"I think I've got it."

For 189 days straight, Francis had not wanted to get out of bed. In actuality, Francis had not really wanted to get out of bed for 12,774 days. She assumed that as a child she’d likely never wanted to get up and was repeatedly forced out of a peaceful slumber by her parents (and other powers that be) from the day she was born. Given that tomorrow was her 35th birthday, it would bring the grand total of mornings she had miserably greeted the day to a nice round 12,775. Francis was never an optimist.

But it came in waves. The current ebb had begun 190 days ago when she’d experienced a brief brush with enthusiasm stemming from the promise of a callback for an off-Broadway revival of Our Town. She awoke that morning, on day 12,584, in her usual tired, irritated state, but pushed herself to get out of bed, certain the good news she had been pining for was on its way. As she methodically brushed her teeth, A Chorus Line’s “I Hope I Get It” played on repeat in her head. “God, I think I’ve got it. I think I’ve got it.”

Seven hours, four cups of coffee and half a pack of cigarettes later, Francis had not gotten the coveted callback. Apparently, the “our” in Our Town did not include her.

The very next morning, on day 12,585, Francis once again began the day in a bad mood. One that was certain to last at least through tomorrow.

We Gotta Move These Color TVs

Since 2007, New York City has had televisions in the backseats of its famous yellow taxi cabs. By my genius calculation that means approximately seven years of Taxi TV have elapsed. And I still just hate it.

Yes, like the youthful, radiant skin I once knew and the countless hours spent on bad dates that I’ll never get back, Taxi TV is an unfortunate fact of life, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. In fact, I don’t even have to pretend to like it. I do, however, have to sit there, in the back of the cab, and be taken captive by the repetitive advertising loop that plays at an earth shattering volume for the longest thirty seconds known to man before I can be prompted to turn the thing off.

That is if it even goes off. Having the option to shut the Taxi TV off was assured by its implementers when Taxi TV first made the scene, hoping to allay the fears of those who objected to television screens being forced on them in yet another arena of life, but all too often the shut-off function is not entirely, um, functional. Having been designed in the early, oh-my-god-we-are-living-the-awesome-futuristic-Buck-Rodgers-dream-we-always-knew-would-come-true boom of touch screen, heat sensing technology (In 2007, The New York Times hailed NYC was “at the forefront of cab technology.”), the power button often forces riders to be at the whim of what the screen can and cannot sense. It goes off, it goes back on, the ad loop starts over, you chastise yourself for leaving your finger lingering one second too long in front of the button, you wonder if you can stab it with a pen. It’s a vicious cycle.

And God help you if you have gloves on.

Volume is perhaps the single biggest complaint cab riders have about Taxi TV. Four out of five people surveyed (by me in a bodega on 23rd street while waiting for a man at the front of the line to count out thirty-seven cents in change) admitted they would be more positive on Taxi TVs in general if they were not so unnecessarily loud. Several years ago, after a wave of passenger complaints, Taxi TV relented, lowering the overall volume of the television sets in most cabs and adding a feature to make adjusting the volume a possibility. Why then, is it still so ridiculously challenging to turn the volume down? Five out of five people surveyed (in the same storied focus group) agreed that in the time it takes them to figure out how to turn the volume down, they could take up a new language, phone a long lost loved one or re-read War and Peace.

These were hard-hitting survey questions.

Between the volume, the aptitude needed to turn the TV off, and the generally perplexing mystery of why we ever needed televisions in the back of taxis to begin with, what has really been lost is silence. That solitary ten minutes of quiet time, sitting in the backseat, watching the city move around you, being forced to sit still for a few seconds, slow down for a few minutes; that’s all gone out the window. Literally. Thanks to Taxi TV that solitude has been replaced by “breaking news” of Justin Bieber’s arrests, the life changing banter of Talk Stoop, and “first looks” at luxury apartments in Manhattan. Because the only thing the average taxi rider needs less than Taxi TV is a $50 million dollar Midtown condo.

Last night, after a long, exhausting day, and with my negativity towards Taxi TV firmly in place, I stepped to the curb and hailed a cab. Slumped down in the backseat, I opened the window. Riding along, the cool air felt good as it met my tired face. I was so calm I could have taken a little cab nap or written a taxi haiku. Approaching my destination, I looked up and suddenly noticed that the Taxi TV had been on the entire time. Had I been so out of it that I didn’t register its presence? Or have I just become used to it? Have I finally been broken down by the Taxi TV to the point where I let it exist, let it win the war, let it zone me out and allow my brain get sucked further into the vortex?

Or was I just a person, finally sitting down for a minute, with the thoughts and sights of real life in my head overruling the news and pictures of Taxi TV? Yes. I was. Even when met with constant noise and action, the mind has an uncanny ability to take over and allow you to find a little bit of peace if you let it.

Maybe Taxi TV isn’t all bad. Some people like it, some people don’t. But, it is here to stay and so am I. And so I found my peace, maybe even made my peace with Taxi TV.

Now there’s some breaking news.

Life for Dummies

Dolly needed a vacation. The phrase, “I need a vacation,” is uttered by millions of people each day, each one firmly believing that they need a vacation, a break from the routine of their daily lives, a change of scenery to interrupt the vague monotony of their existence, but the word “need” has varying degrees of truth. In Dolly’s case, she really needed a vacation.

Dolly looked terrible. Pale, underweight, tired; dark circles below her eyes so large they could harbor fugitives for weeks at a time. She was physically exhausted. Passing by her desk, co-workers often commented she looked like she was going to, “face plant right into the computer.” The computer. Dolly sat in front of the computer for hours at a time, motionless except for the movement in her fingers as they typed along. She could have been doing her assigned tasks or writing the Communist Manifesto 3.0, she barely knew the difference at this point. Although Dolly had never been very political, save for the “New Yorkers for a Green Tomorrow” rally she had attended in 1997 clad in purple Birkenstocks and a homemade tie dye dress she’d ruined a lobster pot making.

Her mind was spent. So much so that she had no thoughts beyond those that got her from point A to point B. The only thinking that took place was that which was essential to her going through the motions. Her brain read like the table of contents from Life for Dummies:

I. Wake up

II. Turn off alarm clock

III. Sit up

IV. Walk to bathroom

V. Turn on light

VI. Look in mirror

VII. Frown

VIII. Turn on shower to get water hot

IX. Lift up nightgown

X. Sit on toilet

XI. Try not to fall back asleep while waiting for bowel movement

XII. Poop

Another day in the life of Dolly.