Happy Birthday Jeff!

I'd like to give a little shout out to my brother Jeff, more commonly known among my circle of friends as "boy", whose 23rd birthday is today. I'd call him but my roommate is on the phone. Does an e-card and this post make up for not calling him? I'm not sure. I doubt he even reads this thing, but I can count on one of my parents to tell him.

Today I was stuck at Karlsplatz waiting for the U4 subway line to resume service. I was sitting (thankfully) next to a three year old (no so thankfully). On several different occassions without any warning whatsoever, this little girl just started screaming her head off. My pulse quicked and I felt sort of weird every time she howled in my ear...I guess that's the instinctual reaction of a human being to another human being's blood curtling expression of frustration. There didn't appear to be anything wrong with her, except that she was frustrated that the train wasn't moving, which she articulated very clearly when she asked her father (who did nothing to calm her), "When will this train go???" I was extremely afraid of going deaf and was getting rather annoyed at the father who didn't see any problem with her behavior, but then I changed my mind. It dawned on me that children have a refreshing level of freedom in their daily lives that adults lack--the freedom to express their emotions without restraint. This little girl was annoyed by the train, so she screamed her head off on several occassions for about a minute each time. I'm sure she wasn't the only one on the train that wanted to do that exact thing, but everyone else was too adult to actually break loose and howl away. So instead of being annoyed by her, I smiled to myself at her freedom and plugged my right ear. I think I was able to salvage my hearing.