Two black thick shoes lay, tumbled and tired, in the N-R subway stairwell exit to 40th and Broadway this morning. The exiting passengers kicked around what I could only presume was the accompanying Payless Shoes Bag. Two men in front of me glanced at it, and one said, loudly, to the other, "Want a pair of shoes?" He was concerned the other would miss the obvious. The other chuckled. It wasn't really that funny.

I'm reading Tender is the Night on my subway rides right now, fifteen minutes to work, and eight minutes home. (The N-R downtown is under repair, so it's just two quick stops home for me.) I've had it in my posession for four months, and have only now decided to read it. It's a little slow.

There were a few funny lines this morning, though, ones that made me smile on the subway:

Abe North was talking to her about his moral code: "Of course I've got one," he insisted, "--a man can't live without a moral code. Mine is that I'm against the burning of witches. Whenever they burn a witch I get all hot under the collar."

It doesn't make that much sense, but it's still funny. I liked the play on "burning" and "hot", as much as I enjoyed the pretension of it all. It was very clever, and anomalous to most of the surrounding text. I'm not that far into it, though. I'm hoping for more moments like that. To be fair, no Fitzgerald work will ever replace The Great Gatsby in my heart.

***

At work today everything was the same as usual except for the following:

I saw a cute guy. Most men I work with I find unattractive.

A woman I ordinarily dislike said something during a phone conversation with me that made me dislike her less.

I was handed keys to my new office. It's much nicer than my old one. It has two windows facing 6th Avenue and a wide mahogany-like desk which is about two times the size of my current desk. In fact, everything in the office is about two times the size of my current environment. I've never had an office like that before. I will be employed there approximately seven more weeks. I can tell already I will miss that office.

And finally:

On the way to pick up my paycheck (The payroll office is located in an adjoining building), I glanced at the ticking news monitor in the elevator. A headline referencing this piece of news stated something along the lines of, "Scientists Connect Marijuana with Hunger Triggers." I snorted a bit. The other passengers - a tall blond woman who screamed former model, from her paper thin profile to her frosty glow, a man in his mid-thirties sporting a sweater vest and short yet unruly curly hair, and a middle-aged, heavy, black woman - glanced at me.

"I was wondering about that one," said the blond woman, as she exited the elevator. She smiled at me.

The curly-haired man then asked me what was on the monitor. I told him. He laughed.

"Those scientists sure are on the cutting edge," I said wryly.

He laughed again.

Encouraged, I added, "I went through four years of college and I can tell you that already."

He smiled, and as the elevator approached my floor he said, "I knew that my first year of college."

I glanced back at the woman in the rear of the elevator. She didn't smile. I don't think she was enjoying our humor.

Accordingly, the following theory was proved: Three out of four employees in corporate America have smoked pot.

***

Later in the day, as I walked down the same flight of stairs I had walked up this morning, (effectively turning the "N-R subway stairwell exit to 40th and Broadway" into the "N-R subway stairwell entrance on 40th and Broadway"), I noticed the same pair of black shoes. They had been shoved against the wall, away from the center of foot traffic. The Payless Shoes bag was gone. Someone had found the bag useful, and the shoes useless. That seemed to make sense. I wonder if they'll still be there tomorrow, or if someone will pick them up and throw them away.

That's someone's job, right?

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