Matt's Journal

I got on the train and then got off at Rockridge to catch the trailing one hoping to get an empty seat. I was able to grab one of many open seats - the one I grabbed had someone immediately next to it with an MP3 player and a bag of Cheetos. I was deep into my book but still could not ignore the aromatic cheesy assault of that open bag of extreme Cheetos.

He crumples up the bag and puts it in his satchel. He is trying to figure out how to turn up his music. I notice all this by staring at the floor and focusing on my peripheral vision (I used to practice this a lot for sparring, I still do sometimes.)

At this point he start bobbing his head intensly to the music but still has an orangey colored thumb. He is trying to turn up the music without getting cheese powder on his MP3 player. The song picks up and he starts moving his body to the rhythm and he is holding his thumb out in some weird cheese hitchiking position.

I note him trying to figure out how to turn it up without defiling the device and I wonder what he is thinking. The phrase that pops into my head is 'Man, this artificial cheese powder is seriously interfering with my desire to *get down* to this.'

He eventually brushes enough powder off his thumb enough to turn it up (why he didn't figure it out with his other hand I have no idea) and remains seriously bobbing his head for the rest of my ride - almost as if he was daring someone to question his commitment to his choice of music.

After I left, I was approaching the escalator and there was a mother and her daughter in a stroller at the top waiting, not even attempting to ride to the lower level. The daughter held up her tiny hand and said 'Bye bye, train!' and I chuckled. I don't say goodbye to many inanimate objects and could tally off the ones in the past year where I have - they have emotional impact to me. I wonder if that train had such a big emotional impact to the daughter that she was impelled to or if she hasn't discovered that you have to limit your conversation with inanimate objects with only certain exceptions.

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