%^*&#%^@#%^*#!!!!!
This Entry Friends-Only:
God damn it! I go into the city for a few meetings, decide to be eco-conscious and parking-space-conscious and take the train and subway rather than try to drive and park in Manhattan, and what do I get for my troubles? One missing wallet and a hell of a lot of headaches.
Three hours. Three hours on the phone, getting this card and that card canceled, and thank God my phone was loose in my purse or I'd be trying to get that taken care of too. Fifty dollars gone, but the plastic's the real bitch. And Dr. Jean Grey, telepath and telekinetic, has no bloody clue when or where it got lifted, except that it was probably somewhere in the subways thanks to everyone crowded in close.
Damn it. If I see my id turn up on eBay, it'll be the icing on the entire goddamned cake.
X-Men Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 2:41 PM
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Ah, the sights, sounds, and smells of the New York City subway. The rising temperatures as spring slides towards summer haven't helped the latter, and thus this subway platform somewhere beneath the East Village is filled with the heady bouquet of sweat, smoke and someone's obnoxious amounts of perfume, underpinned with the faint tang of hobo urine. Caught as the morning shift finishes and the afternoon shift starts, it's a whirl of bodies too close together as trains roll in every few minutes, and roll out again just as swiftly. One hand on her purse, casually protective, Dr. Jean Grey squishes and elbows and 'scuse me's her way towards the platform she wants, and idly ponders the results of announcing 'Telepath coming through!'. Would it result in the parting of the Red Sea?
Despite growing up in the bayou, with its own distinctive odor, Remy is nowhere near used to the smell of the New York subway system - nor, if he were to be uncommonly honest, is he particularly inclined to become so. It is possible, then, that the faint cloud of cigarette smoke wreathing him is a defense mechanism. He makes his own way along the platform, dodging between other commuters with an ease born of long familiarity with maneuvering through crowds of varying sizes and temperments. It is coincidence that brings him into proximity with one Dr. Jean Grey, just in time for a large herd of ill-mannered children being ferried by some (theoretically) responsible adult to make a brave attempt at cutting anyone in the vicinity taller than five feet off at the knees.
OMG, zerg rush! "Whoah, hey, easy there, kiddo," says Jean to one strayed zergling, who seems inclined to crash into her due to the sad and sorry fate of PSP-induced tunnel vision. Automatic maternal hands gently shove and redirect back into the bunch, just in time to catch a "Hands off the fucking kids!" from their tamer. An "OoooOOOoh." rises from the herd in appreciation of swearing, before, as a unit, they tumble onto a recently-arrived subway, the better to kick at the chairs of those sitting ahead of them and doodle rude things on the walls. "Christ," Jean sighs, spotting a support beam and leaning against it gratefully. (Never mind the chewing gum, and likely remains of hobo pee.)
Remy mutters a curse as he dodges the stampeding horde, glancing after them onto the subway half-consideringly. "Wonder how many of them get lost t'the trains each year?" he muses aloud, not particularly directed, but with enough volume to be audible in the general vicinity. A flick of one hand scatters a tiny drift of ash to the floor from the tip of the cigarette.
Jean should really be getting on the train with the preteen horde. Jean... opts to catch the next one. Only a few minutes, after all. She offers leaning-space against the support column, scootching sideways to free a space to her left with one hand still resting lazily on the top of her purse. "Oh, probably at least a few. Natural selection," she opines, with a considering look at the cigarette. But Jean Grey, for all that MMRA business, is a bylaw-abiding little citizen and thus, unsure of whether subway stations count as indoors, removes her hand from her bag, and away from the temptation of the pack of Marlboros that dwell within.
Remy's gaze skips towards Jean, and he studies her for a moment from behind smoky-lensed glasses, kept on despite the relative dimness of the station as compared to the daylight outside. He takes a drag from the cigarette, tip flaring orange, and settles against the column before replying. "Doesn' work fast enough, it looks like. Parents like that, almost want t'pity the kids." One hand digs into his pocket (the coat has, for the time being, been discarded - fashion must yield to not dying of heatstroke), and surfaces with a battered pack of cigarettes, offered towards Jean with an air of smoker's generosity.
Jean is duly tempted, and it reads in her expression, eyes tracking and fingers reaching, and then... retreating, closed and cigarettless. "I really shouldn't," she admits. "But thanks."
"It won' really hurt the air quality any," Remy notes. There is a teasing quality to it, of the rulebreaker nudging at a nice, law-abiding citizen. "An' the kids have worse influence to worry 'bout." The man several support poles away, fiddling with his zipper, might come to mind if one were to look for examples. Public urination: everyone's favourite sport.
Jean looks. Jean narrows her eyes. Jean calls out a properly New York-toned "Hey, buddy, -zip it-!" to the potential public piddler, before explaining that "I really shouldn't or I'll manage to get hooked way past casual and stress relief pretty quick." She shifts, purse bumping against her hip, and peers out and along the dark tunnel from which subway trains promise to come.
Remy chuckles at that. "Y'waiting for a New York subway - if that's not stress, what is?" But he tucks the pack away in his pocket with an easy shrug. A distant rumble along the tunnel promises that a train will be coming /soon/. Unless, of course, some enterprising zergling has scampered onto the track in a desperate attempt to get squished.
Zergling, peeing hobo... someone's stray purse dog... A subway arrives! But, some sort of express, it charges on through in a rush of air, and stops not. "Could be worse," Jean replies, wrapping her arms around herself and closing her eyes as she tweaks mental barriers just a touch higher in the face of a throng of minds in various states of grumbling bitchery at the failure of the subway to stop. "I could be trying to find a parking space."
"Don' think I'd try that 'less I had a deathwish," Remy agrees with a faint grimace. The grumbling, at least the verbal component, has risen to a dull roar like the breaking of a distant wave, only serving to underscore the point. The crowd jostles as several packs of commuters determine that the way to get the next train to stop is to press even closer to the edge of the platform. And, under this cover, Jean's closed eyes noted, one hand steals out, slipping into the good doctor's purse with a deftness born of a youth spent filching from revellers, tourists, and the occasional incautious local. It withdraws just as swiftly, bounty claimed, and retreats back into one deep pocket. (The same one holding the cigarette pack, for the viewing audience at home.) Remy seems oblivious to any wrongdoing - not that the crowd is aware enough of anything outside itself to notice anything less subtle than an explosion. Commuters. "I think driving in this city might qualify you for certifiably insane."
Oblivious, insulated from the outside world in a neat little cocoon of thought (Although the sounds, everpresent, cannot be blocked out.) Jean notices no change in the weighting of a purse well-filled with this, that, and the other maternal or medical thing. Her eyes open as the auditory wave reaches its crest and breaks, and the air shifts around the dark mouth of the tunnel. Promising. "No kidding. And that's not even counting that leaked memo the news was talking about, where State Farm was vaguely considering mutant damage insurance... train!" With that bit of a non-sequitor, and the chuff and screech of a subway's breaks, Jean and her purse (but not her wallet) vanish into the horde jostling for space by the doors.
Remy heads more sedately into the horde, not following but rather heading in the same direction, if likely not so far. He pauses to grind out the butt of his cigarette against the pole and flick it into the nearby trashbin with a practiced gesture, and eventually find a spot several cars down. It smells, ever so faintly, of hobo pee. Alas, subways are subways.
Yes, yes they do. A scene in a subway station, with zerg rushes and hobo pee.
God damn it! I go into the city for a few meetings, decide to be eco-conscious and parking-space-conscious and take the train and subway rather than try to drive and park in Manhattan, and what do I get for my troubles? One missing wallet and a hell of a lot of headaches.
Three hours. Three hours on the phone, getting this card and that card canceled, and thank God my phone was loose in my purse or I'd be trying to get that taken care of too. Fifty dollars gone, but the plastic's the real bitch. And Dr. Jean Grey, telepath and telekinetic, has no bloody clue when or where it got lifted, except that it was probably somewhere in the subways thanks to everyone crowded in close.
Damn it. If I see my id turn up on eBay, it'll be the icing on the entire goddamned cake.
X-Men Movieverse 2 - Wednesday, May 30, 2007, 2:41 PM
-----------------------------------------------------
Ah, the sights, sounds, and smells of the New York City subway. The rising temperatures as spring slides towards summer haven't helped the latter, and thus this subway platform somewhere beneath the East Village is filled with the heady bouquet of sweat, smoke and someone's obnoxious amounts of perfume, underpinned with the faint tang of hobo urine. Caught as the morning shift finishes and the afternoon shift starts, it's a whirl of bodies too close together as trains roll in every few minutes, and roll out again just as swiftly. One hand on her purse, casually protective, Dr. Jean Grey squishes and elbows and 'scuse me's her way towards the platform she wants, and idly ponders the results of announcing 'Telepath coming through!'. Would it result in the parting of the Red Sea?
Despite growing up in the bayou, with its own distinctive odor, Remy is nowhere near used to the smell of the New York subway system - nor, if he were to be uncommonly honest, is he particularly inclined to become so. It is possible, then, that the faint cloud of cigarette smoke wreathing him is a defense mechanism. He makes his own way along the platform, dodging between other commuters with an ease born of long familiarity with maneuvering through crowds of varying sizes and temperments. It is coincidence that brings him into proximity with one Dr. Jean Grey, just in time for a large herd of ill-mannered children being ferried by some (theoretically) responsible adult to make a brave attempt at cutting anyone in the vicinity taller than five feet off at the knees.
OMG, zerg rush! "Whoah, hey, easy there, kiddo," says Jean to one strayed zergling, who seems inclined to crash into her due to the sad and sorry fate of PSP-induced tunnel vision. Automatic maternal hands gently shove and redirect back into the bunch, just in time to catch a "Hands off the fucking kids!" from their tamer. An "OoooOOOoh." rises from the herd in appreciation of swearing, before, as a unit, they tumble onto a recently-arrived subway, the better to kick at the chairs of those sitting ahead of them and doodle rude things on the walls. "Christ," Jean sighs, spotting a support beam and leaning against it gratefully. (Never mind the chewing gum, and likely remains of hobo pee.)
Remy mutters a curse as he dodges the stampeding horde, glancing after them onto the subway half-consideringly. "Wonder how many of them get lost t'the trains each year?" he muses aloud, not particularly directed, but with enough volume to be audible in the general vicinity. A flick of one hand scatters a tiny drift of ash to the floor from the tip of the cigarette.
Jean should really be getting on the train with the preteen horde. Jean... opts to catch the next one. Only a few minutes, after all. She offers leaning-space against the support column, scootching sideways to free a space to her left with one hand still resting lazily on the top of her purse. "Oh, probably at least a few. Natural selection," she opines, with a considering look at the cigarette. But Jean Grey, for all that MMRA business, is a bylaw-abiding little citizen and thus, unsure of whether subway stations count as indoors, removes her hand from her bag, and away from the temptation of the pack of Marlboros that dwell within.
Remy's gaze skips towards Jean, and he studies her for a moment from behind smoky-lensed glasses, kept on despite the relative dimness of the station as compared to the daylight outside. He takes a drag from the cigarette, tip flaring orange, and settles against the column before replying. "Doesn' work fast enough, it looks like. Parents like that, almost want t'pity the kids." One hand digs into his pocket (the coat has, for the time being, been discarded - fashion must yield to not dying of heatstroke), and surfaces with a battered pack of cigarettes, offered towards Jean with an air of smoker's generosity.
Jean is duly tempted, and it reads in her expression, eyes tracking and fingers reaching, and then... retreating, closed and cigarettless. "I really shouldn't," she admits. "But thanks."
"It won' really hurt the air quality any," Remy notes. There is a teasing quality to it, of the rulebreaker nudging at a nice, law-abiding citizen. "An' the kids have worse influence to worry 'bout." The man several support poles away, fiddling with his zipper, might come to mind if one were to look for examples. Public urination: everyone's favourite sport.
Jean looks. Jean narrows her eyes. Jean calls out a properly New York-toned "Hey, buddy, -zip it-!" to the potential public piddler, before explaining that "I really shouldn't or I'll manage to get hooked way past casual and stress relief pretty quick." She shifts, purse bumping against her hip, and peers out and along the dark tunnel from which subway trains promise to come.
Remy chuckles at that. "Y'waiting for a New York subway - if that's not stress, what is?" But he tucks the pack away in his pocket with an easy shrug. A distant rumble along the tunnel promises that a train will be coming /soon/. Unless, of course, some enterprising zergling has scampered onto the track in a desperate attempt to get squished.
Zergling, peeing hobo... someone's stray purse dog... A subway arrives! But, some sort of express, it charges on through in a rush of air, and stops not. "Could be worse," Jean replies, wrapping her arms around herself and closing her eyes as she tweaks mental barriers just a touch higher in the face of a throng of minds in various states of grumbling bitchery at the failure of the subway to stop. "I could be trying to find a parking space."
"Don' think I'd try that 'less I had a deathwish," Remy agrees with a faint grimace. The grumbling, at least the verbal component, has risen to a dull roar like the breaking of a distant wave, only serving to underscore the point. The crowd jostles as several packs of commuters determine that the way to get the next train to stop is to press even closer to the edge of the platform. And, under this cover, Jean's closed eyes noted, one hand steals out, slipping into the good doctor's purse with a deftness born of a youth spent filching from revellers, tourists, and the occasional incautious local. It withdraws just as swiftly, bounty claimed, and retreats back into one deep pocket. (The same one holding the cigarette pack, for the viewing audience at home.) Remy seems oblivious to any wrongdoing - not that the crowd is aware enough of anything outside itself to notice anything less subtle than an explosion. Commuters. "I think driving in this city might qualify you for certifiably insane."
Oblivious, insulated from the outside world in a neat little cocoon of thought (Although the sounds, everpresent, cannot be blocked out.) Jean notices no change in the weighting of a purse well-filled with this, that, and the other maternal or medical thing. Her eyes open as the auditory wave reaches its crest and breaks, and the air shifts around the dark mouth of the tunnel. Promising. "No kidding. And that's not even counting that leaked memo the news was talking about, where State Farm was vaguely considering mutant damage insurance... train!" With that bit of a non-sequitor, and the chuff and screech of a subway's breaks, Jean and her purse (but not her wallet) vanish into the horde jostling for space by the doors.
Remy heads more sedately into the horde, not following but rather heading in the same direction, if likely not so far. He pauses to grind out the butt of his cigarette against the pole and flick it into the nearby trashbin with a practiced gesture, and eventually find a spot several cars down. It smells, ever so faintly, of hobo pee. Alas, subways are subways.
Yes, yes they do. A scene in a subway station, with zerg rushes and hobo pee.