Train Pain

Spent the weekend in Boston. Boston is so small and watered down now that I’m a big cool New Yorker. If Boston were a condiment it would be spicy brown mustard. It’s not completely devoid of character or culture, but it has no edge. It’s pleasant, non-threatening, and perfect with a hot dog.

New York, on the other hand, is wasabi. It’s spicy, it’s weird, it goes with sushi (which I hate), but it’s awesome.

On the way home I took the Acela and sat in the quiet car, which is the next best thing to the Kate Only car I’ve been dreaming about all these years. I only wish the quiet car could be extended to other areas of my life. I would like to walk around in my own personal bubble of quiet where there are no cell phones, no radios, no loud conversations, and certainly no one chewing ice cubes in the cubicle behind mine. (I know, it was a year ago. I’m still scarred.)

Somewhere in the evil state of Connecticut I saw this billboard: “Babies Were Born to Be Breastfed.” I don’t know why it infuriated me so much. I have half a mind to go out and have a baby so I can feed it nothing but scotch. Seriously, what the fuck? Who are these people? Why are they demanding I breastfeed, and why are they demanding I do it in my quiet car? Is there a marauding band of women savagely bottle-feeding their babies on the trains from Boston to New York? What the fuck?

I also saw a law firm billboard outside of Bridgeport. The number was 1-800-NOT-DRUNK. Somehow I can see myself needing that number some day. I will keep it under my pillow next to the number of the law firm whose subway-ad slogan is “When spending the night in jail isn’t an option.”

Finally, I call a moratorium on making up names from initials. It’s getting out of hand. It’s already too late in some cases, SoHo and TriBeCa are entrenched, and even I’ve been guilty of calling South Beach “SoBe.” But I saw a sign calling South Norwalk, CT “SoNo,” and that means the trend has gone too far. I can only assume it stands for So Not a place that doesn’t suck. No amount of cute names will ever make Connecticut cool. Ever.