It’s been a while since I’ve really looked at the other passengers on the subway. Maybe that’s what winter does to you - it numbs you. Or maybe I’ve just been tired of people and there are too many around you on the train. You’d think I’d be used to it by now.

Well, my vision lifted this morning, probably because it’s supposed to reach 58 today and my bones are aching for some sun.

I took the E-train, a new blue car. It seems like all the cars are now blue-benched. The changeover happened while I was hibernating. All my favorite orange benches are gone.

I almost didn’t get on the train. It was packed. I tried two different doors before I stopped just outside the last one and, looking in at a space that could fit maybe two more people, debated on whether to go in or wait for the next train. I stepped forward as the doors closed, pushing me further in than I wanted to go because my backpack was still on and I hadn’t had a chance to take it off. (That’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it.) A young woman to my left had her back to me. She was reading a book and taking up an additional foot of space with the hardcover. There aught to be a law against that. I reached over someones head and grabbed the center pole. My book was in my hand but I couldn’t get to it. There just wasn’t any room. I made eye contact with three people and looked away after each one, smiling half-heartedly. A large woman in a bright red wool coat came in behind me and we all accommodated her space as she took central pole position right underneath my arm.

I looked across the car towards the other door and saw a young woman in business attire with wispy hair ruffled as if it had been pushed about by the wind. She was reading the Dailey News and making little sounds as she read, pinching her cheeks in then puffing them out, then biting her teeth together - a veritable orchestra of tiny sounds and small dramatic movements. I couldn’t tell what she was reading so I shifted a bit around the large woman in the red coat in order to get a better look. It was either movie reviews or the obits.  Without large headlines to see or my glasses, I couldn’t tell. My glasses were in my bag and my bag was inaccessible. I watched her face as the orchestra of twitches, grimaces and frowns continued.

Stops came and went. The orchestra played on. Finally in an especially crowded moment I lost sight of her. The woman in the red coat looked up at me - I was a little too close to her so I moved back. My backpack poked into someone behind me. “Sorry,” I said over my shoulder. I looked back but tall heads and reaching arms obscured my view.

At the next stop, 42nd street, most of the car left in a giant exodus of folding papers, closing books, and iPhone and cell button pushing fingers. I saw the back of the woman’s head and her wispy brown hair, then a flash of the paper under her arm, and… she was gone.

I looked around me and found myself free of most of humanity -the car practically empty. The woman in the red coat was gone. I had the pole to myself. I opened my book on Iyengar Yoga and read. Although there were now seats empty, I stood the next two stops and got off on 23rd. It was still cold outside and windy. I’d worn a spring jacket, like an idiot. Maybe it’ll be 58 later in the day, but right then it was still pretty damned cold.

Amateurs. With their giant bags, lackadaisical meanderings, screaming children and other etiquette violations, they’re high on the list of commuter annoyances.

Luckily however we professionals don’t often interact with rookies during the main leg of our rush hour travels. Once we leave the friendly confines of our commuter rail systems however, the amateur quotient rises. The subway is of course full of newbies, however our superior commuting chops usually give us the upper hand.

There is one spot though where the clueless outnumber the clued by a large margin. Times Square is generally a sea of slack-jawed shufflers who have no place in particular to be anytime soon. While it’s bad enough above ground, the northernmost entrance to the Times Square subway station - at the tip of One Times Square, directly below where they drop the ball each New Year’s Eve - is truly the gateway to amateur hell.

The subway entrance in this presumably marquee location consists of a narrow stairway leading to a small entrance space. Because this entrance is inexplicably unmanned by any MTA employees, the only way onto the platform is through two High Entrance Exit Turnstiles or HEETs. Those who aren’t familiar with this term may be able to identify these things by a more colorful nickname “the baby back ribs of death.”

The biggest drawback of these poorly designed monstrosities is that while speed dictates that the rider should swipe his or her metrocard and quickly proceed into the whirring blades of doom, the reality is that these things often misread cards, leading a rushing commuter to slam into a revolving gate that has not yet been instructed to revolve. While it seems counterintuitive, the best way to proceed is to swipe your card and wait until you see the green “Go” light that indicates your swipe was successful. Only then can you safely step into the jaws of the beast.

As this is hard enough for seasoned commuters to master, the thousands of chattering extra-regional nincompoops who are drawn to Times Square like moths to a bug zapper don’t have a chance. Each rush hour finds distressed families at the gates, some of them having successfully made it to the platform, the others waiting nervously on the other side of the bars, and one in the middle one who keeps swiping his card and repeating “did it work?” in whatever his native tongue happens to be. Behind them you can find a line — often backed up the steps to nearly street level — of frustrated would-be commuters waiting to try their luck.

The worst part of all this? This happens to be the subway entrance closest to my office, and I’ll be damned if a bunch of amateurs are gonna force me to go half a block out of my way.