01 July 2002

 

In New York 

Sonya and I got up early this morning, took a cab to Penn Station and then caught a train into New Jersey to visit Red Bank, home of movie director Kevin Smith and Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash, a comic book store that sells all manner of Kevin Smith-abilia. Red Bank is a lovely, clean, charming little town. I'd raise kids there.

On the train back to New York there was a conductor. She was a slight, plain woman with mousy brown hair and a honking New Jersey voice. Two things about her, though, were notable:

  1. She had inch-long nails, each perfectly manicured and painted an electric, glow-in-the-dark pinkish-orange.
  2. Her perfume was delicate and intoxicating and followed after her like a sweet little cloud.

Who was this ordinary woman with the hooker's nails and the beautiful smell? Did she enjoy punching tickets and making change?

Maybe most commuters never even look up at the conductor. All they do is hand over their tickets and read the paper. But even they couldn't ignore her. They'd see that flash of nail when the ticket was punched, catch a whiff of something unidentifiable (but good) and have to look.

Even New Jersey train conductors don't like to be ignored, I suppose.

Additional New York Coolness: Tonight we went with Lark - a friend of Sonya's from high school who now lives in Brooklyn - to Avenue A Sushi, where a DJ spun house music while we ate and talked about Lark's sex life. It was fabulous.