alice is preposterous

I know I shouldn't take these things personally.  I can't; they're too common, too ridiculously stupid to leave a lasting impression.  Maybe these people are trying to do me a favor by blocking the winds created by the constant flow of voices preaching the word of Jesus.  These winds are fierce.  

But today I encountered a man determined to make my walk through the 42nd Street station an obstacle course.  

This man, we'll call him Problem Child, or P.C., decided to embark on his journey by making a deliberate diagonal up the stairway in front of me, totally oblivious to my existence.  I stop to let him pass, causing a mild traffic jam on the stairwell.  I continue on to the Tunnel of Sadness (this is a major passageway in the station, creating a sort of human highway, and therefore is a major point of conflict and frustration in my daily commute).  I naively believe that P.C. has angrily blundered his way forth into the steaming masses way ahead of me.  I am surprised when I find him walking nonchalantly along the right-hand side of the tunnel.  I think to myself that I am about to pass him on the left, and therefore feel a little better about my situation, thinking to myself, "See, P.C.?  There was no need for the anxious cutting-off that disturbed my trajectory.  Here I am, casually walking, and I am a better person for it."  

But P.C. must see me.  He sees me passing him, and he does not like it.  No he does not.  He sees a space in front of me and jumps to pass through it as I am speeding up to pass through it.  I try and speed up to rid myself of him.  He speeds up and jumps in front of me again.  It is at this point that I'm wondering if there's some sort of subliminal misogyny going on here.  He is seething with rage at the prospect of a woman – a female intruder – passing him.  She, I, must be stopped.

He takes out his headphones and asks me what my problem is.  I say I don't have a problem, except he keeps cutting me off.  He asks me, "What?"  I roll my eyes and wave my hand in dismissal, because I don't need to get in a subway station fight at 8:36am.  Or ever, for that matter.  He decides not to destroy me and continues on his way as I hang back, fully conscious of my distance behind him.  He has conquered.

The only way I foresee this problem being solved in the future involves a stroller with a squeeze horn attached to it.

While waiting to see which movie?  Guess.  Here, let me give you a hint; it rhymes with "Crylight: KneeFlips."

Yeah, I know.  But I brought a bottle of gin+ginger ale with me in order to make it even more hilarious.  And for everyone who hurls stones at me in an attempt to somehow make me realize that I secretly love the movie, let me just tell you that I only read the first book.  I didn't bother to read the other ones, because I knew they'd all be just as ridiculous and horribly written.  Quite honestly, I'm getting a little tired of people telling me that, since I'm a girl, I need to love this series.  Whatever happened to going to movies because they're so bad they're good?  Does nobody do that but me anymore?  I find that hard to believe.  So stop telling me I need to finally decide whether or not I'm on Team Edward or Team Jacob.  I'm going to keep enjoying it for its shittiness, and nobody can take that away from me.

All that aside... ahem.

The line my dear friend Emily and I waited in was extraordinarily (but believably) long, and I think we witnessed some very blatant line-cutting.  A very large, loud girl tried to squeeze her way by me while angrily saying, "Excuse me!"  Because I tend to mumble things to myself, and because the mumblings turn into direct sentences aimed at the offending person, I said, "Might want to try being a little bit nicer next time."  She stopped in her tracks, turned around, looked at me and said, "Oh, I'm sorry, you might want to try being less of a bitch next time!" and wagged her ass up the stairs ahead of me.

It pains me that she will never know the sheer irony of the statement she managed to come up with as a retort.

xo,

A.Anonymous

I'm not sure what it is about my sandals that compels people to step on them, but whatever it is must be pretty strong.  The drive to injure my feet has overtaken the city entirely.  If you see me walking around with massacred stumps, this is why.

I now have an irrational fear that my mosquito bites are actually bed bug bites in disguise.  Thank you, New York, for feeding my already out-of-hand paranoia.  If you need me, I'll be asleep in my plastic garbage bag.