2001-08-17

One time, right before I moved, I was reading the paper in a park in New Jersey in Hudson County watching the Hudson River. I was wearing my cute brown office summer sandals, tailored linen pants and Victoria's Secret butterfly panties. I got that suspicious feeling that I had my period and was staining my butterflies. I was.

A month later, after I’d moved and started my job, I felt had that "take a tampon to the bathroom since it's starting now." In the bathroom I noticed that I was again wearing the same sandals, linen pants and butterfly panties. I laughed and told a few people about this coincidence. For July's monthly, I was getting a bit annoyed at the lateness of my period and try to trick it into coming by wearing above combo. My body didn't fall for it but I got it another time where the outfit is neither notable nor remembered.

Yesterday, I was on the train thinking about Jesse and Paul Auster, the author he has me obsessed with, who writes about coincidences, overlapping lives and so forth. I was also happy that I left early and the train wasn't so crowded, even though I stood the whole ride. But since it was early, I knew that the train would be faster, especially since it was one of those F-trains that skips half of the stops because I had that feeling. When I got home, surely enough I also got my period. I was wearing the brown sandals, linen pants and butterfly panties.

Paul Auster's characters have very similar lives that are also very similar to the life he claims to have lived in his autobiography. The similarities are not limited to broader things such as divorces, struggling artists but also specifics like having worked on an ocean liner, being a part-time translator. It gets to the point where people become interchangeable. At the same time, those things that are different distinguish them. Where they have something individually different, it becomes a quality that is put into hyper-focus. Jesse thinks I don't like him too much. But each time I go to empty my little shoulder bag of books and refill it at the library, I take out one of his books; he's 1/3 of my current reading material.

Jesse met Paul Auster when he was at the special summer program at Yale for artists. Jesse had started the program the same day my house burned down. His parents had literarily just returned from dropping him off when my family needed to use their house as shelter. The apartment he was supposed to move into that fall, living above his ex-girlfriend, had also burned down.

A good deal of his work at Yale, which I've never seen but I take his word for it, was about fire safety. Paul Auster, who had given a talk about coincidence at Yale, went to see Jesse's show. He really liked Jesse as we all do. While chatting, Paul Auster asked Jesse where he was from. "South Orange" Jesse replied. "Me too" Paul Auster said.

I was thinking about this on the train, while knowing I was about to get my period. Strangely, I was not thinking about the fact that I was wearing the same outfit that I'd worn during 2/3 of my previous periods. This was something that dawned on me when I got home and had to call someone to let them know. While on the train, I was thinking about the people I see on the train. There are some people that you recognize because maybe they said bless you when you sneezed or said thank you when you said bless you. Sometimes, they are people that you exchange glances with when something amusing or unusual happen. Sometimes they are people that look at you in a way that says "want to sit" when the seat next to them becomes empty even though 5 other people want to sit there was well. And you get to sit because they want you to. Then there are people that you watch because they are unusual, strange, striking and other wise stand out. A good deal of people on the F train fit into this last category.

But these people, who for a flash are your friends, are your companions as you sit side-by-side reading hard covered books, are no one again even when you see them next. Because they are sitting near someone else, reading a magazine and the person next to them isn't getting out of their seat until the stop after yours. But you notice them, they are the same person as before but somehow they are new and fresh.

There is a Goth dwarf who gets on the train at the same stop as me. There are two female twins in their 50s with fuzzy gray hair, large round stomachs, mustaches, always with bandanas tied around their necks. They are almost interchangeable except one wears thick glasses in the style of the early 80s where the lenses almost go down to her mustache. There is a little Russian lady with dyed red hair who is always reading books in Russian and says things like excuse me when you are in her way rather than pushing as most people do.

I watch these people, I observe them for 40 minutes. Sometimes, I predict what stop they’ll get off at. The yuppies who get off at Bergen and Carroll Streets are the easiest to pick out. Angel can’t figure out how I know they’ll get off at these stops rather than the equally well off 7th Avenue in Park Slope. He was pretty amazed that I know one guy was getting off at Carroll Street because he had a thin angular face and was reading a new hardcover book with the dust jacket still on while holding a ball point pen. I believed I could pin him down.

These people seem almost readable, you seem to think you know them while on the train. But only for so long. Next time they change, they are not so happy looking, they are not wearing too much make-up or they are not as polite as they were that one day you noticed them. All of these people I see, I think I know them, but they always seem new.