Late Train Pt. 1

He sat on the train platform waiting for the next train to come. It was 1:00 in the morning and his badder was quite full. Unfortunately he had made the decision to take the earlier train to the transfer point earlier in case the later train was late; this was the last train home for the night and he didn't want to run the risk or missing the train he had to transfer to. This was a sound idea, in theory, except for the fact that the three glasses of wine, four glasses of water and the one can of green tea were now done working their way through his system and now looking for an exit. The platform didn't have a good place to let the liquids escape as they pleased, so there was nothing to do but hold it and wait for an hour, hoping there would be a lavatory on the train once it arrived. At this point he cursed the station for closing everything and he cursed himself for not staying at the station that he would have been more comfortable and able to relieve himself. Once again, he had to play a waiting game; he hated waiting games.

Welcome Week

The annual arrival of NYU's "Welcome Week" and this subsequent post about it means that I have reached an entirely new level of pathetic.

Welcome Week was something that was always somewhat of a sign of hope of a promising year for me through the past four years. Despite the fact that I barely participated in any of the activities it signaled a start of a another year at an institution I was in love with, a return of friends scattered across the world I hadn't seen all summer for another year and it was a signal for my return to Manhattan, a place that spelled freedom, home and direction all at once for me.

This year was going to be different because this year Welcome Week was not being held for me, meaning no new exciting year with professors and classes at the institution I had fell in love with, no return of friends scattered across the globe and no return to Manhattan, or for that matter, New York City. The real world, no matter how much I tried, could not be held off any longer. This year, like always, the start of Welcome Week signified the start of a new year, a year in which I was jobless, cut off from friends and directionless.

I had woken up this morning at 9AM with the full intention of getting onto the train and into the city to edit my film and maybe see some faces. However, upon waking at the scheduled time I just couldn't bring myself to get out of bed and go to a place that I no longer felt I belonged so I stayed in bed. At first I put up an admirable fight, telling myself that I would get up and take a later train in but I was doing nothing but lying to myself, I didn't have the will power to bring myself to my beloved estranged university.

The past week had been miserable, I had only managed to get myself up to go to Jury Duty (which I ended up sleeping during when I wasn't called into a courtroom, and even then I came awfully close) on Tuesday and then to my internship on Thursday (where I sat around and did nothing until the end of the day when I had to go and drop a package off uptown. Despite the fact that I had kept telling myself to write I ended up waking up well past 12PM each day, actually, more accurately, past 2PM each day and spending all my time beating "Star Wars Force Unleashed" for the third time and watching "How I Met Your Mother," which I had already watched. Additionally I'm sure there were moments of near yelling at the computer monitor as Ted did yet another stupid thing related to his love life. It wasn't pretty. As I said; pathetic.

For the past 3 months there has been a huge struggle for me to do just about anything. Despite all my big talks while I was in school about how you need to discipline yourself and work on your own projects no matter what you're doing I was unable to get myself to do anything all summer. I was unable to complete something even as simple as a page a day on my screenplay despite the fact that I had so much free time, I felt like a failure.

The worst part of it all was I knew I was making all the wrong moves, choosing the bad choices and taking that step that would ultimately lead me down that slippery slope. Eventually it got so bad that I couldn't even get myself out of bed. I think that's what giving up feels like; giving up is the worst feeling in the world. It's similar to the feeling of powerlessness you feel when events spiral beyond your control only its worse because at least then you know you've done all you could possibly have done but in this case you don't have anything because there's still more you can do; you're just not doing it.

I hope that is what giving up felt like because that would mean that I hit rock bottom and that the only place to go is up. However, whether its rock bottom or not isn't significant because ultimately it's up to me to fight my way back up otherwise the only place I'm going is where I've been for the past week.

Summer Night Semi-venture

Nothing exciting has really been happening to me lately, which, of course, is unfortunate, but also means that I need to write about the nothing that's been going on recently.

I had dinner with Ming Hu today, who, after working on Tahir Jetter's and Nyle Emerson's latest music video "F.a.N.G." has become rather interested in conceptualizing and directing his own music video for Nyle.

Over dinner we discussed a few ideas and other ideas he hopes to direct as well as storytelling in a short form, of which, we share rather different views. I told him, in any case, that if he wants to make anything I'd be down to help out in any way I can.

After finishing up dinner and heading our own ways I rushed to Hoboken to catch a train that would take me to Newark Broad St. so I could wait for another train to take me home. Recently I've been able to get myself to write a little more, which is nice even though I still feel really unproductive, especially after the weekly writing group Nick holds at Cafe Dante's, which has been expressed here multiple times. Additionally, the fact that nothing exciting seems to be happening seems to be reflected here as well as my posts have become less story-like and more random recountings of miscellaneous events as well as things that seem to pop into my mind so I will now attempt to make this blog more interesting.



I raced to the Path Train Station as quickly as I dared to walk. The humidity outside felt like a mask pressed over my face, making the heavy a little more difficult to breath. Sweat collected like a shallow stream over my face from the combined heat and humidity. Suddenly I remembered Arizona and missed the weather there, at least it was a dry heat there.

Reaching the Path Train I check the time-table and curse silently as I realize that I missed the train that would keep me on time by about 5 minutes and the next Path Train would make me miss my desired train home by one minute. Also, it's even hotter and muggier on the underground platform than it was above ground.

When the Path finally arrives I feel as though I can wring sweat out of my headband, that is, of course, if I were wearing a head band, which I wasn't nor do I ever so there weren't any chances of that happening. I welcome the blast of cold air conditioning inside the train car and try to enjoy the ride to Hoboken.

I arrive in Hoboken a minute too late, as was predicted by the timetable in the Path station on 9th St. I pull out the train schedule I leave in my bag to take a look at the next train I can take and realize that the 11:40 train I was going for never stopped in Hoboken anyway and my rush was for no reason. Drained of energy I take a seat inside the waiting room, which is just as hot and disgusting as everywhere else. I need to wait an hour for my train to come, an hour I'm not looking forward to having to sit through, but I make the most of it by trying to optimize my time, I pull out my beaten and battered legal pad and work on my script, trying to get into my character's heads and muster up the will power to actually put into words what my mind pictures them doing.

The train arrives and I board it, once again thankful for the cool air conditioning, which is only enhanced by the sweat generated from waiting in the heat for the past hour. I slouch down in my seat, partly because I hope that at 12:30AM the train conductor won't be that thorough and will pass by me without collecting my ticket but mainly because It's comfortable and gives the purpose of holding up my legal pad in a position where I can write comfortably. Three pages later I give into my tiredness and take a nap, waking up in time to get out at my stop at Newark Broad St. I have to wait for my transfer to take me home to Bloomfield so I just sit.

The next train arrives and I think it's quite a curious train since it's a double decker and double decker trains never go to Bloomfield, but it's about the time for my connecting train to come anyway so I get on board and take off. As the train starts moving a voice comes over the intercom and says "next stop, East Orange".

"Wait, that's not right, the next stop should be Watsessing Ave."

I check my watch and see that the train I'm on is departing two minutes early.

"Really? these trains are TWO MINUTES apart? There are two trains that stop at Newark Broad St. at this time of night and they're two minutes apart? Whoever made this schedule sucks at his/her job,".

I call my brother to let him know I got on the wrong train. I don't need to see his face to know what it looks like; I've seen it plenty of times in my life. The conversation is relatively predictable, it goes something along the lines of

"(sighing) where's the next stop?"

"East Orange"

"That's real helpful"

"It says 'next stop East Orange,' its East Orange Station"

"I have no idea where that is. Let me look it up"

(beat)

"Pay attention to what you're doing"

I arrive at East Orange Train Station and learn there are no other trains going either way so my only option is to rely on my brother to pick me up. Eventually he finds the location and heads over. Meanwhile I wander around the station and discover a really cool location, one that I would love to shoot Nyle's next music video at, but I guess we'll see about that.

(Obviously I make it home in one piece)

I took some pictures on my phone (I still do think camera phones are crappy in quality, but this one will get the job done in reminding me about a place or whatever). We'll see if I can get them off my phone and onto my computer and then I'll post them. I need to get a data cable though.