long December.** Starting. Now.

Fancy this, Matt Smith.

It's my turn, and I'm taking it. I'm taking it like nothing's ever been... taken. Ever. Before. Take that to your "I'm-definitely-going-to-get-to-some-blogging-today" bank.*

There was this lady on the T today that I wouldn't have gotten to see if I had bought cheese. I'm so glad I didn't get cheese, mainly because I would have missed this particular woman, but also because my roommate and I apparently communicated telepathically and she bought the cheese that I intended to buy. The lady, though. She was a trip. She had this kid with her. I say "kid," and I do think it was her daughter, but the daughter was definitely a teenager. Is that a "kid?" Let's say it is for the sake of argument.

But no arguing. I'm through with arguing and ridiculous emotional roller-coaster type sadness today.

So, without any argument, there was this lady and her kid. A girl kid. The kid had her Converse-clad feet propped up on the handicapped accessible seat in front of her, and looked to be asleep. Mom Lady poked Kid in the leg and said, "Move your feet." Kid woke up -- er, seemed to -- and very much didn't move her feet. Mom Lady shook her head. And shook her head some more. And continued shaking it.

Why was she shaking her head? Was she that upset? Was she just upset at her kid? Or was she upset that her life was the way it was? Did she have Parkinson's or some other head-shaking disorder? No. It looked like honest-to-god head shaking, controlled by the shaker, not the head.

Kid slept. As Kid slept, Kid's sleep fist would drift -- drift is a good word for what was actually occurring here -- drift up to her mouth and a finger would jettison from the rest of the fist and poke her face. Her finger was actually poking her face here. Bizarre finger. The fist itself seemed to have a mind of its own (not like Mom Lady's head shaking) and sometimes the finger would poke directly into her mouth and get a mini-vacation hanging on to her bottom lip. Like a hook. A little, drooly finger hook.

Why do I write all this? Why do I even watch all this in the first place? Why should anyone care that Mom Lady dialed the wrong number on her cell phone, probably because her head was shaking so much?

Well, I don't rightly know.

Maybe in life you create distractions when things don't seem so great. Maybe distractions don't have to be television, or radio, or iPods, or email, or even blogging... Maybe it's just beautiful when you can see that other people are just as strange and as awkward and as stupid as everything in your life is all the time. Even if it's just some woman that has a problem with her child and her cell phone. And even if it's just a kid that drools and pokes at her mouth in her sleep.

Nothing compares to seeing people for who they are without having them notice that you see them. You see right through them to who they are.

I'm going to go poke at my mouth and shake my head a little. Maybe it'll loosen all the crap that's gotten inside of it today.
And maybe I'll eat some cheese.

I'll take the A-train,
Meredith


*Not an actual bank, as you'd say. Don't bank there.
** "Yeeeeeah..."

The Simpsons Write a Paper. Er. Something.

Ah, Matt Smith. It's that time again.

That wonderful time of year when college students across the country hunker down at their desks, at their laptops, over their books, and over their triple-tall-soy-extra-hot-no-foam-lattes to study for their midterm exams.

Or, in my theatre education world, write a one page paper on a book I just finished.

I guess I find myself wondering which is the more difficult task. Of course, I also find myself in front of the television, watching a rerun of The Simpsons, and typing into this blog instead of actually writing the damn paper, but that's neither here nor there. What is here AND there is the truth that sometimes, writing a simple one page paper is... well, it IS more difficult. Especially when you have no structure. I have no structure. I have no plan. I have questions and no answers, and what's probably going to happen is I'll come up with more questions and still have no answers. Only then there'll be more of the No Answers. And then there'll be more of the Not Writing the Paper.

Sometimes having too much freedom is the same as not having enough.

That is all.
-- Meredith