It's been two weeks since I put down the sign.
What's new? Oh, nothing. Just a regular Tuesday. The President contradicts his staff's lies about his brazen acts of treason, as per usual. AND THAT WAS JUST THE MORNING.
The wind ripped my sign from my hands this morning and blew it across the sidewalk. I retrieved it, but it's looking damaged, and I refuse to walk around with a damaged sign, because I believe it limits my credibility. Today, the swan sang for Sign #3.
I need to write about so many things: Carrying the Paul Ryan sign for the day on Tuesday, and the reactions it provoked; how incredibly specifically informed people are right now, how much they want to express their incredulity over the brazenness of the corruption and how long it's taking to prosecute.
Waiting for the subway today, I have the most contentious two minute conversation I've had in a while. The guy is older, probably in his early 60s, thick accent of indeterminable origin, with brown skin, and he shakes his head at me when he sees me coming, so I stop to chat.
Kumbaya is stuck in my head. This is why I can't concentrate today. Also, there's a lunchtime May Day rally in Union Square, and for the second day in a row, the sound of the Resistance is distracting me. I don't let myself quit and go outside, but I don't get any work done either.
I heard a protest going down 14th Street out the office window a few hours ago, but I couldn't hear what they were saying, and I didn't run out to join them. I didn't go out with the sign at all today, and only for a short time yesterday -- still time enough to have a few conversations with people, one of whom gave me both a high-five and a "namaste."
Yesterday it rained on my sign. I didn't think it was going to rain when I left the house, but then it did. I protected the sign with my umbrella, which defeated the purpose of carrying both the sign and the umbrella. But the sign didn't warp too much. The ink didn't run.
Yesterday: I carry the sign on the subway to Park Slope and don't sing because it's quiet in the car. One dowdy white woman at the center pole, wearing a long cardigan and sunglasses, flattens her upper lip and faces away. She has the sleeve of her cardigan wrapped around her hand so she doesn't touch the pole, and the tops of her feet are bulging out of her shoes. A queen at Patricia Fields once told me the term for that is "giving biscuit."
Today I am not alone in carrying a sign around town. I'm still the only one in my subway car with a sign, though, and I'm disappointed, until we hit 34th Street, and then everybody shows up. I had been looking at this woman's pants, stretch herringbone with a thin piping, wanting to ask her where she got them, when she turns to me and asks, "Is there a protest today?"
Janice Erlbaum is the author of GIRLBOMB: A Halfway Homeless Memoir and other books.