Drama at the Cafe

Well, I have two topics today which are only loosely related. Why do i take on this pedantic tone whenever i begin writing one of these? It must be you non-existent audience, there must be something dead in your non-existent faces/ ear or perhaps in whatever lies between your ears. Wow, listen to the snideness i direct towards you, imagine how far a projection could go into a nonexistent band of millions, it would be the inifinite projection, the pen-ultimate transference... anyway my wireless has been acting up and I write this in a state of frenzy and paranoia that at any moment I will be dumped from the server and hence lose these precious words of wisdom for all eternity...into the never was... Well, i think I'll begin with my first point. Two things happened today, both were situations in which I oucld have helped someone, a stranger, and thus, by reaching out expanded my own universe, felt connected to others, and been appreciated, and as much as I strained to do just that, something in me, stoppedthe impulse from coming to fruition, like a wall between myself and my own good intentions...The first, a woman, young looking, even younger than me, (and I look @21) but probably in all actuality the same exact age, (29) on the bus from the college where i teach, and she had an attendance sheet which sh elooked at briefly before sticking back in her bag and I recognized it immediately as these awkward, multi-copy, thick sheets must accompany you to every class day for the first two months of the semester, and I thought, wow she teaches there too, I liked her. She looked like media-studies person, maybe even composition and rhetoric, someone along those lines, funky, but serious. She was tall for a woman, and not exactly cute, but more along the lines of pleasant looking, even sweet. We rode the bus all the way to the train, her staring into space with that, it's 8:00, I just finished teaching, I probably fucked up here and there, my students sortof suck and I have an hours commute ahead of me kindof look. (yes, I am projecting here). but I was right about the hours commute. Like me she was a speed demon between the last bus stop and the subway, except her longer legs, my heavier bag and the fact that I had just finihed office hours and paper work rather than actually teaching, so was far less eager to get as far away from the college as she was...meant that she came out a bit ahead. at the metro-card swipe she was positively frantic, her first try didn't go through and she apologized sensing me behind her...I swiped through at the one beside her, no problem, headed to the stairs just as the train to Manhattan pulled in. I looked back, there she was, finally freed of the turnstile torture, and I oculd already see, it would be too late. I had flung myself into a seat when the thought occurred, just get up and hold the door open...for 5 seconds, she will just make it.. And as i had this thought, time seemed to stop, it was as if I was frozen...but actually time didn't stop, it didn't wait for whatever weird dilemma wasplaying itselfout in my sub-conscious, the doors closed and I saw her face, resigned disappointment. It was so unfair, she had been ahead of everyone the whole commute and now when it most counted she was last. I cursed myself. I thought, I oucld have had a cool friend, she would have been so appreciative, it owuld have been so easy after holding the door, to mention that I taught there to, and then of course we were probably also both doctoral students at the same college as well, since it's connected to the one where we teach and she's also so young. I would have had a commuter-mate for those long multi-train/bus commutes to and from, we could bitch about how all our students have cars and we can barely afford an unlimited metro-card... But worstof all about the whole thing, was how much like me she was in that moment of desperation, and then hopelessness, how many times the eact same thing has happened to me and how much a gesture like the one I'd been contemplating would have meant to me at those times, even if it had been madeby someone with perhaps less affinity to myself, than she would have had for me...and yet I balked at the chance, somehow petrified, another case happened the very same night. An older blindwoman on the sidewalk fiddling with her cane, the one made specifically for blind people. It seemedto have come apart and neededto be screwed back together. Watching her struggle, in the middle of the sidewalk I imagined myself going over and saying, "excuse me, can I help you?" I imagined the satisfaction it would give me, whether or not she accepted the offer,just to know that i had reached out, that I had seen the enormity of her hardship, that I had recognized it, and responded. I stopped and watched her for a good 5 minutes from afar. i kept thinking if she doesn't fix it soon, I'll go over. But she did fix it and wason her way and I on mine, alone separate, detached.