One thing I love about train travel is the immediacy with which me and the one other single girl traveler waiting around always seem to find each other and agree to be seat buddies within moments. She was with her boyfriend at first but he left, and after he did I asked where she was going. She said Boston, and right away after said, “If you want to sit with me, I don’t know anyone. I get so nervous asking.” And I had been wanting to ask her myself, because it’s just nicer to sit by a girl for 20 hours. So I said yes, that would be great, I don’t know anyone either. It turns out she had thought she’d be getting in at 9:10 tomorrow morning. I had to break it to her that if I’m getting to New York tomorrow night, she is not getting to Boston tomorrow morning.
A bonus event in this interminable layover is that for awhile in the station four young soccer players sat near me speaking in Russian, and I was reading and tuning them out, but eventually they broke back in because I heard them say “David Duchovny” and “Mulder.”
There is a middle-age couple next to me in the train station. The man is dressed like a frat boy in cargo shorts and a baseball hat, the woman is in a skirt and blazer and manicured nails. She has a blanket over her lap. He went to go get her a cup of coffee from the cart around the corner and told her it was better if she didn’t know where he got it, but he put cream in so that should help. At first I couldn’t tell they were married, maybe because they sounded like they were learning new things about each other just this morning. But then they were talking about their kids and when they’d ever have an empty house. He swears a lot, creatively. They held hands. Then they started arguing about work stuff - I think they are both teachers, and opinionated - but they kept holding hands the whole time. I love every weirdo in the train station this morning - there is also a woman punk in her forties with red blunt bangs and a Black Sabbath tank top, sitting with her parents, and a tall old man with a white beard to his belt in a suit and sunglasses though it is raining - but I think these two, holding hands and arguing, are my favorite.
just know that I think I show an IMMENSE amount of self-restraint by not posting screenshots along these lines just constantly, because I really could.
That’s what I keep TRYING to tell people…