Observations on the Subway: Brooklyn to Manhattan, 1 am to 2:30 am

• boyfriend feeling up girlfriend directly across from me on the Q. I was repulsed. I switched cars.
• child screaming from DeKalb to wherever...Brooklyn to halfway through Manhattan
• Riding backward on the subway is my favorite. The motions are contradictory. I'm facing the past, but the future comes nonetheless. Symbolic of my current state.
• The graffiti on the Brooklyn side is much better than the graffiti on the Manhattan side. One might expect this. I found a secret subway station off the Q. I have no clue where to find it again. The Ninja Turtles probably live there.
• I fall in love with a different man every time I ride the subway. Last night it was a boy with wavy brown hair, layered surfer-style to his shoulders, grey carpenter pants, a darling grin, green Crocs, stained t-shirt, olive skin. He was foreign. He was smiling at me.
• Black men check me out more than men from any other race. I think that's why I like Brooklyn so much. I feel sexy there. Manhattan is only fruitful for skinny white girls. I think black men are probably led on my buxom front side, but disappointed by my lack of a ba-donk-a-donk rear.
• Most black women I interact with here call me "Baby" or "Babe." If anyone else called me this, I would find it condescending. Otherwise, it's oddly endearing.
• There are a few different guys I wouldn't mind dating, but I don't think they know I exist. Or maybe they do, but they don't know I'm a girl. Either way, New York needs to step it up.
• The highest compliment ever paid to me was by my mom's cousin Janet. It was late August in Salem, Oregon. We were at my aunt and uncle's 50th wedding anniversary. Janet had had a few glasses of wine. She was neither drunk nor tipsy, sober nor stable. She cam e over to me toward the end of the party, glass of champagne in hand. "Lisa," she said, "you have a light about you. It's a light a know well. It's the light your mother has. Your eyes sparkle. Your smile lights up the room. It's uncanny how much you look like your mother when she was your age. I feel like I'm in the '70s again, looking at your mother. You have the same air and the same energy." My mother is the best woman I know, next to Grandma Betty, with John-Ross' mother closing in the rear. How lucky I am to have them in my life. This is my greatest goal--to be one of these women.
• Dave is already dating a new girl. I feel very meaningless.