Today I took a train. It was rider appreciation day.

subIt was rider appreciation day on Amtrak today. This meant they had free meat sandwiches, cookies, water and sodas in the upstairs of the dining car and penny wine tasting in the lower level. They were being sponsored by such as Chronicle Books who were handing out free notepads and bookmarks (no pencils though---I asked since I had left all my writing utensils in Davis and wanted to do today's Sudoku/Crossword in the Aggie).

My finger cut finally stopped hurting today which I take as a sign toward fully healing. See I was a big 'tard yesterday and was cutting figs with a steak knife into a bowl to eat for breakfast, and I drew the knife over one of my fingers and cut it in a pretty bloodful fashion. Being it was a steak knife and not such as a paring knife (which would have been the proper knife to use), it hurt like a SOB. I actually wore a bandage on it for part of the evening because I went to Co/Lab and was afraid if I did actually get to working on anything there that I would jam it chock full of fun art materials and cause an infection (this is something I have done on multiple occasions passed; primarily with photo developing fluids on my frequent knuckle scrapings).

As per usual, the bart trip into the city from Richmond was crappy if not altogether intolerable. I was privy to a myriad of vapid conversations as well as a duo of crazy old guys who were also mentally handicapped having a crippled verbal dual. Most irritating of all was this woman who presumably works in a day care or pre-school talking on and on about "the babies" at her work and some fellow co-worker who apparently threw a couple chairs in a room and almost hit her and "a baby" because this co-worker is obviously inept and undeserving of this position and cannot handle the stress brought on by having 8 two-year-olds constantly tugging on her and demanding things. This woman said on not fewer than 10 occasions that she was going to be calling child services on this fellow co-worker for her behaviour and all this. She went on like this, basically screaming into her phone at the poor person on the other side, for what felt like 20 minutes until the train got to where it starts going underground. Over and over, ad. naseum. On top of this, I came into work to hear one of the guys on the otherside of our office regaling his efforts to hire a new employee (a story he told about 3 people on our side of the office 3 times last week). Please, people, yes, you are important. The things that happen to you are important, but say your piece and move on; no one needs to hear the same shit over and over again. It is irritating as all hell and just makes me think of Stella.

In other happenings for today, since I didn't get back to the city in time to go home before going to work, I stopped at subway to get something for my work dinner. I was going to stop at Walgreens because I really wanted to be able to brush my teeth tonight and do not have my spare toothbrush with me (in another bag), but hey, this is the financial district, everything here closes at 7pm. It is 7:20; you are out of luck, sweetheart! Luckily subway was open---I say luckily considering how lucky it is to eat subway at all---so I was at least able to get dinner. I went in, unsure if they were still open or not (no posted hours?), and there was no one at the counter or anywhere to be seen for that matter. After about 20 seconds, a very disheveled man ambled out and asked what I'd like. I ordered my sandwich (6" veggie on wheat), and he yelled back at someone about why they didn't put the short breads in front on the oven, but he pulled out a full 12" anyway, then asked if I wanted a whole or half sub to which I replied I wanted the 6". He then set about making my sub in a slow, stoner sort of fashion. After confirming that yes I wanted cheese, and no I didn't want it toasted, yes provolone please, another man came in from outside to order a sandwich. The man who was making mine then yelled back that it was some girl's turn, there was a small burst of uproarous laughter at this and a girl ambled out. Her face had a definite peach flush to it, and she went about the other man's sandwich in much the same way the man who was making mine did (even down to "do you want a whole or half" after the man had ordered a 6"). I'm not complaining, the sandwich he made me looks fantastic and has a fabulously ridiculous amount of peppers on it, and my mouth recoils in horror just thinking about them. I just found amusement in how obviously stoned off their gourds these people were. Considering it was almost 7:30 and the financial district, I doubt they were really expecting anymore people in until they closed at 9pm (I'm guessing, might be 8pm, but nothing had been put away yet like soups or anything which they usually start doing about an hour before close).