Daily Journal Entry #3

I can’t think with all the noise. It’s rising up out of the mouths of my fellow commuters, swelling into clouds of pithy babble that clog the air of the cramped train car. I’ve plugged in my headphones, the tiny white earbuds proving ineffectual to the dull drone of city-goers onboard this crowded train. What I wouldn’t give for that perfectly empty, wide seat in the back upper corner of this car. I try indicating my desire to vacate my current slot, crushed in beside the window, but the heavy woman next to me seems to have fallen asleep, her romance novel open and resting spine-up on her heaving chest. I am assaulted by the pungent scent of regurgitated Bud Light as the blue-and-red-clad man behind me belches loudly. His friends laugh at the vulgar display as he swipes the back of one hand across his mouth and cracks open another beer. I am disgusted. I can’t get close enough to this window, I decide as the heavyset woman, the proverbial cork on this bottle of a train-car seat, shifts and her thigh slides further from its twin, coming to rest within centimeters of mine. With the shifting comes the faint scent of cats, another pungent odor to add to the plethora of disgusting smells I am victim to this afternoon on the Metra. I click-click-click up the volume a bit more on my iPod, trying desperately to lose myself in the sounds of Brandi Carlisle and the rattle of train tracks beneath me