London - An Aside

More stories from New Zealand (and now, Italy!) to come, but for now, a rant.

I just got off the London Tube feeling completely defeated and befuddled. At 4:30 PM, the platforms of both tube stations I utilized were packed with dark wool coats and a blur of bags. People were trying to get on the train, but no one was getting out (to accommodate the folks going in and out), and everyone huddled and packed themselves against each other in a 4 by 4 feet area by the doorsdumb sheep style. There should be a law against that. There should also be laws against massive people whose flesh spill over into the adjacent seats. And another law against people who don't remove their backpacks to make space for one more person in the train. I've given this subject a lot of thought. Mostly on the Bedford station platform of the L train when it was 8:30 AM, and three trains had passed by me with ostensibly no space for one more. I get furious, a quiet fury that makes me imagine doing unspeakable and bloody deeds to MTA officials and the apathetic MTA employees who threaten to strike for more wages and benefits, and the heartless MTA officials who have to placate riotous parties on both sides by hiking up the fare for struggling New Yorkers who don't seem to have any representation in this entire discussion, it's not even up for discussion, it just is, and prices just go up (much like gas), suddenly, on a date as final as Judgement Day as deemed by the MTA. (This may not really be an accurate representation of MTA issues, but this is just my interpretation.) I want to hurt them all.

I haven't had to deal with the MTA in months as I've been traveling and breathing fresh air under clear blue skies and dipping my toes in cold, babbling brooks and all that crap, but being in London brought it all back in one rush-hour trip. Public transportation during rush hour, anything during rush hour, makes me hate all of humanity.

Anyways.

On an utterly girly note, I got my eyebrows done by an artist (whose talents I would equate to Michelangelo or Titian), and I have never been so pleased. She spent an entire half hour on them! They're fabulous. I look like a pampered celebrity from my forehead to my browline.