Sunday, 17 November 2002 | Subway/Stage

A four-year-old child laying on his back across his mother's ample thighs, his head tilted back and his legs stretched out over the subway seat. He's laughing; she's pulling off his pants (underneath which are still diapers) and yanking on a new pair over his bent little legs. She refers to herself as "Big Mama," and refers to her son as "Sweet Cheeks." "Shit!" he says, and she responds with, "Don't say that!" They repeat this cycle a few rounds, until she warmly says, "Now set your ass here beside me." The two lesbian girls to my right are laughing along with the little boy.

A McDonald's on a busy street that's always darker than the other streets, since the subway in this part of town is above-ground, forming a ceiling between the people and the sky. Above the McDonald's is an empty-looking floor shielded by large glass windows, and behind the windows are people wearing their Sunday clothes, waving their arms back and forth, swinging their hips, and moving their mouths. It almost looks as if they're praising the franchise beneath them, as they dance on top of the red lighted sign.

***

Last night I went to an amateur musical in Brooklyn. I'm not especially critical when watching a play or a musical live, because no matter how good or bad the songs and the story, I'm always impressed by the effort to put something like that together, by the people who try to make a living dancing, acting, singing, directing, and producing.

I don't go to many performances, but when I do, I tend to wonder about the potential I had, had I chosen to go in a different direction. I honestly have no idea whether I would've been particularly good or bad at those things; I can't convince myself of either. I'm curious as to how the people I see onstage ended up where they are—whether it was a personal, parental, or circumstantial effort, or a combination of those. It's a similar feeling I have when I hear about people working in very obscure, specific occupations: how did they go from wanting to be astronauts and firemen and nurses as children to what they currently do? How many wish they did something else?