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White Trash

21 May

To the entitled-looking twentysomething girl in front of me who, after swiping her CharileTicket at the Hynes Convention Center T stop last night, simply flung it on the ground in the middle of the station … WTF?!? You couldn’t just put it in the trash? You almost hit me with it when you threw it on the ground. Thanks for that. But more importantly: WTF? Why are you so obnoxious that you acted so selfishly and carelessly and threw your trash right on the ground? Did you not hear me say, “Are you serious?!” Jeez … what a bitch you are.

Listen Up

15 May

You know your iPod is playing too loudly when …
I am on the T listening to Freddie Mercury and Queen rocking out to “Radio Ga Ga” on my iPod and you’re listening to some hip hop crap on your iPod, and I can hear your iPod better than I can hear my own.
So yeah, thanks for that this morning, whoever you were standing next to me on the B line.

Rethinking the B Line

14 May

Alright, so maybe I jumped the gun in saying how much I love my commute — just like the B-line train that jumped the tracks, hit a power line, and caught on fire last night. (A friend who lives right there said it sounded like a bomb had hit and it pretty much lit up the entire area.) Perhaps I should start exploring other routes to and from work, not just today but on a more regular basis. (It did look really cool when I went by on the bus, though. I was sorry I didn’t have my camera with me.)

Earlier: Crash! Boom! Wow!

Crash! Boom! Wow!

8 May

If you live in Boston, no doubt you’ve heard about the huge accident in Packard’s Corner this morning. Wild, wild stuff. That picture above (courtesy of ilovesashimi) and the one below (from Boston.com) only show part of the story. For a video report, go to MyFoxBoston.com or read the story at Boston.com. Multiple crashed cars, blocked subway tracks, an exploding truck, etc. What a mess. Thankfully, I had my walking shoes on and an umbrella in my bag; I walked from Packard’s Corner all the way down Comm Ave to Kenmore Square. This, after walking last night all the way from my office near South Station, down Boylston Street and Comm Ave, and up to Allston Street. Suffice it to say, I’ve gotten plenty of exercise. But here’s the best part: when I got to the T stop at Kenmore this morning, an empty train pulled up and I was able to score the same seat that I had before I got off my train earlier up the line. And I only got to work 30 minutes later than usual. So I guess the commute really wasn’t so bad for me after all. But anyway, yeah — what a scene on Comm Ave this morning.

Back to Books

18 Apr

The nice thing about having a longer commute is that I get a lot more time to read now than I had when I took the C line from Coolidge Corner. In fact, I get almost double the time. It means I can plow through the latest issues of Entertainment Weekly in a day, for example. But then it leaves me with all sorts of time to fill. So, I’ve gotten back on the book-reading train. Perhaps you’ll be amused to know that while I dove right in to A.J. Jacobs’ The Year of Living Biblically last summer, I hadn’t read much of it since the end of October. Well, now, nearly six months later, I’ve finally finished the book. Yeah, it sure did take me long enough. But now I’m wondering what I’ll read next. Thankfully, I have a cleaned-up bookshelf full of options. Perhaps I’ll go back to Honeymoon with My Brother. Maybe I’ll finally read Tom Perotta’s Little Children. Or maybe it’s finally — finally! — time for me to read Faithful, Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan’s document of the 2004 Red Sox season. Something tells me I’ll leave those on the shelf and instead pick up a fun little collection called Things I’ve Learned from the Women Who’ve Dumped Me. That might be just the book I need to ease me back into this habit.

I’m Just Saying …

17 Apr

Getting off the T at Park Street/Downtown Crossing is so much nicer when there’s not a Boston Now hawker waiting for you at the top of the stairs. It’s a small thing, yes, but it makes the morning commute a little more pleasant.

B Not So Bad

14 Apr

You know, people (myself included) give the B line a bad rap. But now that I’ve taken it to and from work for a week, I have to admit: I’m changing how I feel about this dreaded line of the MBTA. Sure, maybe it’s because I get on at the very beginning, way out at Boston College, and I get a seat every day (actually, I’ve gotten the exact same seat every day). But the fact is, I get on the train at 8 a.m., get out a magazine, and less than 45 minutes later I’m at Park Street. Total time, door-to-door: less than an hour. Of course, this changes if I’m out at 8:10, and it means the train ride takes closer to an hour. But the fact is, for me, the ride is a smooth and enjoyable one. Not getting on somewhere further on down the line means I don’t have to squeeze in and find room to stand. I’m actually quite comfortable, and I don’t even notice how crowded the train is or where we are until we’re somewhere around Packard’s Corner. Heck, I didn’t even notice all week that the block I used to live on (around 1322 Comm Ave) is now totally different. I know some stops have been eliminated in the first half of the route over the past few years, and I’m telling you: this train moves a lot faster than it did when I last took it regularly, in 2001. A lot. The weirdest part of the whole thing is that now I get to work much (for me, at least) earlier than when I used to live closer to the office. It’s a little disorienting. And I also know that if I’m on the way home and a B train comes that’s too crowded, all I have to do is take a D line train and transfer at Reservoir/Chestnut Hill Ave. It’s just that simple.

The commute was my biggest concern about buying a condo so far out of the city, but so far, it’s a non-issue for me. So, at least for now, you won’t hear me complaining about the T. Nice.

Hello, Winter

4 Dec

Because I have nothing better to do, I’ve been doing a bit of thinking lately trying to decide what the worst thing about winter is.

Is it the bitter cold temperatures, and the winds that seem to make it even colder, and the fact that it seems to become cold right away without a slow drop in temperature?

Is it the iced up sidewalks that taunt me and almost dare me to walk on them and not fall? I include the parking lot outside my building, which I have no choice but to cross every day if I want to go somewhere; half of it is a sheet of ice right now.

Is it the over-crowded and less frequent T cars? Every year, same old story.

Is it dangling on the edge of being sick, and trying ever-so-hard not to catch a cold from everyone around me who seems to have something already.

Is it the fact that everyone’s so bundled up that they look almost unfriendly and unapproachable?

Is it not wanting to go outside to do stuff because it’s so much nicer on my couch in my warm apartment?

It may actually be a tie between all of those things. Winter just really sucks. There’s absolutely nothing good about this time of year (other than the holidays, of course). Brrrrrrrrrr…!

Is She Serious?

3 Oct

“Oh, there’s a Red Sox game tonight? Well, that explains it.”
— a woman on the outbound D line at 6:15 p.m. this evening as we were pulling into Copley station, trying to figure out why it was so crowded

I wrote a while back that it surprised me how people could be so unaware of the Red Sox in such a baseball-crazy city. Well, explain to me how this woman could be so oblivious on the night of Game One of the playoffs (even if it is just the ALDS), when the train was beyond packed, and there were a ton of people wearing Red Sox gear. She had been on the train for at least a couple stops. What, did she think everyone was just out for a night on the town? Did she not see the Globe or the Herald today, or watch any of the local news programs recently? I’m not saying she has to be a fan or even watch the game, but how can she not know it’s happening?

Anyway … forget her. Let’s Go Red Sox!!!

Lesser of Two Evils

4 Sep

I had some muffler troubles this weekend, so on my way to work this morning, I dropped off my car at the shop. And I dreaded taking the B line into work, what with it being the B line and all, but also the day after Labor Day and the first day of classes at B.U. But then I turned on the news and saw what was going on in Coolidge Corner, and I said to myself … for a change, the B line might be the lesser of two evils. Yes, I was crammed into my train, and yes it took a long time to go down Comm Ave., but I still made it to work before 9 a.m., so really, it could have been a lot worse. Who’da thunk that today of all days the B line would have been the more preferable commute.

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