4/8/03: 57th Street Station to 30th Avenue Station

So it's evening and I'm riding home on the subway. I've got two bags of stuff because I'm in the process of cleaning out my desk. Oh, yeah, I quit my job. Anyway, so I'm on the subway with all this stuff, and I'm crowded on the bench between a girl reading a Henry James book and a middle aged guy reading the paper. He looks a little like a weirder version of Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future.

Let me just pause here. Yes, I quit my job. I didn't quite plan to -- it just happened. I mean, I had planned to, but not yet. I don't really have the energy to explain what went on. But um, I'm sort of unemployed again. Life is amusing.

So yeah, the subway. I'm thinking about the subway, about prices going up, how they're going to go up ten days before I leave. I'm flipping through my Greek grammar book. Do you know that Greek has four cases? Nomitive, genitive, evocative, and accusative. And three genders -- masculine, feminine, and neuter.

Okay, okay. What happened is, I went in to give four weeks notice -- hiring is so slow, I didn't want them to have to scramble. They accepted my resignation but said four weeks notice is too much. They would pay me for the next two weeks, but I wouldn’t have to work anymore. Which kind of sucks. Because I needed the whole four weeks. Two weeks isn't enough. I’m not sure what I’m going to do for cash.

The subway, yeah. So there’s this tapping sound and I look up. It’s the blind accordion player tapping his way to the middle of the car. Does that sound flippant? I'm just describing him the best way I know how. He's blind and he plays the accordion. There you go. So I look away and catch the eye of a guy across the aisle. He’s not particularly cute or anything, but he’s in my peer group and we both smile. Then as the accordion player gets his footing, my new friend across the aisle starts to sing, kind of under his breath, “wise men say, only fools rush in….” He’s just finished that much when the blind accordion player launches into the same song. The girl next to me puts down her Henry James to giggle a little. The blind accordion player always plays “I Can’t Help Falling in Love With You.” Every single time. Badly. Really, that might be the saddest thing. He plays really, really badly. At the end of his limping rendition, I mouth along with him as he says, “Ladies and gentlemen, your donations are greatly appreciated.” My peer across the aisle appreciates that.

Okay I didn’t explain it right. I had meant to quit. I was tired of being written up for nothing. I was tired of having long conversations about minor transgressions. There would be weeks when everything seemed fine, you know? It seemed like I was running the place sometimes. I would go around, doing room checks – making sure that all the rooms were in good shape and that all the teachers were where they were supposed to be – and it seemed like I understood everything. And then there would be days when I would be told that my “tone” was off because I phrased something in a way that my boss didn’t like. I don’t know.

And then something happened. I just did it. I had been wandering around, procrastinating and acting crazy for weeks, and then I finally just stabbed at a curtain, you know? I resigned. I guess it’s true, that fools rush in. As soon as the dust had settled, I wished I had waited and done it right, but what’s done is done.

So, yeah. The subway. I'm sitting there, deep in thought -- rent checks, room checks, accusative case, resentment, money, money, no money -- when something, movement of some kind, catches my eye. It's the guy sitting next to me, hitting himself on the head with the newspaper. I look over at him.

"My pill," he says, then says it louder: "My pill!" He hits himself in the head again. "I forgot to take my pill!" he says, mournfully.

This is a sign of something. Of what, I’m not sure.

Maybe my mom is right. It was a crappy job anyway.