Gross Incompetence

So today I was fired. It wasn't really a surprise, because I was pretty bad at my job. I had been doing the books for a doctor in the West Village, but I'm not exactly sure how I got a job doing math. But as notoriously bad at math as I am that wasn't really what I was doing wrong. Every week when I would come in there would be a laundry list of things that hadn't been entered in the computer/ cashed by the bank/ charged correctly in the weeks preceding. Things that I had overlooked or done wrong; I've never been so bad at a job or taken so long to catch on.
The girl who had the job before me had done it for five years and they had become friends during those years. They knew all about each other's personal lives. We, on the other hand, never clicked. I was always cheerful, but I wasn't about to share the personal details of my life. I could tell I annoyed her from the way she smiled at me with her mouth but not with her eyes, and this was before my inadequacies became apparent.
The only time I've encountered that same kind of annoyance was in the time after my grandmother became too sick to watch my sister and me and before my mom stopped working permanently. We had a string of babysitters and nannies, all of whom I hated. I was so resentful that they weren't my mom, and everything that they did differently from her, I couldn't stand. They were all immigrants who my parents found through agencies and paid cash. Some were from Russia so only my mom could communicate with them, and others were from various Asian countries so none of us could communicate with them. They came into our house not knowing the carefully choreographed routine that we had cultivated. Some had never seen modern appliances. One was afraid of the washing machine.
I'm not afraid of washing machines, but at this job I was in another world where I didn't quite know the careful system that had been worked out. Whenever another nannie was fired, I would always be relieved, secretly hoping this one would be the last and we would return to quiet normality. As disappointed as I am with myself and as worried as I am about looking for something else, secretly, I'm relieved.

Restlessness on a Saturday: a mixtape

I wish I may; I wish I might...

The Replacements: Can't Hardly Wait
The Jam: Town Called Malice
Saint-Etienne: Only Love Can Break Your Heart
The Stone Roses: I Wanna Be Adored
Starsailor: Silence is Easy
Al Green: Here I Am (Come and Take Me)
Jem: Wish I
Neil Young: Unknown Legend
Roxy Music: More Than This
Bob Dylan: Shelter From the Storm

Whenever I can see an airplane all I can think is that I'm earthbound until I get my passport replaced.

Subway Etiquette

I recently saw a piece on tv about subway satisfaction not increasing in the past decade. The MTA has spent billions improving the subway and can't figure out what else they can do. The problem isn't the trains or the platforms; its the people in the trains and on the platforms. So here are my suggestions for how the NYC subway can improve:

1) Purse Dogs: If it can soil itself, it doesn't belong on the train. That goes for you, your drunk friend and your incontinent grandmother as well.
2) There is no reason for you to flutter a fan. Really, none.
3) Food: drinking a coffee is one thing, but when I see you eating rice with your hands on the JMZ and spewing it everywhere...No. I say, NO.
4) Spitting: STOP IT.
5) Litter: I realize you are a gaping asshole that was raised by animals in a sewer, but next time I see you throwing your empty coke can on the tracks; I'm kicking your teeth in.
6) Escalators: and this goes not only for the subway, but anywhere there may be an escalator--right side: stand still, left side: walk. ALWAYS. Are you British? No? KEEP TO THE RIGHT.
7) Your fucking kids: look I don't like them either, but can the beating commence after you get home?
8) Stairs: I can't tell you how many times I have missed my train because the crowds leaving the train have taken up the whole width of the staircase. Which leads to #8,
9) Let them GET OFF THE TRAIN FIRST. The conducter says it everytime, but you refuse to listen. No that doesn't mean standing 2 feet from the doors creaing a human wall, and it doesn't mean shuffling around the doors if you are not exiting the train. Get. Out. Of. The. Fucking.
Way.
10) Strollers: see #1.
11) You: you smell. awful. fix it. Maybe you want to take a shower in one of the many open hydrants in my neighborhood that are zapping my water pressure.

Really, I have no complaint with the MTA. I understand that there have to be repairs and construction. Yes, the trains and platforms are rodent ridden and filthy but what can you do when people are doing numbers 1, 3, 4, and 5? Do I have to mention the public urination?