The true thoughts of a Boston MBTA Commuter (taken from Craigslist)

A Letter to my beloved MBTA

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Reply to: anon-39292936@craigslist.org
Date: Fri Aug 13 14:16:19 2004


Dear MBTA or simply "T",

I had thought our relationship would finally end when I obtained a car that would allow me to get in and out of the city without you, but life has changed and working in Cambridge no longer allows me to park - thus we must meet again every morning at 8am and evenings at 5pm. Oh public transit, how I freaking hate you.

Every morning I wake up to see you in perpetual construction. Your attempts at pretending that repairs will ever be finished humor me as I stare at bare cement, pigeon droppings and hanging electrical wiring while waiting for the train. In the summer, like right now, the lack of air conditioning and the cheap fucking fans from the 19th century when this excuse for a transit system were installed particularly amuze me. But you know what I really love? The body odor of a thousand commuters drenched with sweat standing underground at 5pm in the fucking crematorium you call Park Street station. But you're right, how can that possibly be better than the eternal smell of urine in Downtown Crossing? or the occasional billow of smoke that clouds the station as a loudspeaker warning annouces above me that I should watch out for anything "suspicious". Hmmmm, let me see...is a station filled with smoke to the point that I can't see an oncoming train suspicious? As I wait for the apocalypse (or the next train, whichever comes first), I wonder if terrorists blew up the Boston transit system would it make it better or worse? Nothing to worry about though, since you'll be too busy trying to see through a cloud of smoke and a thousand sweaty commuters because the fucking Orange Line train is "experiencing minor delays."

Speaking of delays, I love the exhilirating suspence of waiting to discover when you will choose to arrive in the morning. I get up earlier than I have to incase your spontaneity condemns me to a 30 minute wait. But I understand, weekday mornings are so unpredictable and come in such irregularity that there is no real way to plan for so many people going to work at the same time. I mean what are the odds that we would all show up at the train station at 8am on Monday? Obviously you guys can't be fucking psychics. And of course, when its -500 degrees in January and I'm coming home in the evening it really is too much to ask for a train arrival more frequently than once per hour. But, hey, I know I need the excersise I get from jumping up and down for half an hour to keep myself from turning into a human margarita - and the homeless bums frozen to the benches could use some too.

Also, its great that you don't run past midnight except on weekends because we're still in a Puritan city and I am an immoral person for wanting to stay out thursday night. I am so excited about that extra hour on fridays and saturdays though - its really changed my life. Now when I want to enjoy the city life late night I can still pay the same fucking cab fare. But I have a car you say? Oh yeah, except finding parking in Boston on a friday night is as easy and fun as wrapping myself up in an American flag in the middle of Basra. And we all love driving in Boston too, but I am an idiot and lent my TOW Missile launcher to the army so I can no longer blow cars off the fucking road and unfortunately thats the only way to get through this damn city's traffic. But, thats that little quandary is what started our relationship to begin with isn't it?

But we've had our good times too didn't we? Those pranks you pull on me are sooo funny, like when I get on a Green Line train and the announcer tells me that its now out of order! Or when I spend a lifetime waiting for the E line only to see 10 D line trains go by and when I get on it, the train mysteriously sits there with its doors open while I watch my life force slowly drain. Sometimes I wonder how much of my life and my money you have taken over these past seven years. Im not sure, but all the the cash I've spent might be enough to buy one fucking working token machine! And when I see one it either says "coins only" or "cash only" which is fine by me except that the fare is $1.25 you goddamn morons and theres a change reciever on the turnstyle so anyone with 1.25 in change wouldnt need Tokens anyway! Please tell me that I'm not only one who sees this or that this is one big joke that I just can't get. Oh and I can't get the $45 monthly pass because its higher than my electricity bill and actually costs more than my monthly train usage. Oh and one small request, can the cashier please give me my Token any fucking slower as the train is coming? And please let them talk forever to the one idiot who needs it explained to him while we all stand in line waiting for the bare cement walls to end the miserable existence, because when I look at those broken token machines my brain begins to eat its way out of my body.

In conclusion, your newly posted billboard ads about the "great service" MBTA is giving us in Boston have really changed my mind. I fucking hate you mass transit and I hate you Boston Council for letting a piece of shit company like the MBTA ever be associated with this city; and I hate the broken Green Line, the worthless Orange Line, the fucking Red Line, the shitty Blue Line, and that bullshit bus service you now call the Silver Line. Those new hydrogen powered buses have really allowed me to take advantage of Roxbury because if I ever wondered what it would be like to get stabbed while waiting for a bus I can finally find out and kill the fucking mystery.

I am excited about seeing you every day again my beloved MBTA and hope that you may explode in a giant fireball of death at your earliest convenience.

Best Regards,
Boston Mass Transit User

8:30 am to 9:30 pm. That's how long I'll be at school today. Ewwwwww.....

I am spending my day calling doctors (or rather, speaking to their voicemail, as they are all busy, of course.) I gotta admit, I feel a little silly calling them. I feel like they are on the other end the line, rolling their eyes because some little peon student is wasting their time trying to get their opinions on a new technology. I think I would be, if I was the doctor. C'mon, it seems simple: should I spend 20-30 minutes talking to this KID about her little technology, or should I work on charts, talk to patients, or get some other work done so I could sleep? I think I would choose to not speak to me. I doesn't help that I am not calling from any company, or even have an impressive name to use. Who would you rather talk to: Katrina the student from BU, or someone from Merck? **sigh** I think I am going to give my group an impressive name, so I can use it to sound professional. Like Katrina from the Boston University Neuropathy Technologies (BUNT for short. Heh.) Ok, maybe I won't call it BUNT, but something other then saying I am a student. Busy people don't want to talk to a student. We ask a lot of questions. At least, if they don't think I am a student, I can get them talking, and then they might realize it later. And I can just think to myself "fooled you." And we can all walk away happy...

I am walking in a fog. I am wicked tired from this weekend, and dispite going to bed a bit earlier then normal, I was up early this morning doing work (yes, my dear friends, I skipped class this morning, not to sleep but to do more work. I think I missed the memo of good reasons to skip a monday morning class...) I drank red bull. I drank coffee. Now I am walking around in a hyper fog, which I suppose is better then a sleepy fog, but I don't think it is better by much. But I have managed to get stuff done today, even though I feel completely detached from my body. I wonder if this is what it feels like when you are high...?

Yesterday, I got the joy of going to the courthouse to file a motion, and managed to have to argue a motion by myself (with no supervisor) and without a suit, all in front of the judge. Don't ask, it was truly bizarre. But the cool thing was, I got to do an argument in front of the judge allllll by myself. With no supervisor to fall back on. I felt truly cool afterwards.

Tonight I went with some friends to get some dinner and then listen to live blues music. It was actually pretty cool, and blues is not quite what I expected it to be. It was a lot more lively then I thought. Not a lot of "since my baby left me". It was a bit more like I expected blue grass to be. So I had lots of fun. Of course, I was supposed to spend the evening working on reading patents and working on my group project. **sigh**

Yesterday I got to have the joy of surprising an old college buddy. This is really hard for me to do, as my close college friends really do know me WAY too well. But surprise her I did. How, you might ask? I enlightened her that I have been writing. No, not in this blog, I know she sees that (note: I am apparently a very bad blogger, so...SEE, I am writing...) I have been working on a number of stories (three to be precise, although one hasn't been touched in a while.) Of course, I got my normal scoldings, in that I do not ever intend for anyone to read these stories (except me, of course...) So why, you might ask, do I write them? The answer is: I don't really know. I have a number of stories that I have started, aside from these three, but get deleted after 5 pages. A couple have gotten close to being finished, but none ever quite make it. Sometimes I drag an old one out, and add to it. But I doubt I'll ever finish any of them. Sometimes I just run out of inspiration. Sometimes the plot goes someplace I don't want it to, and so I just stop. I guess it is because I never really PLAN any of the stories. I just get an idea, sometimes its a dream, sometimes it is something I saw or read, and I just start writing. But like a dream, the idea fades. The longest story I have written is about 50 pages in length, and constantly dragged out because it pops into my dreams at times. And, if I give myself time in the morning, I jot the dream down, and incorporate it into the story. But I don't think it'll make sense to anyone but me. After all, since the story is for me, I don't have to develop the characters so someone else can imagine them. I don't need the description. I see them, in my head. And I can already picture what is happening in the scene, since the idea is coming from my little mind. Maybe someday, if I ever end a story, I'll make it readable to someone else. But I doubt it. After all, as I like to tell people: I don't share. ;-)

So I'm sick. I hate head colds. My head is all stuffy. I keep coughing. My throat hurts. And I sneezed so much my nose started bleeding.

And I was gonna go to Maine this weekend.... :-( :-(

I want to get married.

I don't, really, but since a number of my friends in law school are married (and most recently) they seem to talk about marriages a lot. And I feel like I cannot converse properly with them because of this. Not that they are exclusionary about it, but I can only discuss wedding cakes, dresses and place settings for so long before I lose interest or I run out of things to say. I mean, it is a place setting. It can't be that hard to pick one, right? (apparently the answer is wrong, since this was much debated at lunch last week.) I love my friends, but it is weird being the only VERY single person in my close group o'friends at law school.

Which leads me to the second phenomina. All of my married, or soon to be married friends, seem to think that I really need to be dating someone. This phenomina, which I thought was relegated solely to my friends here, seems to be spreading. My friends at home apparently had a chat about my single status. They are apparently worried about this. My friends here keep trying to prod me to date some of my single classmates. I don't know if my college friends are worried as well, but since they don't get together as often, I can only hope that this was not a topic of discussion. I really didn't think my singledom was all that bad, but apparently it is. And here I was looking forward to allllll those cats in my future...

Here I am in corporations. And rather then listening, I am writing in my blog. I probably should feel bad about this, but for once I have done a pretty good job of briefing my cases, and since the facts of this case are really really long, I am choosing not to listen.

I had my quarterfinal softball game last night. We won, but I sucked booty. My batting was lame, since I basically drove the ball directly to someone everytime (which is really really really frustrating when you blast the ball hard and the shortstop caught it in the tip of his glove.) As for fielding, I got one really nice bomb to right field (my spot). Unfortunatly, since the guy had been hitting to left all night, I was damn close to center field. I hauled butt over there, and actually slightly overran the stupid thing. It bounced off the heel of my glove. Argh! I was SO annoyed. But, I was psyched we won, since we have the semifinal game tonight. Sadly, I will not be playing in it, since I have class from 6:30 to 9:30. **sigh**

On a different note, this weekend reminded me why I essentially stopped drinking my first semester sophomore year. I NEVER want to feel that "general feeling of ickiness" (a phrase I do believe that Deb coined...) for that long again. Not that I will never drink again (land of realism says that won't happen) but good lord I do not want to drink that combo and feel that ill again.

YAY! Blogger is working again! YAY!!!!

Stupid evil blog. Refuses to post my deep thoughts. Prolly won't post this either....

Today I started my technology commercialization class. It is a pretty neat concept for a class. We work in teams to evaluate technology, and develop a marketing plan. There are only 2 girls in the entire class. In my group, it is me and 4 guys: my friend Dave, and 3 phd + people. Therefore I am the youngest person in my group by at least 5 years. And I am the least experienced/educated. Damn, do I feel inadequate. But my faculty advisor, Dr. Bagalay, is pretty cool. He has a law degree, but does marketing and tech. comm. stuff now. It is nice to know there is life after legal practice.

The rest of my profs for the class (there are 6 in total) are kinda goofy older guys. They tell “dad jokes” and are completely amused by them. They are really smart though (if you’ve ever had a truly dumb professor, you will understand why this is good.) but not too smart to explain stuff to us in common language. Hopefully I will learn a LOT from this class, as it will definitely help me in the future.