Like many people in the DC area, I take the train to work.  Unfortunately, this being the nation’s capital, a lot of tourists also take the train.  I think the Green line generally fares better than other lines because there are fewer attractions and hotels on it, but it is not immune to influx of often clueless tourists.  Today, something happened that symbolizes everything I hate about our modern, affluent society and the parents and children that it breeds.

In the middle of rush hour, I get on a crowded train car only to be immediately greeted by a pair of rambunctious children jumping around and climbing up/sliding down the main pole by the door.  I and my fellow commuters squeeze ourselves past and around them, since these kids have pretty much rendered the pole unusable by any one else on the train.  I look around for a minute, wondering where their parents are.

I then hear this voice behind me say, “I’m not going to tell them to sit down.”  I turn around and realize that it’s Dad standing behind me and he has just informed Mom that he is about to completely check out of this situation.  He doesn’t say another work for the rest of the time I’m on the train.  I look to my other side and see Mom, sitting 3 rows back from her children, her view almost completely obstructed by commuters.  “Okay,” she says.  She then feebly calls out to her children, “Stay still!”

Obviously, they do not stay still.  Instead, they proceed to poke, punch, growl, squeal at at each other and generally thrash around the entire ride.  The boy will punch his sister, prompting her to scream, “MOM!” very indignantly.  Mom will then poke her head up from her seat, try to crane her neck around 4 people, and asks  what he did to her.  The boy shrugs and gives her this incredulous look, like, “I don’t know!  She must have just punched herself! Crazy!”  Then the whole sequence starts all over again.

“Are we at Greenbelt yet?” the boy yells out.  Greenbelt!  That’s another 20 or 30 minutes on the train.  All I can think about is how bad I feel for the people who will have the displeasure of riding all the way out to Greenbelt with this family.  At one point both children lean in to look at the system map, sticking their little upturned noses just inches away from the faces of the people sitting in front of the map.  Both commuters frown and tilt their heads to the side to avoid having their faces touch.

No once does either parent make a move to get up, separate their children, or otherwise attempt to discipline them.  Every so often, Mom will weakly suggest that they, “Stay still” or “Be careful, people are getting off”, a call which goes unheeded since it’s obvious that she can’t actually see them.

PUBLIC TRANSIT IS NOT A PLAYGROUND FOR YOUR ILL-BEHAVED CHILDREN.  This is a public place and their behavior is making it difficult for people to get on, off, and otherwise stand comfortably on the train.  While these kids were clearly annoying, I don’t blame them for not knowing proper Metro etiquette.  But parents, PLEASE, control your kids!  I know they don’t always want to cooperate, but at least make an effort.  It doesn’t matter if you’ve never ridden the train before; this stuff is common sense!  What it implicitly says to me, as a casual bystander, is that you really don’t have any respect for the other people around you.  And you’re just passing that lack of respect on to your children.

I hate it when people cannot be bothered to think about how their simple actions affect others.  Don’t get me wrong, we do inconsiderate things at times.  But what gets me is when it’s an action that is totally preventable or a situation that is easily correctable, and the offender remains totally clueless.  These parents could have gotten up at the next stop, separated their quarreling kids, and put them in a seat.  Instead, they did nothing.

I am going to be the meanest mom ever.

© Alicia for Kitchen Wench, 2008. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: affluent society, clueless tourists, dad, dc, Metro, mom, parenting, parents and children, pet peeve, public transit, rant, rush hour, subway, train

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But it wasn’t always like this. This weekend, author and essayist David Foster Wallace hanged himself at 46. It is incredibly sad, for a multitude of reasons. I felt a little lurch inside me when I heard the news. I have always loved reading, but it wasn’t until high school that I started reading authors that made me not just want to consume words, but create them myself. David Foster Wallace was one of those writers.

Unlike many of the books I read for class, DFW was a modern American author. He was still alive; in fact, at the time, he was in his mid-thirties. So, I wrote him a fan letter. It was several pages long, typed. I told him all about how his book made me want to write, but that I also felt paralyzed by my own fear and perfectionism. Later, I read over it and became a bit embarrassed by my boundless enthusiasm and precocious rambling. I consoled myself with the fact that he’d probably never read it, that the publisher would never actually route the letter to the right place, and it was probably sitting in some mail room in New York gathering dust this very minute…

He wrote me a thank you note. When my mother handed me the letter, I just stared at it for several minutes, too terrified to open it. What could he possibly have to say to me? I felt about as insignificant as a dust mote, and this man was heralded as one of the greatest authors of modern time. In slanted, blocky script, David Foster Wallace told me that letters like mine helped him and that he too struggled with a harsh inner critic. The note was deeply humbling, encouraging, and personal. He signed it with a funny smiley face doodle. I was utterly delirious.

I still have the note, nearly ten years after I received it. I kept it tucked away in my bedroom and would reread it on occasion, still stunned that David Foster Wallace had sent me a handwritten thank you note. I briefly considered applying to Pomona, just so I could take a creative writing class with him. In the end, practicality won the day, and I went to college close to home. I still continued to read him over the years, but had forgotten all about this little exchange.

Today, I feel like I am inundated with words. Every morning, I read the newspaper on the subway; my Outlook inbox at work is constantly overflowing; and I get agitated just looking at the unread post count on my Google Reader. Amidst all this incoming data, it’s easy to forget that words can do more than convey the most basic of information.

When I first read David Foster Wallace, I knew I wasn’t grasping the entire depth of the work. But I could tell that he was blisteringly talented, and that his moments of brilliance were often heartbreakingly beautiful. What also struck me about Wallace was his ability to observe and understand other people (both real and fictional). As Laura Miller describes in her Salon article, he had a singular way of connecting the reader to the most unlikely of characters. I never had any illusions that I could write using language and vocabulary at such a high level. I did, however, cling to a sliver of hope that I could aspire to capture human experiences in a humorous and perceptive way. I still do, and I guess that’s why I’m still here writing this.

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Post tags: David Foster Wallace, writing

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This can be dangerous in that I don’t think people should be judged by the sum of their diary scribblings or online profile. One because it’s a one-dimensional representation, and two because often people misconstrue what they read without vocal or physical cues that tell you someone is being sarcastic, playful, etc. But, I can’t help feeling that there’s something to be said about writing as a means of expression. It has such a confessional quality about it. It’s partly why I find myself continually drawn to it.

People are ultimately looking to figure out who they are and how they fit into society. Often, it’s difficult or socially inappropriate to say the really tough things. You ask me how I am, I’ll tell you I’m good, even when I’m not. Unless you’re a good friend, I’m not going to get into the details of my personal life, if I even go that far. It’s all a matter of degrees, but I can’t help but feel like people usually want to tell… somebody, or just get it out, somehow. The online diary is perfect for this; your declaration is made in privacy, a contract between you and your keyboard, yet the message still goes out there for someone to read or hear. There are people who say that they don’t think others should be reading their diary, that it’s private, but the internet isn’t private. (If you really didn’t want anybody to read it, then you should have written it on a piece of paper, made it a private entry, or saved a document to your hard drive. Nobody is holding a gun to your head.)

Personally, I think of the whole thing as a kind of puzzle, particularly when it’s a journal of someone I don’t know that well; I can collect little bits and pieces to help get a better sense of this person. Is this person someone I’d like to know better? Are they anything like me, or totally different from anyone I’ve ever met? I also find myself taking strange pleasure in my “secret”–I’m reading their journal and they don’t even know, shh! I get a little thrill, like I’m spying, except it’s really just posted on a public website that I happened to find a link to. Alternatively, the musings of your best friend can also be revealing in a completely different way. After all, how well do we really know each other? It may turn out that your friend doesn’t tell you “everything” anymore, or maybe s/he never did. Sometimes it’s enough just to hear something in their own words. It’s a way of reaching out, and, after digging through a lot of the emotional rubbish, you might be able to find a thread of common experience or interest. Maybe that’s the heart of it: sometimes we just need to hear someone else to remind ourselves of who we are.

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Yesterday I got some man who I was convinced I’d called him for door services. I mean, it wasn’t enough that I said I thought he had the wrong number, he kept at it:

“Hello?”

“Is this Angela?”

“Um, I think you have the wrong number.”

“What’s your name?”

“I think you have the wrong number.”

“I got your name from Dave, he said you needed some work done on your door.”

“I don’t know any Dave and I don’t need any work done on my door.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

Then, just now:

“Hello?”

“Mrs. Bennet?”

“Um, I think you have the wrong number.”

” *pause* Oh. *turns head away from phone and starts cussing out the kids screaming in the background* ”

Sometimes, it’s exciting to get a glimpse in other peoples’ lives. Sometimes, it’s really just awkward.

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