A welcome whiff of spring weather today, giving my winter overcoat a much needed day off. I took new stock in my morning commute in a top ten assessment of its odoriferous offerings.  

Sulfur: The first strong burst of metal, as the train brakes to a stop. Welcome to The Machine.

Cranberry Bleach: The Fruity Pebbles disinfectant in the bathroom car.

Perfume: The Summit power-moms arrive. A woozy swirl of Charlie and oatmeal.

Homeless Funk: Detraining in Penn Station, we confirm strong olfactory evidence of local pack of nocturnal bipeds, also known as The Mole People.

The I Can’t Believe There’s So Much Butter Bakery: Just before the 7th Ave stairs in Penn Station, the stale scent of 10,000 cheese danish, cased-in and sweating.

29th St Cigar Shoppe: A sweet musky odor vents out, like that first deep drag. I’m zapped back to childhood roadtrips in the family station wagon.  “A nice walk with a morning cigar would be great!,” I think. Twenty paces later, it’s totally gone. Keep walking.

Fake Starbucks Coffee Odeur: Very unique, but wait a minute, is that what coffee really smells like?

Drywall and Fresh Concrete. The night crew of illegals/barely legals has just demolished another floor of a vacated building. In a cloud of white dust, they’re lined up to dump dozens of small wheelie containers of drywall and rebar into a garbage truck. These guys have been working all night. They’re probably heading out to their day jobs shortly.

Bike Messenger Pot Smoke: Passing the bike depot, the morning line is laughing it up, prepping for today’s battle with the taxi terrorists.

Coffee kiosk: The real deal. This guy drove in from Queens at 5am, roach coach in tow. The coffee is dark, blistering hot, and fresh. The blueberry muffins are cold, but as dense as carbon.

In a moment I’ll be inside, where the smell of stale carpet, Twizzlers, and cardboard fill my day.

LilSubwayCrybaby has gone underground again.

She got the transit blogosphere buzzing with a missive six weeks ago saying she was walking amongst the so-called Mole People living hundreds of feet below Manhattan in the city’s labyrinthian network of train tunnels.

She posted again late last week, saying she was down below again–and for the foreseeable future.

I’ve decided to stay underground. Since the last time I wrote over a month ago, I’ve gotten rid of everything I have (but my laptop) and transplanted myself somewhere within a 2 mile radius of Penn Station.. I think..  This wasn’t expected.

Crybaby promised more dispatches from the city’s grim, sun-deprived bowel.

I’m not sure why I decided to go back under. I think I was just drawn back. I’ve been accepted and plan on staying indefinitely. I persuaded my “group” as I’ll refer to them, to let me maintain this web-log about our life here, as long as nothing is given away that identifies where we live.

Is CryBaby for real? Is it a hoax? Is it performance art? Is it the greatest exit strategy in transit-blog history?

I have no idea.