Thursday was a strange day. Frustration in a car with a fuck head cabbie who almost got us killed talking on his cellphone. I ask him to please stop talking because he is driving with one hand and half his brain. He tries to argue with me about his exceptional driving skills (after veering into traffic several times). I explode and demand to be let out. I'm not going to pay him money to kill me.
But then the next cab was incredible. This has happened before. Leaving a horrible experience is rewarded with an exceptionally good one. Half a minute of silence and he asks, Why is it that even though we are all the same in experiencing pain and suffering that we are killing one another? Why are we polluting the environment? Why can't we turn off the TV? I reply that those are a lot of very big questions in such a short amount of time. I tell him my theory about heirarchies.
It was a really great and unexpected conversation.
Then I went inside and cried a little bit. The driver's vulnerability and having experienced such polar experiences in such a short time span left me feeling overwhelmed.
Later, an interview with Cat Power on The Hour. She was refreshingly open and emotional. You don't see that on television most days. People are trained to hide and protect themselves from a culture that is always looking for their achilles heel. I appreciate that kind of honesty in public people and it makes me feel that no matter how much fear and doubt there is we need to be able to open up to one another if we expect to make connections, be less alone, and not kill each other.