Give Me My Personal Space (Whatever That Is)

Right now as I wend my way to Boston to serve as a judge for the Society for Marketing Professional Services' (SMPS) annual Marketing Communication Awards, on this Amtrak train, I've just had my personal space violated. So did the man across from me.

It's a Friday afternoon, so the train is crowded. A tall, imposing, serious-looking man and his well-mannered college-age daughter boarded somewhere north of Manhattan and looked for seats together. I am in a window seat so he nabbed the aisle seat next to me. The rather distinguished older (about 70-ish, I'd say) gentleman across the aisle was sitting in the aisle seat; the window seat next to him was free. Mr. Imposing said to Mr. Older, "Would you move over." Didn't ask, told. After just one "Pardon?" the gentleman moved over. The daughter sat down. I found it fascinating that after shoving aside the older, weaker man, father and daughter didn't exchange two words all the way to Kingston, R.I., where I concluded she went to college.

So Mr. Imposing sat next to me, whipped out the latest issue of Newsweek and proceeded to read it, not like a considerate passenger but more like King of the Hill. He did the obnoxious male thing of splaying his legs at nearly a 90-degree angle so his knee encroached on "my" space about three inches, which my leg had already claimed. I didn't like playing kneesies with him but I am not a stubborn German for nothing, so I didn't concede the space. Eventually he almost imperceptably pulled in so that he only crossed over maybe an inch.

Personal space is such a relative thing. When I routinely rode the New York subway, there were days when violating my personal space meant that the man whose body was crushed into mine in the sardines-like crowd didn't put his hands directly on me. Other days it meant leaving an empty seat between me and someone else.

In Manhattan, people are so used to limited personal space that it always amazed me when in a not-very-crowded movie theater, people would squish in between strangers in the same row 1/3 of the way back in the middle when there were rows and rows of empty seats.

My men friends report extreme discomfort when they're alone at a urinal in a restaurant or sports venue and another guy enters and chooses the urinal next to them rather than one farther away. For women, we feel that someone just within listening distance in a fairly empty public rest room is a violation of our personal space.

Then we can go the other way entirely when we have a close relationship with someone. How many people complain that their significant other won't enter their personal space, the very lack of which indicates that the relationship has some healing to do? An involuntary recoiling from a spouse's touch says, "Get out of my space!" much more powerfully than words. It's beyond me how married couples can go weeks or months or even years without touching beyond what a stranger or casual acquaintance might get away with. But that's another subject. And what do I know -- I was only married long ago for two years anyway.

So Mr. Imposing and his daughter got off the train and the gentleman across the aisle wordlessly moved back over to the aisle seat. I put my purse, my book and my empty small Utz Cheesier Nacho Tortillas bag on the seat next to me as a deterrent and a "leave me be" message so I can enjoy my personal space invader-free for the last hour and a half of my trip. Hey, it's not that I'm selfish, inconsiderate and rude. I'm an only child, used to lots of privacy and personal space. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Penn Station at 2:00 a.m.

I had a reason to be in Manhattan today and, as the weather was rainy and messy where I live, I decided to take Amtrak to New York Penn Station rather than drive. I didn't get finished until 11:00 p.m. and the last Amtrak train south leaves at 10:00ish p.m. The next one isn't until 3:00 a.m. Amtrak, what in the hell are you thinking?!?!? Or not thinking, is more like it.

Anyway, so I opted to sit in the Amtrak "lounge" at Penn Station for 3-1/2 hours, from 11:30 p.m. until my train boards a little before 3:00 a.m. The people I was with invited me to stay with them "just 10 minutes away" rather than go to Penn Station ("Penn Station" said with a curled lip and a disgusted tone) at this hour.

Well, that was a gracious invitation, but 1) there's no such thing as "just 10 minutes away" and I'm more up for navigating Penn Station at this hour than the New York City subway, 2) I am prepared with my laptop, a good book (David Baldacci's latest paperback, Simple Genius) and my journal to keep me entertained, 3) people watching is best done solo...and, of course, there are The People of Penn Station, who are a story (or 100 stories at this hour) unto itself. This is actually a higher-class crowd at 2:00 a.m. than at noon or 6:00 or 8:00, probably because pickpockets and other ne'er-do-wells thrive in crowds, and there are sparse clusters or singles solo but close by others, and it's harder to sneak around and do ugly things in this atmosphere.

The Amtrak "lounge" is hardly that. It's made up of two sprawling sectors, a bigger one for Acela Express passengers, and the other, the one I'm in, is smaller, though it still has more than 40 rows of 6 blue not-too-comfortable-not-too-uncomfortable padded chairs with steel (not plastic, yay!) arms and frames, a sprinkling of monitors displaying Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains statuses (stati? -- hey, it's late), a handful of 2-1/2-ft-dia. black round cylinders that people use as tables for their laptops or fast food. No restrooms (though the public ones are close by), no food or drink vendors or machines...oh, and a spectacular view. The view is of Penn Station's middle area where the big board is that's in all the movies. And usually throngs of fascinating humanity. Just not at 2:00 a.m.


Hmmm...I just popped out of the "lounge" and took a picture of the big board, several, in fact. An Army trooper came up to me and said to me, "Ma'am, you're not allowed to take pictures of the big board. It's very sensitive, who sees it." Wow, haven't heard that before. A zillion people must take pictures of that board every year. Well, the good news is that he didn't ask me to delete the pictures or take my camera away. I'd have a big problem with that. By then I already had my pictures, so I choose to think he was being kind by letting me finish before he said anything.

Penn Station at 2:00 a.m. probably isn't what you picture, even if you live here. There are always people sleeping in the doorways, along the walls (one or two -- it's not like a line-up of 'em) and on the stairs in Penn Station (and many other public places in Manhattan), and they're no scarier at 2:00 a.m. than at noon. They just want to sleep. A few of the food and coffee places are open and the place is as brightly lit as during the day. It's like Las Vegas -- you can't tell what time of day it is by looking.

Classical music plays in Penn Station 24/7. Some classical music can be dreary and dirgy, but they tend to keep it on the livelier side here, so that's a combination of soothing and energizing. I always picture it as calming the unruly crowds when the trains are late, which is all too often. The worst I remember was on St. Patrick's Day night a couple of years ago. I was working at Two Penn Plaza, right here at Penn Station, but I had my movie class that night and got back to Penn Station about 9:00 p.m. to take New Jersey Transit. Trains were hours late, St. Patrick's Day celebrants were rowdy, impatient, drunk and (some were) sick. Oh joy. The trains finally started moving and we crammed into the car...and...didn't move for half an hour. Longest half hour of my life. Not fun. Could've used louder classical music that night.

Anyway, I'm inexplicably awake at this hour, even as people doze and wobble as they nod off and even snore loudly around me. I'm waiting til I get on the train, and then I'll try to catch a 3-hour nap if I can.

A very nice, smart, charming, good looking and interesting man has been trying to chat me up as I've been writing this. He's been asking me lots of questions and making little comments to try to draw me out -- I can relate to that; that's what I do myself. I've been only semi-responsive because I'm focused on writing this. He's dying to know what I'm writing about him. It's not about him, but just to note that he's part of my experience here, I asked him his name. Thanks, Glen, for your flattering attention.

Okay, I'm finally getting tired. The train'll be here, God and Amtrak willing, in half an hour. I think I can make it until then....

Target #8 and Love Potion #9

Earlier this week, my neighbor and co-conspirator Cathy and I were chatting with one of the two fabulous high school kids we're mentors for in our Knowledge To Go mentoring program at a local high school. We asked him what he was going to do this summer. He said he might get a job. He's 16. Good for him!

So of course she and I got to reminiscing about our first jobs. My very first job at 16 was as a cashier in the ticket booth at the Valley Drive-In Theater in Denver. It was in Southeast Denver on E. Evans and S. Monaco, as I recall, which wasn't yet a thru street. The Valley Drive-In is looooong gone now. That was quite a summer. That job was a movie lover's dream. I got to see all of the movies in the Wolfberg Theaters chain for free all summer. (Scroll down to the comments section when you click on the link.) I pretty much only went to the movies at my own drive-in, and that was after my shift was over. In those days, the drive-ins replayed the first movie after the second movie ran. Ah, double features. And a cartoon first. A long lost mem'ry.

My manager, Dave M. (I'll not use his last name to protect the guilty) was just 24, which seemed very old to me at the time. Well, very mature, at least. Ha! He loved to catch kids who sneaked in by hiding in the trunk. He was always suspicious of a car with just one person in it, and, sure enough, he caught many by just nailing the one-person cars.

He also loved to catch lovers in the act. One of my fellow high-schoolers would come to the drive-in nearly every Saturday night with her boyfriend, and Dave was laying for her (so to speak). Finally one night, he struck it rich. He caught them -- he told me he wanted to tell the guy to move over so he could take a turn -- and hauled them into the office and gave them a serious talking to. He knew he wasn't going to turn them in to the police -- he just wanted to scare them. He really got a charge out of doing that. Dave also drove me around in his red Mustang and showed me where the used condoms were on the ground -- I'd never seen a condom, new or used -- and he'd lament if he hadn't caught the wearers. I don't know if he was some kind of a pedophile or just a horny 24-year-old. I certainly didn't think about it at the time, innocent and wide-eyed as I was. (I didn't share anything in this paragraph with my high school mentee.)

The next summer, between high school graduation and the start of my freshman year of college, I worked at Target. I was a "floater," someone who filled in for people who were on vacation or out sick or worked in departments that were short-handed. I worked in nearly every department in the store that summer and got to know where everything was. Men's was probably the most fun department, even though many more women shopped in Men's than men. Wigs was the worst department because it was so dead. Working at Target that summer was fun. I flirted with one of the stock boys, who was also there for the summer before starting college. His name was Lanny, as I recall. He flirted back, but we never progressed beyond that.

Target had really cheapo clothes back then, so I didn't stock up. It's come a long way.... I go to my neighborhood Target quite a bit, though still not for clothes.

A friend of mine accused me of making it up that I worked at Target back then, since she insisted that there were no Targets back in those oooooold days. Well, I knew I did work at a real, genuine Target (same distinctive logo all these years). I ran into a construction exec from Target shortly after that and told him what my friend had said. He said that store, on Colorado Boulevard in Denver, was Target Store #8. So there, Michele!

Oops...I just remembered what my very first job was. I was probably around 9 or 10, 11 at the most. I sent away for Parchment Charm All-Occasion Cards and sold them door-to-door in the neighborhood. In those days, you could do that, even if you were just 10. I was not good at sales then. I think my pitch was something like, "You wouldn't want to buy some Parchment Charm All-Occasion Cards, would you?" Aaaaargh!

By the time I sold Avon door-to-door at the Coronado Club singles apartment complex in Denver when I was 21, I had a little better sales pitch. I consistently sold a whole bunch of Wild Country men's after shave and cologne (which, amazingly, they still sell) but just a handful of other products, and my district manager wanted to know why. It was quite simple. I really liked Wild Country -- I thought of it as Love Potion #9 -- and the guys in the complex figured, "If it has that effect on her...I'll try it." Sales -- and life -- were so simple then. But no, I wouldn't want to go back to that era. I'll take now.

Google to Earth: April Fool!

Every April Fool's Day, Google's creative types come up with a doozy of an authentic-looking page for their Gmail e-mail sign-in page. Every year, some people believe it's real.

This year's is brilliant! Who's not wanted this: "Gmail Custom Time" -- where their system will allow you to pre-date e-mail messages so they appear to be sent on time or in time instead of late. Handy for birthdays you forgot, deadlines you've missed, appointments you blew off and other things that clog up your prime time that now you can handle whenever you damn well get around to it. Wow!



That page looks legit, if you go just by looks. Same style as the usual page, etc. So if you don't really read the words carefully, you could (well, some could) think it was real. But for people who didn't get it the first time, the page you click onto to "learn more" should wake them up. The fake testimonials are so far out there that even the dimmest bulb should realize it's a joke.



My favorite faux testimonial:
"I used to be an honest person; but now I don't have to be. It's just so much easier this way. I've gained a lot of productivity by not having to think about doing the 'right' thing."
Todd J., Investment Banker


Happy April Fool's Day!