There are certain New York days that can make or break you.

And being stuck underground on the subway between 50th street and 42nd street for a half hour can certainly finish the task of making you never want to spend one more minute in a place that can’t handle a little water in it’s underground transportation system.

I had a feeling this morning, with the rain coming down as it was, that it wasn’t going to be an easy commute. Getting on the bus with the windows all fogged and that pungent smell of sweat and soaked wool, I thought to myself: it’s just one day.

Flash forward to 50th street when the 1 train stopped, doors open, so that the train conductor could ask over the loudspeaker for anyone who was a doctor, as there was a “sick person on the platform.” Everyone turned, strained their necks in one succinct motion towards the open doors to try to see the injured civilian. People all tell themselves they don’t want to look at the exact moment they do. Some began to leave the train, (hopefully to assist), and soon we were creeping out of 50th street, when about ten seconds later, we were at a stand-still.

Being underground like that and looking from dark window to dark window, I realized that my supposed fear of small confined spaces was, in fact, real. Everyone around me just seemed exasperated, rolling their eyes as that loudspeaker voice you can never really understand went about repeating the same thing every two minutes:“Mrrrrrwerearrrrestop…momen…rily. Mrrrrrrthank…for…atience.”

Of course of all the people on all the trains in all the world I was stuck standing next to a guy who couldn’t handle himself. He couldn’t handle the fact that this was really happening to him and choose to talk to me (or to himself, I’m not sure) about how he felt about it: “I mean you’ve got to be kidding me! C’mon, say it again man, just tell me one more time that we’re stopped, like I can’t already see that, like I’m some sort of gosh darn idiot, like I was just born yesterday. And thank me again for my gosh darn patience, just do it man, c’mon, just one more gosh darn time.”

I tried to give him a withering smile of camaraderie, to silently tell him that I too was fighting the battle of living in Manhattan.

He didn’t seem to care. And he didn’t say gosh darn, either.

30 minutes and an almost panic-attack later, I got off the 1 at 42nd street after it officially stopping running. The express wasn’t working either and I flew up the stairs into the pouring rain to try to catch a cab. But any New Yorker knows that trying to find a cab in the middle of Times Square in the rain is about as easy as finishing a Rubick’s cube in under 5 seconds. First the red, then the green…

I walked for blocks, soaked, hauling my duffle bag because of course, this is the weekend I’ve chosen to go out of town. As fire trucks scream past me, crowds of people with umbrellas push around me, I thought: this is a nightmare.
A few blocks later, soaked through and not an empty cab in sight, I found myself back at the subway, finally realizing that I could take the A/C/E to Spring street and walk to work from there. On the E, I’m stuck standing next to two guys who’ve chosen to sleep on the seats next to me, by far creating the most unpleasant smell I’d had to deal with so far that morning. Right before I get off at Spring, one of them wakes up, grabs a huge jar of Jiffy peanut butter out from one of his many trash-filled bags at his feet, and starts eating large finger-fulls. Soon, all of his fingers are covered in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, and just before the doors open he looks up at me, gives me a smile consisting of about three teeth altogether, points his sticky fingers at me and says, “ya like some butta, hun?”

On the walk to the office I pass a Starbucks and naturally go in to buy a venti house blend because I feel like I deserve it after the morning I’ve just had. I am now officially an hour late for work, and try to walk into the office unnoticed. Of course, soaking wet with running mascara and a venti Starbucks cup( with The Way I See It #184), is anything but discreet. I make it to my desk fearing the wrath of my superiors, while reading #184, “…only an idiot sets out to find the poorhouse, not to mention devote himself to something he doesn’t love. Instead, I discovered an interesting back road to the unknown, and deliberately without a safety net.”

While getting over my anger at the MTA I think that this city is like one huge back road about 100 feet in the air with nothing but empty space under you, and some days it’s easier to let yourself fall than others. But you just always have to remember, that, like today, just two hours later, it stops raining, and the sun comes out again.

I (still) heart NY.