Train Spotted

My activities in the train attract attention. (And that's not the reason I do these activities.) Yesterday morning on my way to work I started working on the CD cover for the pianist. Before I could start, the woman sitting next to me asked if I was a graphic designer. With some regret I said no, I wasn't. But then we started talking. And we talked all the way to Stamford. How odd. I never attract the attention of a young woman before. If I ever talk to one it's because I make the (daring) effort to strike up a conversation. Strange how sometimes once a man starts dating someone serious, women notice him more. Perhaps simply because he stops looking desperate.

This morning I started reviewing my Hebrew. Did I mention I started learning Hebrew since I started spending time with the pianist (reminder she's Israeli as well as Russian as well as, passport-wise, American). This man, obviously some overconfident trader, sat next to me and stared at my notes for sometime. I know that Jews make up a disproportionate percentage of traders, just as they do in medicine and academe, so it didn't come to me as a surprise that he was interested and asked if I was studying Hebrew. Actually, he asked the more obvious question: why I was studying Hebrew. Why would an Asian man study Hebrew? For a girl, stupid!

I said I was curious, especially since I already studied a bit of Arabic. I don't know if he's Jewish, but if I must bet my Anti-Semitic hands I would bet he is.

I've always been aware of Jews and their coexistence with me in this country, and of course, my whole pro-Palestinian stance has a lot to do with my mixed feelings regarding Jews. But one thing has always been clear: I always had the hots for Jewish women. I don't know why. I haven't figured that part out. I told the pianist that since I was in high school, no, junior high where half the kids, more than that, were, like her, Russian Jews. That singer, my recent crush before the pianist, is Jewish, though more like a lot of the secular American Jews who know just a bit more about Judaism than I do.

So that was my morning today.

Now I am in the bar car of the Metro North train. I have never been in a bar car. I in fact hate the bar car because it occupies space that could be used for sitting. It isn't meant for sitting; most of the car space is for standing, chatting, having beer. I always avoided it with a big huffing exasperation and opted for the next car, which invariably would be more crowded because I wasn't the only one who wanted to sit. Now that I am in the bar car, I don't even see any bar-related things served. No beer, no drinks, no merrymaking. People just have their headphones plugged into their souls and/or reading, or their fingers, like mine, stuck to the keyboard of their laptops.

I am here because there are actually seats left so I decided to sit. But I am sitting facing the windows, which means I am moving sideways, and that makes me a little nauseous, especially when I am typing on a screen. So I will stop. It's funny how I don't have a lot to say sometimes. But I need to write, nonetheless. I could talk about the mini-drama I had with the pianist that ended happily. I will see her in an hour to meet with her roommate and her boyfriend, a roommate that spends almost all her time at the boyfriend's in Brooklyn, close to my parents. I could talk about the French girl, who has returned and who played a pivotal role last night in helping me avoid drama with the pianist by letting me vent. It was strange to talk to the French girl like a friend. When she left for France a month ago I wasn't sure if I would talk to her at all. I could talk about my work, the changes, about the details I notice at work, getting there, returning from there, but my head is getting a little nauseous. The train is screaming and swerving left and right (which for me is forward and backward). The wind and rain smashing onto the front window of this bar car that also serves as the front car. And I will stop and start reading this Russian novel called "Master and Margarita", a masterpiece satire of the Soviet society. Don't be surprised that I am reading Russian literature, or that I am studying Russian along side Hebrew, two rather useless languages in the world, but I guess, not so useless for me.