le train de sable and end of the line

Public transportation is always a story in the making. There's the man with b.o. who sits across from you, you start sinking your face into your scarf inwardly berating rampant lack of personal hygiene until B.O. Man starts singing. There's the trax going past all the seedy back lots in town with their graffiti, strip clubs, parking lots over grown with weeds, the man at the chop shop who waves as the train goes past. Trains and buses are no respecter of persons driving through nice neighborhoods and industrial trashy wasteland. It doesn't matter where you've been, what you've been doing, how educated or wealthy you are, pay your fair and enter.

Anything could really happen, like when I happily got on the train at 7:30 a.m., proud to independently navigate trains and buses, it takes a combination to go from Malt Flake Pretty* back to home. I love watching the people inside the train and the world going by outside. The train makes a stop in town and I see boarding my cab the producer from the radio program where I have my fake internship. The last time I saw her I tried to chat but somehow I became really awkward, leaving me to wonder if I have at all grown any social graces. I don't seem to be able to do anything right for these people. The first time I met them at the live recording with Frederick Wiseman, I was strangely so nervous my hands shook and I thought I would throw-up. Normally when it comes to anything film related I'm too excited to be held back. But not that day.

So we're at 7:30 in the morning, on the train, and I don't know if she's noticed me but she's right in front of me and my Mom taught me to always say hello to people I know, so I'm dreading having an awkward recap of our other face to face encounters, nevertheless, "hello" I say.

"What brings you here today?"
"I was visiting a friend but now I'm heading home."
"Isn't this the university train?"
"Um...I guess I'm exploring the city."

I am really cool. 

I was tempted to stay on the train, I've never taken it out to Malt Flake's university, but responsibilities call and my inability to make small talk repels.



*invention of K$