2005
bereft of ideas
maura @ 10:15 pm
So I guess I’ve been practicing blogvoidance lately. Why? Eh, lots going on, somewhat depressed, UTTERLY FUCKING HOT. I mean, we have air conditioning, so I really shouldn’t be complaining about the last item. But over 90 degrees it is just too darn hot to be outside. And since doing anything at all involves walking for at least a block or two to get to the subway (and descending onto the 7th-level-of-hell steaming platforms), it just kind of sucks.
Here’s the best thing anyone said to me last week:
“Just remember, you’re DEAD, it doesn’t matter if you hurt someone’s feelings!”
(stated with utter conviction by the lawyer we are seeing to [finally] get a will drawn up)
In lieu of anything interesting in my own life, I’ll now relate a few Gus tidbits.
1) On The Subway: Thankfully, Gus is finally past the “no, I don’t want to take the 3 train, only the 2!” phase. But a series of unfortunate events have been witnessed recently that threaten to make my life miserable for ever after.
First, on one of those 90 degree days, when I’d caved to his request to take the Q home from school (which requires no less than 3 elevators down to the aforementioned 7th level of hell), we step out of the final elevator to the spectacle of a man on the subway track, throwing a cellphone onto the platform. He then hops back onto the platform, picks up the phone, and walks away. And I think, OH MY GOD that is just the end of it. Forever we’ve been drilling into Gus’ train-obsessed brain that there is noplace more dangerous than the tracks, and now he’s seen someone climb down and climb back up AND LIVE.
The rest of the day was spent in repeated question/answer sessions about The Subway Event. I repeated several thousand times that if I dropped my own cellphone on the tracks I would just leave it there, it’s just too dangerous to go down and get it. I expressed assurance that the man’s mommy and daddy would be VERY VERY angry with him for climbing down on the tracks. And I finally pulled out the big guns and revealed that if you go on the tracks and a train is coming you will die: no owies, no hospitals, actually death.
Second, today we went into Manhattan after school to have dinner with an old friend of mine and her son. In this weather the subway a/c can be inconsistent, so there were larger than usual numbers of people switching cars on the train (including us, though we did it the safe way at the next stop). “Mommy, why is that man walking between the cars when the train is moving? Is that safe?” More talk about track danger, angry mommies and certain death ensued.
Sigh. I will now fear my son’s possible subway shenanigans for the rest of my life. Thank you, cellphone man.
2) Hmm, I thought there was a number 2 (and possibly 3 as well), but I think I’ve used up all of my creative juices (eew, wipe those up!) on #1. Oh well.
HEY, what should I read??? I’m at a loss, again. I read “About the Author”, “The Savage Girl”, and “What Should I Do With My Life” (for the second time) and liked them all. But then I got out “Secret Life of Bees” and had to return it partially-read, for it was too depressing. I have a nonfiction book (“The Way We Never Were”) and the new Harry Potter blocked out for our beach vacation at the end of August. But I am jonesing for fiction, man, wanting another time-travelers-wife-like fix. Help me, dear readers!
P.S. get the new Lucksmiths record, “Warmer Corners”, it’s so great!
