accosted on the train

spent a lot of time in my book today- the commute downtown was ages as the red line lost power at belmont. grrr. what is with all the power outages? christopher and i again spent most of the day gossipping. after work i went to a new job- a custom closetmaker is looking for someone to sew laundry bags for him. that'd be me. apparently bags are my specialty. and, i don't know, i guess pennsylvania was making me feel like i don't have enough work, so i thought i should start on my fourth job.

on the way home from that, i was minding my own buisness, reading my book, when a very old woman in a very purple poncho and a zillion shopping bags sat down next to me. she had a great big black straw hat and soft skin with an unbelievable number of wrinkles. she let me go about one stop before she started- she liked my hair. hers is all short. she first did it twenty years ago, she walked into a barber shop and they said, we won't cut your hair you'll look too masculine, and she said, what? i'm an old woman. so she went to the drugstore and bought electric clippers and did it her self, and just think of the money she saved! that was the best story, i think. she told so many, but when you're that old, you have so many stories to tell, and i don't think she picked the best ones. i wasn't really interested in her angelic theories and what her rabbi thought of them, or how people these days are so immoral. she has 7 kids, and numerous great-grandchildren. she was a translator, and she traveled all over. she's loopy now, but in a kind, chatty way. it was very surreal, i wanted to read my book, but also pretty nice, in a my-life-is-really-a-movie sort of way.