North Maple Rag

Sometimes I forget that. Then, I ride on the subway and am reminded that I live in a huge crazy city with lots of crazy (and occasionally huge) people. During the past couple weeks, my time has been spent almost exclusively in my apartment, my classrooms, and the law library, but this afternoon, I decided I was due for a trip to the Target in Brooklyn.

I got on the D Train just fine and then I somehow forgot that Atlantic Avenue and Pacific Street are really the same station. So, I got off the train a stop too late, went to the other side of the tracks, and waited for one traveling in the other direction. About a half-hour later, I found a sign in a tucked away corner of the station explaining that on April 8, the D Train toward Manhattan wouldn't be stopping at that particular station between 11 and 3 (it was 1). Instead, I had to take the train toward Coney Island about five stops further into Brooklyn, where I could then switch to the D Train toward Manhattan, which was, of course, traveling on N tracks for the weekend. Ah, humbled yet again by the Metropolitan Transit Authority.

After finishing up at Target, I successfully found my way back to the D platform only to be greeted with an announcement that the D Train was stalled a few stops away. I ended up on a local train that back to Manhattan with a group of four screaming teenage girls (things are sooo much funnier when they're said in really loud, shrill voices). I love New York, but stuff like that makes me yearn for my car and an open stretch of highway.

My evening turned out fine, though. I tried boba tea (milky tea with tapioca balls floating in it) for the first time. I've heard about it several times and it was exactly as everyone describes it: disconcerting at first, but not at all as gross as you'd expect. I had dinner with some classmates and then we wandered around the new Best Buy in SoHo.

I had high expectations for Best Buy, but just like every other store I've tried in New York, they don't carry St. Elmo's Fire on DVD. Someday I'll find it, and then I'll watch it over and over and over again. It's impossible not to love a movie that features both Andrew McCarthy all angst-ridden over being in love with his best friend's girlfriend and Rob Lowe saying one of the cheesiest lines ever ("We're all going through this. It's our time at the edge."). Yes, I have to find it.