I am remembering both the joys and the pains of taking the L train in the morning. It has been a really long time, a couple years since I have worked in the mornings and taken the L, since sometime early on working for the Strand. The MTA could run trains about twice as often and they would still be crowded, but at the frequency they run at it, they are something a couple levels beyond crowded.

I think it was on Monday that I had to wait for two trains, because the first one I couldn't fit on. People haven't really been able to fit on the ones running on the following days this week. I always seem to have about four people's elbows in my ribs and I contort my body trying not to run into people's body parts any more than I currently am. That is the pain.

The joy (concievably) is provoked by these same painful factors. Yesterday, pressed in this sea of bodies, I had some woman's elbow pressed into my back, and to my left side, there was some boy next to me, slightly stocky, warm. His body pressed against mine, rubbing and bumping against me as the train jerked and swayed. I was getting so obscenely turned on and with no control over it. I glanced at the boy to see that he was someone I would normally not find attractive, but his body against mine felt so good, and sometimes, often times, I am too picky about stupid things, because this is what it is all about, this joy of bodies touching. The haircut the person has, no matter how cool it is, is not going to make me touching a body any more joyful.

I tried to stop my attraction, tried to think about something else, but it was hard to do so with this fleshy body pressed against me that I could feel the body heat of. I could feel myself starting to get hard and since there were about six people next to me, I tried to stop this, told myself to think about unsexy thoughts. I imagined plastic being made, melted, and molded. And then I felt his body again. Tried to think more unsexy thoughts. And eventually I was able to lose myself in unsexy thoughts.

I had forgotten about this aspect of crowded morning train rides.