The other night was rather interesting in White Plains… An interesting woman walked up the stairs and stood in line waiting for the ticket machine, and probably just about everyone in the station was staring at her. I’m not the best at just going up to random people and taking their picture, so I don’t have one, unfortunately. The woman had incredibly long dreadlocks, which probably would be down to the floor, had they not been tied up. The dreadlocks were all dyed colors, fire engine red and a sunny yellow. She had many long and pointy piercings on her face, so much so that she looked like a little bit of a porcupine. She also had a tattoo of a heart on her face, whether it was permanent or not I was not able to determine. I don’t really mind people’s looks like some of the folks that were at the train station that night do. I mean, it is her body, she is welcome to do that if she wishes. And heck, I even I had blue hair for a time. The only thing I want to know is why the hell was she carrying a black mannequin torso around at the train station!

I had never seen that woman before, so she is hardly a regular at the station… unlike the crazy guy that is always talking to himself. He’s a train station regular… and it is always a strange day to not see him stalking around. I posted a picture of him a few weeks ago when he first began experimenting with wearing purses. A few days I’ve seen him wearing multiple purses. And then other days, he goes back to wearing big fat gold chains, with gold laces in his boots.

Apparently my friend who happened to also be a the station on the weekend said that she saw him waving money around like a fan. To most people I really wouldn’t suggest doing that at all… but this guy, well, everyone knows he’s crazy, and they probably stay the hell away.

And this guy, well, who knows, I just saw him on the train the other day and felt like taking a picture. He kept showing off the fact that he was wearing no socks and
smooth-shaven legs. That, and he snored really loud.

Train stations are packed this week full of various politicians making their rounds, passing out flyers, and trying to earn your vote on November 3. I was sitting upstairs in the waiting room in White Plains today, and it was just a hilarious procession… Step one: Politician hands you a flyer, Step two: walk down the hallway, Step three: throw flyer into the trash bin, Step four: continue on your way.

Why is it that so many people don’t refuse the flyers? Even if they don’t want them. The majority of folks take it and throw it out. I on the other hand, hold onto them and do different things… Let’s just say I don’t think that Tony Castro and Bill Ryan are my biggest fans.

That was about all that was interesting at the train station this morning… though we did have a guy who was begging for coins, he claimed that he missed his train and he needed fifty cents to call his boss to say he was going to be late to work. One of the folks I ride the shuttle bus with gave him the money, then he walked away. Right past the phone booths. So I shouted out to him, “Hey, the phones are over there!” With everyone staring at him now, he pretended to make a call. Quite terribly though, because he didn’t put that money in the phone. What a surprise.

So my morning train so far this week has been conductorless. Not to say he isn’t there, but I just haven’t seen him. Guy got switched to another job, and whoever took his place, well, I don’t know if this guy actually collects tickets. Considering this is a morning peak train going to Grand Central, I would think that tickets would sort of be, I don’t know, important? Really it doesn’t matter to me one way or the other, I have a monthly anyways. But there are a bunch of people that I know don’t, who just happened to get two free rides so far.

Even the school kids that ride the train were like, “Where’s Guy?” I guess he never told them he was leaving. They always liked him though. One morning they had an amusing conversation
Kid: Is your name really Guy?
Guy: Yeah…
Kid: Wow…
Guy: When I was first born, my parents didn’t know what to name me. So back then they called me Boy. Now they call me Guy. And after fifty they’ll be calling me Man.

Oh well. Tomorrow I have to go to the city for a meeting, so I’ll be taking a different train than normal. I won’t see if we go a third day in a row conductorless.

I suppose it is getting rather close to elections, and because politicians apparently adore White Plains, they’ve frequently been hanging around the station. And everybody knows how much I love politicians. Or rather, how I love to draw on their brochures. Last week folks were passing out stuff for Andy Spano. I couldn’t do anything too terrible to his face, because he looks a lot like my now deceased grandfather. I was amused by the fact that along with the brochure, they gave out antibacterial hand gel. What kind of political message does that get across? That we are dirty, dirty people? They totally missed the chance at cheesy marketing: Andy Spano, cleaning up Westchester one person at a time!


I left this on the ground at White Plains, in case one of the crazy people needed it.

In other news, the Cat Girl has returned. There are many people that ride the trains, passengers as well as conductors, that know me merely by the name Cat Girl. All because of my cat hat.

Since the temperature has begun to get colder, I’ve taken out the hat and have been wearing it for the past week or so. I always say that the cat hat spreads joy wherever it goes. Something quite so silly and minor, does in fact make people smile. An elderly disabled war veteran in White Plains. A woman whom I’ve nicknamed Ginger, who told me that every morning she sees me wearing the hat, it makes her smile. A rather effeminate young man was curious to know where one could purchase a hat similar. And you, passenger, I saw that little tug at the side of your lips, a barely-there smile, when I got on the train.

Since I’ve been asked far too many times, the hat was made by the wonderful Susan over at Boshi-Basiik. They make some incredibly cute hand made hats there, so do take a look.

Oh, and if you do happen to see a Cat Girl on the train, be sure to say hello :D

Guy asked me the other day, “so what are you reading?”
And I replied, “A Star Trek book. I’m almost always reading Star Trek books.”

The train is great because I’ve seriously read around 40 books this year. The commute gives me plenty of time to read. I just happened to be reading another Star Trek book this morning, one about the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. Bajorans are those aliens with the nose ridges, and wear the big earrings.

Like this guy…

So I get off the train at White Plains this morning, I go downstairs to sit, and I am like, “holy crap! Is that guy wearing a Bajoran earring?!”

Nope, he isn’t.

I guess I looked too quick. Anyone that has spent any time at White Plains knows this guy. He’s the one who is always wearing a winter coat, even on the hottest days of summer. He also gets into good conversations with himself. I thought the earrings were so great I took a picture… only later on did I notice he was also carrying a purse. These spectacular fake-bling earrings were on both ears… and he was also wearing a fat rope chain.

Like this, just add girly fake clipon earrings

What a normal day in White Plains.

I was slightly amused this morning… happened to find a post someone made on Craigslist, looking for a girl he met last night on the train.

Saw you on the train as I walked up the isle and took the seat diagonal to the right of you. You were messing around with your Blackberry Storm – seemed like you were having trouble playing the music, hope it finally works now. You had excellent taste in music, from what I saw you were rocking Kings of Leon (my fav), The Veronicas and The Beatles White Ablum (another good one). Also, not that I was totally stalking you, I saw that you ticket was to Crestwood when the conductor came by so you live pretty close, I’m from Bronxville. We made eye contact when I was standing up in front of you as we pulled into Bronxville, that’s when I noticed you had amazing eyes. I’d really like to hear from you and see if we have anything else in common besides good taste in music…

You: Attractive girl, dark hair with what seemed like redish highlights and a clip in it, light eyes and manicured nails.
Me: Dark curly hair (I needed a haircut), 5 o’clock shadow, jeans and white long sleeve shirt and black messenger bag

Good luck finding her, dude. It isn’t such a crazy idea… a few years back Patrick Moberg found his mystery subway girl after starting a website called NYGirlofmyDreams.com Though I guess the illustration and website is a bit more creative than Craigslist.

You can see the original post on Craigslist here.

One woman at White Plains today had a terrible start to her morning. She was pooped on by a pigeon. Guess they didn’t like her too much. Cue the obligatory pigeon photo…

House painter lady was back again at the train station. “Housepainter! Housepainter! Ma’am do you need a HOUSEPAINTER?!” She just doesn’t quit! Despite the fact that I don’t think I actually saw a single person take one of her cards. At least the politicians hand out their papers, people take them, and promptly throw them in the trash once they get into the station. But hey, at least it feels like they did something!

I saw more delightful youngsters from *unnamed school* at White Plains again… what a wonderful lot of young men. The soccer team felt it would be necessary to brag to everyone on the platform about how they bullied this other young man during lunch, and it turned into the “best lunch ever.” They also laughed about how they would probably end up driving that young man to suicide. And to think that I laughed at the guy who was singing quite loudly the day previous on the platform. I would have much preferred him. Come back singing guy!

I decided to finally get a twitter account for the blog. I just started it out, we’ll see how this goes. If you want you can go and follow me :D

Oh, and before I forget, today is train conductor Guy’s birthday! If you see him, wish him a happy birthday!

You know what I seemed to forget this whole summer? Kids that ride the train to school. It was so wonderfully quiet without them… but now they’re back! Around White Plains I tend to see quite a few students from *unnamed school*… and when they aren’t discussing how they use cell phones, text messages, and all the other current technologies to cheat on their exams, they focus on getting the rest of the train passengers sick with what is probably swine flu. If I was a little bit nicer, perhaps I would have brought a box of tissues with me and given it to the whole lot of them. The other day the train really was filled with a symphony of sniffles. They all piped in at one point or another, but one kid, well, he was the metronome. He kept the beat of the slow-paced song with his every-five-second sniffles. Several people boarded the train and sat rather close to these kids, but within a few moments of hearing their song, they quickly got up and left. But hey, if you feel like sitting by yourself on the train, you can also use this tactic. Just start a terrible round of fake hacking coughs when people are boarding the train… Eighty, if not more, percent of the time, everyone will keep their distance from you, the sickie.

The other day I had to double check that I didn’t have any vision problems when I saw two identical twins on the platform. The amusing thing is that they must have gotten into a fight or something, because they were each pretending like the other wasn’t there. They were standing about twenty feet from each other, and I stood right in the middle, looking from one side of the platform to another. Really, I thought I was crazy, or my eyes were playing tricks. Too bad I missed the fight, must have happened shortly before I arrived at the station. That might have been interesting. I wonder though, who the hell do you root for when two identical twins get in a fistfight?

In other news, politicians are again hanging out at the train station, oh joy! Politicians are always my favorite. Last week there was a man passing out papers about Rob Astorino. I always love to see what is going on, so I went to grab one. But the man didn’t hand one to me right away, instead he squinted his eyes and stared at me. And then he mumbled, “are you even OLD ENOUGH to vote?!” That is sort of like when I go to restaurants and the waitress asks if I want a kids’ menu. Or at work when someone asks me if I am visiting my mommy or daddy… dammit, don’t you just hate when that happens?!

Back to politicians though, is there any amusing term that one uses for a person that is constantly following around a politician? Groupie? Or perhaps fanboy? Mr. Astorino apparently needs to find some better fanboys to pass out papers, ones that don’t mumble and you can actually understand. Like Dan Schorr’s friend with the large moustache. He is very loud and you certainly can understand him, other than the fact that you wonder where the sound is coming from because his facial hair is so large you don’t see his lips move.

This week, Mr. Astorino himself was in White Plains. Sort of just standing there smiling. As everyone rushed by. But hey, I noticed something… the little brochure that was being handed out, it looked a lot like another politician I know! I can’t believe the resemblance! Even the design of the brochure is the same… can you believe it?

Alright, alright. Perhaps that was a bit much. But I mean, it isn’t like anyone ever photoshops pictures of politicians!

Actually, this whole thing was amusing, because I had the brochure sitting on my desk here at work, and my supervisor came in and said, “Oh my god, that is Robbie Astorino! I was in third grade with him!” If only she knew about Robbie and his american flag bikini. I think Sarah Palin has one just like it too! Hmm…

Good afternoon from high in the sky… I’m currently on a flight headed for Orlando, and I figured while I have some wi-fi and nothing else better to do, I’d make a post before the blog goes on a temporary vacation hiatus. I happened to take public transportation to Westchester airport, I’d actually never been on a Bee Line Bus before. I do have to say that is probably the most comfy public bus I’ve ever been on in my entire life.

Hey guys, I’m workin’ here!

In order to get to the bus, I took the train down to White Plains from Goldens Bridge. I’m not exactly sure what kind of work is going on there, but there were several trucks and such doing some construction work at the station. I will honestly admit to you right now that I did not know that trucks that can ride also on the rails even existed. Then I saw a yellow pick-up truck fly right past me as I was waiting on the platform. It was too fast for me to snap a picture of, but apparently these larger trucks that were also there have little track wheels that can pop down and allow it to ride the rails.

Considering my exceptional ability to encounter drunk and crazy people, a delightfully intoxicated young man kept asking me when the train to New York was coming, his words incredibly slurred. He then walked back and forth up the platform a few times, impossible to walk in a straight line. As he wandered perilously close to the edge of the platform, it started a conversation about who would jump down and rescue him if he happened to fall off. Great. Finally he collapsed against the wall, and thankfully didn’t fall off the edge of anything.

In other news, the New York Transit Museum looks like they are going to be having an interesting new exhibit. I happened to make a post earlier in the week about some of my issues with the museum, all of which have been resolved. I’m not one for censorship, including self-censorship, and originally I had edited my post. Finally I decided it best to remove it altogether. The entire situation did allow me to learn a little bit more about the museum, most notably about their new exhibit: THE LAST DAY OF THE MYRTLE AVENUE EL: Photographs by Theresa King

Opening in 1888, the Myrtle Avenue el ran from downtown Brooklyn to Queens, passing through Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Ridgewood, and Middle Village. After eighty years, to the dismay of many passengers, the Myrtle Avenue el closed in 1969 and was demolished the following year. Yet, in the mid-20th century, the el’s wooden train cars and antiquated stations still held fond memories for riders who grew up in those neighborhoods.

THE LAST DAY OF THE MYRTLE AVENUE EL: Photographs by Theresa King is a photo essay shot in a single day forty years ago. The photographer recalls, “At midnight on October 3, 1969 over a thousand people eagerly awaited a train – not just any train, but the final train to run on Brooklyn’s Myrtle Avenue elevated line. These people were taking the last ride on this historic elevated train. As soon as they crammed on, the train rolled along from Brooklyn’s Jay Street station to the Metropolitan Avenue station in Queens. At the end of this sad journey, some passengers took artifacts to remember this very special old timer and bid a fond farewell. The pictures were taken during this last day at various stations along the Myrtle Avenue el in Brooklyn. During my childhood, I rode this train daily and loved the look of the station stops and the train itself. When I realized the line was due for demolition, I wanted to document a part of Brooklyn’s past that would be no more.”

The exhibit will run from September 29, 2009 – February 28, 2010 at the Transit Museum.

When it comes to crazy people, White Plains station has no shortage of them. From now on I think I will officially dub the man which I’ve talked about a few times as Mr. Chicago, as he always seems to be talking about Chicago. This morning I was sitting waiting for the shuttle, and he sat down next to me. He was having a long conversation with himself, parts of which sounded like they were complete gibberish. He also described a fat woman that looked like Johnny Damon, and about how he would have beaten someone up, had he not been “drugged into submission.” I imagine this guy knows all about being drugged.

I never got around to mentioning it, but a few weeks back White Plains got some new signage. The old signage had a black stripe on the top, not the blue stripe consistent with the rest of the Harlem Line stations. Here is a delightful photo I took of an M7a coming into the station, you can see the new sign over on the other side of the tracks.

Unfortunately, the schedule board signs around the station have not been working too well. If anyone was curious, they are apparently run on Windows XP:

Though it would have been a little bit more amusing had it been like this:

Usually they work pretty well, and I’ve certainly talked about how I liked them before… of course I only like them when they are working properly.

And for no apparent reason, here is a picture of Peggy, my favorite one-legged pigeon.

This week has been rather hot. The trains have been hot. Some of the air conditioners are not working properly. As conductor Guy said, “It is so hot you could cook brownies in here.”

Inevitably what happens in the heat? People sweat. If you are some of the great people who hang out in the train station of White Plains, sweating doesn’t stop you from wearing your clothes many days in a row… as I doubt you have an entire collection of shirts that say: “My imaginary friend says you have severe mental problems.”

The Chicago-obsessed, taxi screaming, crazy man also wears the same clothing over again. I saw him over by the telephone last night and saw he had some sort of nametag or ticket in the transparent side pocket of his bag. So I walked past him to see what exactly it was. It looked like some sort of train ticket that actually said Chicago on it. It looked nothing like this ticket, but it would be certainly amusing if it had. And if this guy had photoshop skillz, no doubt it would have been like this, instead of a fake computer print-out.

On the other hand, at least these people stay away from me… and they aren’t this guy:

That’s real nice dude, as if putting your feet up on the seats wasn’t nice enough, he decided to take off his dirty, smelly sandals. And then proceeded to pick his feet. Thankfully conductor Peter came around and at least he stopped the feet picking, and put his shoes back on. Is this National Nail Week or something like that? With all the people I’ve seen picking, clipping and painting their nails, you’d think it was. You know what else is good? Showering, and changing your clothes every now and again.