  It was hot underground this morning. Muggy as fuck while I waited for the Q train. By the time the train pulls into the station I'm a sweaty bastard. The beads of sweat of percolating furiously on my forehead. There was a seat next to this girl that I will mention later. But I'm not a big fan sitting right next to people on the subway.
I need my space. Especially when I'm sweating like a motherfucker. So I'm leaning against the doors. You're not supposed to that, or at least that's what the stickers say on the doors, but I do it all the time. I haven't fallen out yet. And I'm still sweating even though A/C is pumping.
Sometimes it takes me a while to cool down. Then I start thinking about all this stuff. Things that I should've done over the weekend for work. I started thinking about all this other shit. There's just something about riding subways that does this to me sometimes. It provokes thinking about all kinds of shit at once.
The mind starts racing. I start concentrating on a section of the subway floor. This morning I figured some Bach on the headphones might help. Harpsichord and Viola da Gamba. Keith Jarrett on the harpsichord. I turn it up almost as loud as it will go.
I close my eyes, take a few breaths. But I'm still hot. I'm wiping the sweat from my head with both hands. Then a guy gets up from his seat, but he’s still standing in front of the seat. And it’s bugging me. Why can't he stand near the door if he's going to get off the train.
I’m really fucking tired. I’m sweating and I just want to sit down. I feel like I’m going to pass out, or have a nervous fucking breakdown. So finally the guy gets off the train. I sit down. I look at the girl with the blonde hair across from me.
She looks at me for a moment. She didn’t do that thing that most people do when they catch you looking at them. She just looked at me for a moment. My entire shaved head was covered with sweat. I close me eyes, still trying to concentrate on Bach. I’m still wiping the sweat off with both hands, then wiping off my wet palms on the legs of my jeans.
Hell, chicks dig that kind of shit. After I’ve calmed down a bit, I look at the gal again. I notice she’s wearing a Unity t-shirt, obviously inspired by Larry Young’s incredible “Unity” album. If you know the album, you’d recognize the shirt. Yeah, I think it's a damn fine album. Larry on organ, Joe Henderson (one of my favorite tenor players), Woody Shaw on trumpet and Elvin Jones on drums.
Anyway, I was quite impressed this gal was wearing the shirt. So I pull out Raymond Carver’s book of short stories and start trying to re-read “Cathedral.” But I couldn’t read because I was having a near-breakdown again. Well, I don’t know if it was that bad. I’ve been thinking about this concept for quite some time. But I still haven’t completely lost it. And I’d like to think that I’ve been closer to that before.
I mean, closer to actually cracking. And that was when I wasn’t really doing much with my life. Too much time to think. To much time to think is a horrible thing, hell, unless you’re a philosopher or some kind of bullshit. At least I can go to work and stop thinking about myself for the entire. Keeps me from worrying about myself.
And that’s a sad fucking thing to sit around and worry about shit, especially your own bullshit. It’s fucking horrible, man. It can fuck a guy up. It can make a man sick. Nausea. Makes a guy want to write his own version of "Nausea" or "Notes from the Underground" of something... Too much thinking is what makes a man go mad.
That’s what I think. Too much thinking is madness. Oh yeah, I forgot to say what happened with the chick on the train. She looked at me a few times. I thought I saw a half smile. It was one of the those indecipherable looks.
But I couldn’t figure it out. A bizarre thing. We both got off at Union Square. I took out my headphones as I walked up the stairs. I was determined to talk to the girl. The shirt was the key.
I’d ask her about the shirt. But I couldn’t do it, man. I just followed her through the farmer’s market. She waited at the corner for the light. I went west on 17th. That was that.
Now, that I’m thinking about, I think the main reason I didn’t say anything to her was that she didn’t give me enough to go on. If there was just a bit more a smile, hell, if the corners of her mouth might've just curled up a bit more, that would've been enough... 
