Watching time go by

The commute home on the green and red lines and the 87 bus, without the usual ipod to numb me to the monotony of the daily routine - can be somewhat harrowing.

But you tend to notice more things, for better or worse.

The train earlier tonite out of Park Street stalled for about 8 minutes in the tunnel.

Two well dressed guys in their mid 20's, one with an Armani Exchange shopping bag a metallic blue glasses, were looking at a porn magazine together as we collectively waited for the train to start back up.

This type of porn did not feature close-ups of naked people though, it featured glossy close-ups of watches.

Yes indeed - the upwardly mobile were gazing longingly at Watch Time magazine. When I first saw the cover I thought that it was some sort of business journal with an over-used stock photo of a watch on the cover. But no, it was a high-end glossy magazine devoted exclusively ... to watches.

"This one here costs $24,000 ..."

"I like the rectangular faces," the Armani Exchange shopper muttered, his brown close cropped hair resting against the silver metal hand pole as he looked at the magazine his frined was holding.

The rain careened off the windowpanes of the train, distorting the gloomy grey Back Bay into shards of cubist emotion, made me think of New Orleans - and how I had been glued to the NYTimes web site for 5 days - but now I just read New Orleans stories once in awhile.

Elsewhere on the train, a young couple, they looked like Ben Harper and Estella Warren, doubled over in laughter and glee and had trouble staying in their seats as they splay their legs out on the rubber floor and buried their faces in each other's necks. They traded quips with a rosy nurse in scrubs.

A bigger gentleman watched glumly from the next bank of seats. He could have been a million miles away emotionally. That is what I find interesting about the mix of people on the redline. Not jsut their physical differneces - but the spectrum of people's emotions that you can read on their face.

I love people that take pictures on the T, because they are so telling. People are at their most real when they are in the candid process of living. Taking pictures on the T is officially illegal I beleive, and I don't have the nerve to raise my camera. But it would be a wondeful shot to just see the cross section of humanity at Park Street every night waiting for the train underground together. Everybody's millisecond appraisal of each other - where they decide where in their personal caste system they will place you. They make decisions about you quicker than the most seasoned photo editor on Madison Avenue.

I shifted my gaze from square advertisement to square advertisement - like a game of optical Frogger. There are only so many times you can deconstruct the Art Institute of New England ad in your head before you go crazy. And no, I don't know the sum of all the integers between so and so that are perfectly divisible ... so I won't be going to work for that software company that "prices 600 million flights daily".

I waited for the bus in the light drizzle and felt the sereneness of Friday night wash over me. I hadn't quite made as much progress on my scribbled to do list at work, but I got at least one big thing done.

Then I was riding down Mass Ave though East Arlington when I heard the bus driver let out, "Oh shit!"

Everybody crowded forward on cue like a communnty theatre troop performing a 'drugs are bad' assembly at a middle school. I thought someone had cut him off - but a mini-van with a Hamilton bumpersticker had thrown a guy with black spandex shorts and a yellow racing bib off his expesive bicycle.

I walked up WInter Street and glanced back - the bicyclist was seemingly ok, taking down insurance info from the distraught woman holding her head in disbelief.

Then red and blue lights and sirens bathed the gray sidestreet trees in light and noise from below, and the sound and fury faded as it reached the accident scene and I inched closer home, playing the ingrained playlist songs in my head.