Pontificum Scriblerus

Having moved to the western suburbs, I now take the commuter rail into Boston in order to avoid all the horrendousness involved in driving and parking in the city. I get out at South Station and walk 10 minutes to my office. It's fairly amazing, yet spooky. Several hundred people get out of the train in unison and embark on a pedestrian trip, in step with each other, with the same exact expression on their faces. The men wear the gringo uniform (chinos and blue buttondown). Some women sport black pants, crisp collars and insane high heels despite the heat, and others have got on their best soccer mom dress and all white walkin' shoes with white tube socks. Any second, one of them will point a finger at me and let out a shrill chilling shriek, and the charade will be over.

9 pm. Sitting on the T with a to go box of food I "made" at the BCAE. In the evening zone, with headphones in, and Peter Sagal's Wait... Wait... Don't tell me on. Laughing to myself because - well, NPR is funny! I look up and a mustachioed 60ish gentleman in an argyle sweater and leather jacket is pointing at me. So I remove one headphone cautiously - sorry? "You're the only person I've seen smile on the T!" he says. I get defensive. Maybe, he thinks I'm crazy that I'm smiling to myself on the T. "It's NPR." I stammer. "They're very funny." "I just have not seen anyone smile on the T!" he says again, indredulously. Then I get aggressive. According to freshman psych, it is a defense mechanism. "Well, you must not be from around here! You're breaking the rules, you're not supposed actually LOOK at anyone!" "Sorry, I forgot. Tunnel goggles." He looks down at the floor,...

As most of my stories, this one takes place on the T, as you may have gathered. I don't like kids. I'm sure that my maternal instincts are intact, just dormant for the moment, and once I actually bite the bullet and have one of my own, I will make an excellently neurotic mother, but for now, I plainly don't like kids. I treat babies with slight distrust and caution, like interesting specimens of an alternative lifeform. Toddlers are something to keep away from my stuff. And I'm downright scared of teenagers because you never know what they might pull. Imagine my chagrin when I'm sitting on the T, in the morning "zone," and a loud squealing, screaming, chattering dissheveled Aquarium fieldtrip of 30 9-10 year-olds get on! I shrink into the back of my seat, and slowly, without making sudden movements, pull out my iPod and put it on, to block out all the craziness and try to get back into my "zone." I look straight ahead and don't make eye...

Isn't Boston just the cutest little toy city you've ever seen? Maybe it's not so cute for some people, but it's definitely toy. It certainly doesn't qualify as a real city, like New York or Chicago. Maybe that's why I have such issues accepting that real city things happen here. Like, the fact that for 3.5 years I've been getting out of the T at Boylston station any time between 6 and 7 am, and walking down Tremont street, past the infamous Tam (already open, mind you), and Jack's Joke Shop (which is no more), and a host of suspicious tattered characters on the corner of Tremont and Kneeland. They looked moderately to severely homeless, and, knowing that there was a shelter nearby, I had always assumed they were homeless people let out of the shelter waiting for the bus. One day, the routine changed on me. I got out of the T, and the road was blocked by a small herd of unmarked cop vehicles. There appeared to be a lineup happening against the wall, with ...