Public Awkwardness

As part of my New Year's Resolutions or whatever I end up calling them, I'm trying to get out more. This has ended up being harder than it should be because part of the reason I'm a little neurotic about being home is because I'm never there. This, however, is due to work travel, which does not translate into a social life. Or at least not one that I want.

So I've picked up the pace of my outings with a group of people I enjoy. Usually we hike, which is great, because being outdoors and out of the city is the next best thing to being home for me. But this past weekend, we decided it might be fun to go see a hockey game.

Since I'm not a great driver under the best of circumstances, I decided to take the Dart Light Rail downtown. After all, it drops you off and picks you up right in front of the AAC. What I wasn't prepared for was the Dart Light Rail passengers.

To give you a point of reference, Chez Trixter is located in a multi-cultural, lower-middle class neighborhood where everyone pretty much knows all of our neighbors because we're always out front playing with the kids or walking dogs. It's a very tame, "we-are-the-world" sort of place that touches neither poverty nor wealth. So I'm not really experienced with people who are in a vastly different world than I am.

Boarding the train, I sat down behind a mother with a daughter who looked to be about six years old. Another mother with an infant sat a few rows in front of us. And a little toothless old man sat a couple of rows behind me. Fair enough, I thought. Just a nice group of people traveling downtown. Then the doors open and three young men (who could have been teenagers or in their early 20s) got in. From the moment they got on the train, they talked loudly in expletives (keep the six-year-old in mind) and how they had to "f*&k" certain people up. One then remarked to the other, "It's hard to be a crip, man. It's easy to love, but being a crip, that's hard." I can only assume that he meant the gang and was not further insulting handicapped people, but who knows? Needless to say, this conversation made me extremely nervous and I found myself looking around at the others in the car, who all seemed to take this in stride. The ride ended without any type of excitement, so really, I had nothing to worry about, but this is not an everyday occurence for me.

So, on the train ride back, I was a little curious as to what would ensue. And I wasn't disappointed. On the second stop, an extremely dissheveled man with a large Whataburger cup boarded the train and sat across the aisle from me. He was talking to himself as sat downand would occasionnally spit into a paper towel in the cup and then take the paper towel out and smell it. He was arguing vehemently with whoever was in his head and I got nervous again. I *know* from my work that most schizophrenic people aren't dangerous -- they aren't typically organized enough to plan a violent assault. But that doesn't mean that they don't get delusional and occasionally attack people whom they believe are a threat. So I sat there, again clutching my seat, until he got off about three stops later.

So now I found myself wishing there was some way to be more poised through all of this. I keep thinking WWJD (What Would Jack (Sparrow or Bauer) Do?) but I can't come up with any conclusions. This may be a part of me that will forever be socially awkward.