It's Akilah, Obviously!

1. Dead or Asleep? This one is lots of fun early in the morning and is better with friends. Find a person who appears comatose and decide whether or not that person is deceased or just sleepy. Let’s be real though, no one wins if the person is deceased. 

2. Find the Duracell Battery - You can exchange Duracell Battery for “rat” if you want an easier game, or “cell phone” if you want a more challenging one.  While waiting on the train platform, choose the tracks on which your train will be arriving and look for a Duracell Battery. There may be more than one, but there is always at least one. The first one to find it, wins! (Or play alone, for personal gratification).

3. How Much Longer? - Self-explanatory (Bonus if you’re waiting on the G Train). Try to predict how many more precious moments of your life will be wasted because of “Train Traffic” or “Lost Signals.”

4. Will That Kid Catch the Hat during “Showtime!!!” - If you’ve ever ridden an MTA train, chances are good that 3-to-5 kids with a boom box have shouted “It’s showtime!” and started dancing and doing tricks. The best, most challenging trick involves having a hat on the shoe and kicking it behind the back and onto the head. I have yet to see a kid complete this trick, but I feel like they wouldn’t attempt it if it was completely impossible. Wagers start at 50 cents, but you can’t exchange money until they get off the train or else they’ll think you’re donating to their cause.

I think I’m going to be appending this list every so often to keep it interesting. 

xoxo,

politicalsubversities:

April 27, 2013

Akilah Hughes - Guest Writer

Imagine waking up before your alarm, getting ready, and leaving 5 minutes before the designated up and at’em time. You’ve got a spring in your step, you can stop for coffee before getting into work, and your boss won’t have any additional reasons to yell at you today.

Imagine, then, that you miss your first train by 10 seconds. This train comes every 5 minutes, so maybe you’ll make it right on time…

You don’t.

The train doesn’t come for 25 minutes. After boarding the train, you hear the conductor announce that the train is now “express” and will be skipping your stop and going about 5 stops ahead of your transfer.

Shit.

You finally make it back to your first transfer when you are met with a similar fate: another 10 minutes of waiting for any sign of life (other than rats) on the tracks. The train shows up, and it is full beyond capacity, and to your chagrin, no one emerges! You have to wait for the next train…

Yes, seriously.

Another 12 minutes pass and you can finally board the train to the next transfer, where you will be held at every turn for “train traffic.” How can there be “train traffic” if you are stopping for an extra 3 minutes at every station? 

FUCKKKKKK.

This is the harsh reality almost every day for millions of New Yorkers. Imagine, then, how polite you’d be if in addition to being super late for wherever you’re headed, a tourist decides to stop in front of you in the middle of the sidewalk to take a picture of a building that will be there in 5 minutes once you’ve passed. This is the plight of the New Yorker. I’m sure in the early days of NYC people were sweeter and more hospitable, but over time they could no longer fake their amusement at your incessant need to pull out a map or stop to talk to the characters in Times Square.

So the next time you think, “God these New Yorkers are so rude!” —Have a little empathy.

…

Akilah is a 23-year old hot mess studying improv at UCB. She’s sometimes a Barack Obama Tribute Band and other times a blogger at Its Akilah, Obviously , vlogger at Smoothiefreak , and @kiwirabbitfru on Twitter!

I’m admittedly a cheapskate when it comes to NYC transportation. I just don’t see the point in blowing $30 on a trip to midtown when it takes the same amount of time to just take the smelly train at the bargain-basement price of $2.50*.

But maybe sometimes you’re exhausted and you can’t bare the thought of standing with your bags in Grand Central with all of the humanity and all of their…fragrances… waiting for the 7 Train to arrive on the humid platform. Last night when I decided to splurge on a serene cab ride home, I knew it would be different. Upon entering the cab (that actually stopped for me, what?!), the cab driver offered me some homemade baklava that I would have taken him up on if I weren’t dieting for swimsuit season. We got to chatting, and he gave me these 5 ridiculously helpful wisdom bits:

1.” Once you live in NY for 1 full year, you’re officially a ‘New Yorker.’”  You have to make it through some natural disasters, a never-ending winter, Christmas season, rush-hour traffic, overreactions, germs, language barriers et al. —12 months is the duration period of the sadistic hazing ritual that is the big city.

2. “If you drop something on the ground in NY, let it go.” Not big things, obviously, but if you lose a dollar or some change you absolutely should not pick it back up. He claims that (a) it will come back to you 10-fold and (b) the germs your item will have accrued in that transaction are not worth the risk. 

3. “Don’t trust ANYONE who talks about how short life is.” To directly quote, “The older I get, the longer my life seems.” He is of the opinion that people use it as an excuse to do things they ought not do, under the false presumption that regrets don’t exist. This is part of the reason I’ve always been a little leery on the term “YOLO.” He says enjoy your life, but absolutely be smart about it. 

4. “If you can, live near the water.” I think this goes without saying, but he went as far to explain how we’re all mostly just water, and how there’s nothing as calming, even if it’s just on the Hudson River or something. I’m game.

5. “Just enjoy the life.” This particular cab driver was an older, well-traveled, Yiddish man originally from the Ukraine. While discussing this abysmally sad winter, we talked about how beautiful St. Tropez is during Carnival, how soothing Aruba is year-round, and how San Francisco is where he’ll go to die. We started chatting about how balls-hot it is in NYC in the summer and how there are tourists everywhere when he sighed and simply said, “Just enjoy the life.” Sure, people stopping to take pictures of median-sized at best buildings is disruptive, but I live in New York Mutha F*%#ing City. I don’t have it so bad.

xo,

*at the time of this post, the MTA had just raised prices to $2.50. I’m sure it’s higher by at least 10x if you’re reading this even just a month after its original post date.

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Sometimes in “the Greatest City on Earth,” you go somewhere and find out that it’s (A) really really popular and (B) a huge tourist/locals destination. Enter: Strand Bookstore in the East Village. 

On Saturday, I visited with my friend Glo for the first time and it was basically a playground for bibliophiles. Notice the suggestions above? Employees give you their own recommendations for books and when/why to read them. They have really thorough sections, like the Banned Book section:

They also have super dope merchandise. I have a small tote bag addiction (read: I have upwards of 10 just for grocery shopping/additional storage on-the-go), but I had to have one of their cute bags:

And then there’s just the cute journals and cards that I did will myself not to buy. They have pretty much all of the coolest stuff for writers and doodlers. I was in heaven…..

And so, kiddos, I had a great time. If you visit NYC or you live here, definitely make a trip. You’ll leave with something you need, and probably a few things you just wanted really badly. If you have been to NYC before, where do you think I should go next? I’m trying to give this whole “exploring in the coldest winter” thing a try!

xoxo,