In which stinky train people touch me

On the mornings when my husband P. has to start work at 8 a.m., we leave the house together at 7 and I go to Astoria with him. It takes about half an hour most mornings to get there; we park and have coffee at Starbucks. We kiss goodbye just before 8, and I walk a block and a half to the R- and V-train station on Steinway. I take the R to 42nd Street/Times Square, where I have to walk up a flight of stairs, past the morning's entertainment (Chinese cello dude this morning), push through clueless tourists, up another short couple of stairs, then down to the left where I pick up the 1 train north.

Other mornings, I leave the house just before 7, take the QM1A from our corner to 6th and 42nd in Manhattan, where I walk one block west to 7th Avenue and repeat most of the above ritual for getting to the 1 train.

I don't really mind the trains, except when other people TOUCH ME.

I don't like strangers touching me. Therefore, I try to avoid it at all costs, only accepting it where there appears to be no other alternative. For instance, this morning the R was pretty crowded and I had to stand all the way to 42nd Street. For the first two stops we all were really jammed up against each other. I had my purse plus another soft, rectangular bag over my shoulder, and had taken my jean jacket with me. I was attempting to make all of this lie as close to my body as possible so that no one else would be poked accidentally. A girl was standing right in front of me, holding the horizontal bar over the seat area. As I am 5'2," I find it difficult to hold the overhead bar when I have to stretch over the people who are sitting there. It is much less strenous to hold a vertical bar, if you can get to one. There happened to be other short women near me so we were crowded around the one reachable vertical bar. A businessman just to the right was preventing me from shifting slightly in that direction, which would have given all us (but especially me) more breathing room. He had staked out a very wide berth of space around himself, and was standing in a wide-legged stance, taking up even more room. He was tall, and would have had no problem moving down a tiny bit, giving us more room, and still been able to easily grip the overhead bar on that side of the the train.

But he did not move, and so we breathed down each other's throats. At Queen's Plaza, a major transfer point, I was able to get a tiny bit more floor space, but all the seats that were emptied were filled before I had a chance to get to them. More commuters pushed on, so I was also thwarted in my attempt to grab a door spot. If you HAVE to stand on a train the door spot is the best location. You don't have to hold onto poles when you get this, because you can brace your back up against the door and won't fall over when the train stops. Yes, you still may have people near you, but they will only be on one side of you. It's less stressful.

Good thing is that it's not a long ride, and the 1 train to 116th is usually not too crowded. This morning I was able to get a seat.

On the way home, however, I was sitting on the end seat before the door (another prime piece of real estate) and a lady gets on with some bags. Now, there are two seats next to me and there aren't that many free seats at this point, so she takes the one next to me. Fine. But she's RIGHT UP against me. She's got room on her other side to shift over an inch or two, but she won't move. Obviously she has distorted values. Me, I don't care all that much about the little bumpy ridge separating the seats. In terms of relative comfort, I'd prefer the ridge on one cheek to touching someone else's skin. Apparently, she didn't care if she touched me, she didn't want to sit on the little bump. At one point out of the corner of my eye I saw her nodding off, and I braced myself for her completely falling asleep and letting her head fall over onto my shoulder. Oh, yeah, it's happened to me before on the train! Old Chinese guy zonked out next to me...

So what's the big deal about being touched? I'm not really afraid of germs or anything, nor am I worried (at least not above a normal keeping-my-purse-zipped worry) about being robbed. I just get very uncomfortable some days. I also don't like people standing too close to me on the platform when there's lots of room. It's all relative. Yes, when there are tons of people and room is at a premium. No, get the fuck away from me when it's 9 p.m. and you have other places to stand....

I am working real hard this week on acceptance of loud headphone users. I can't change them (I'm too afraid to!) and I don't see them changing on their own, so the only alternative is acceptance. And boy, do I hate being forced to listen to bad music...

Maybe I'll write about something deeper next time. This was what was on my mind today.