Hair Clippings on the 4:10 to Cold Spring 10/20/11

One thing I’m not used to is the pen. Up until a couple of months ago I’d done all my writing on a keyboard. And with the exception of jotting down a few notes at work or on the train, I never bothered with a pen.

I’d thought about taking the laptop on the train, but I don’t think my banging away on a keyboard would be tolerated by the other passengers. They’d be strapping me to the luggage rack with my own shoelaces.

Excuse me, I just munched on a tortilla chip and realized that tortilla chips without salsa is like sex without an appendage. Not very satisfying.

Speaking of things not getting used (no, not my appendage), I never used a cell phone up until a couple of weeks ago. Fifty seven years old and I feel like a dinosaur looking for the rest of his brethren, but seeing nothing but smoke and lava as we go on our way to extinction.

The thing is I see everyone palming some sort of hand-held device. And I didn’t want to be one of those people.

I used to ride the train next to a guy would would open up a book and then every two minutes check his cell phone for messages. At that rate I'd be carrying the same book into retirement. I certainly didn’t want to be him. He seemed so needy.

It was my wife who made me get a phone. She’d bring up things like 9/11, so I finally relented.

It only took her ten years. It took her twenty years before she got me to change diapers. But by that time our son was twenty. He told me was good. “I've got it covered, Dad.”

A chip off the old block.

I have a woman sitting next to me who thinks if she talks on her phone in hushed tones that she would not be annoying anyone. She’s wrong. I’m annoyed because I can’t hear what she’s talking about. Nothing like a nice bit of juicy gossip to perk up a journal. I’ll take anything. From a no good cheating husband to church bingo scandals. Anything!

The train just pulled into the 125th street station in Harlem and it seemes to me that people are standing way too close the edge of the platform. Not checking on the arrival of the train, mind you. Their playing with phones and ipods. The last place I want to be when I take a wrong step is at the edge of train platform while a diesel train comes thundering into the station. It wouldn’t be a pretty site, and would make me very late for supper. Those cleanups take forever. I’ve seen it on CSI.

It’s Thursday night. Chinese take-out night. Ming’s chow fon and rangoons. I think we have the only Chinese restaurant in the continental United States that doesn’t deliver.

We once loved our Chinese food a little too much. A few years ago, and in another town, we decided to go easy on the Chinese food for a while. Two months later we got a call from the Chinese restaurant.

“‘Lo? You OK? We not hear from you long time!”

I felt so guilty I ordered thirty dollars worth of Chinese food. And I wasn’t even close to being hungry.

I sit in an aisle seat that faces in the same direction as the train. I’m right handed and it gives my writing hand free reign to write, or if necessary, be of use to anyone who were to drop a bowling ball or baby in the aisle I’m always thinking.

The reason I brought up the aisle seat in the first place was to say they had no head rest like the middle and window seats do. So I get to look at the back of the head of the person sitting in front of me. It makes for interesting viewing while you’re thinking about what to put on paper next.

Anyone can look out the window and witness the grandeur of the Hudson River and the glorious Palisades in the distance.

I just noticed that the lady who was just sitting next to me left a dollar bill on the seat. I give it to her and she says a simple ‘thank you.’ A warm kiss on the lips would have been nice on this chilly Autumn evening. But no. I’ll have to think twice about doing that again. I could have bought myself a lottery ticket.

Like I was saying, anyone can look out the window. But not everyone gets to stare at someone’s moles, dandruff and bad haircuts. Some of these people must be single, because if my wife ever let me leave the house with a hair growing out the back of my neck the length of a strand of linguini, I’d be upset.

Sometimes I wish I had a scissor. Maybe I could open up shop on the train. Change my name to Carlos and do hair stylings. I don’t know the first thing about cutting hair, but that would be half the fun. Every cut different and original. Then I could charge more money. Hairstyling by Carlos. I’d simply draw the line at nose hairs. I could make a nice living and never have to get off the train.

We just passed the Indian Point nuclear plant. The structure of which resembles a large penis being straddled by two huge breasts. I pass it everyday and that same juvenile schoolboy notion crosses my mind.

I just saw another odd site. A school bus being pushed up the Hudson river by a tug boat. I’m sure the bus was on a barge, but we were going so fast I didn’t notice. Wouldn’t it be great to pick up the morning paper and read: Renegade tugboat captain hijacks bus load of cheerleaders on their way to West Point Army game practice! Makes demand to be cheer-leading captain!

“I never wanted to be a tug boat captain,” he will have said. “But dad said I didn’t have the legs to be a cheerleader.”

There’s the announcement for Cold Spring. Time to pack it up and go home.

I hope to get better with this. So bare with me.

It’s very hard staying awake on a train.

Good night, all.