hip hip hooray for the MTA.

Today was one of those days when I should have followed my instincts.

My instinct was to not walk to the subway this morning, because perhaps something was messed up. Perhaps I should just go to the corner of my block and get on the bus that stops practically in front of my door.

But did I do that? No. I walked the two blocks (uphill) to the subway, went down the stairs, grabbed my free daily newspaper, and failed to notice that no one was going through the turnstiles until I myself approached them and saw not green for go, but red for stop. I ripped off my headphones to hear "No trains. NO TRAINS!" Fantastic.

So I banged a yooie (Boston talk for a u-turn), walked back down the hill, and ran for the LIMITED downtown bus. The normal downtown bus stops every 17 feet, but the Limited stops every 20, so it's much much faster. This is especially useful when there are NO trains on the east side whatsoever, and everyone is going for the same Limited bus downtown.

The thing is....the only thing harder than learning to keep your balance on a jerky subway train is learning to keep your balance on a jerkier MTA bus. Trains go forward and back, and may occasionally turn or sway left or right. Buses, however, have many motions: forward, quick stop, kneeling, unkneeling, left, right, sharp left, sharp right, and bump-up, bump-down. Plus, with the fancy caterpillar buses (Kevin, are you LOVING this bus talk? Is it getting you all hot?), there's the tricky pivotal hinge in the middle that a) must be carefully navigated and b) I ALWAYS end up on. So your right foot is stable, your left foot is sliding away on the hingey part, you barely have a grip on the pole for balance, and the busdriver is working the rush-hour traffic the way I used to in a little Honda Civic--inching, gas-brake-gas-brake--which is clearly some sort of busdriver humor used primarily when over 70% of your passengers are standing up and fighting for balance.

Anyhow, I eventually got to my stop. A 20 minute subway ride equates to a 75 minute bus ride--but I DID get there. And then I had to walk three long avenues to work, which initially made me crabby but was okay because I got flowers on the street from John Stamos. He's looking good these days. (Okay, really, it was just these guys who were hired to promote his new show, Jake Sexy City, Jake Single Hot, or something like that, by handing out flowers to women on the street. But I prefer to say the flowers were from John himself. Uncle Jesse's HOT.)

So really, thank you MTA. Thank you for making my morning a mess. Without you, I wouldn't have met John Stamos on the street, he wouldn't have given me flowers, and we wouldn't be eloping at lunchtime at city hall. (If the trains are running again by then.)