Residents of New York City: Beware. Emma is in a truly ferocious mood today. It started when she woke up with her back still hurting and her stomach still obnoxious from yesterday, and realized she’d overslept rather dramatically, having somehow remained obstinately unconscious throughout an eight minute Underworld track playing at full volume. Advil and vitamins didn’t help the queasiness and a bag full of textbooks didn’t help the back, and when a conductor with possibly the most irritating voice in the world announced that this Q express train will make all local stops running on the N/R line, repeat this Q express train will make all local stops: the standard it’s-Monday-morning-and-I’m-running-late mood darkened to a stormy, seething rage.

Emma sat on her Q train, whose local stops included not only the usual stations but also several strategic locations in barren stretches of tunnel (which I mean, phew - without those extra ten minute pauses, she might only have been half an hour later than intended, but she really dodged a bullet there), and brooded. She’s not really a broody kind of person, in general, but she brooded quite thoroughly this morning. Subjects of her brooding included the large, odorous man who had chosen to occupy (or overflow, really) the seat next to her so as to more comfortably gaze at the pocket sized faux-leatherbound New Testament clutched in his sweaty fist. Also the woman who singlehandedly added an extra three to five minutes onto today’s total morning commute time by holding the train doors for her husband who wasn’t right behind her or indeed way behind her but in fact still in line for a Metrocard when the train first attempted to leave. And of course, the omnipresent and obscenely young-looking high school kids who flooded the car somewhere around DeKalb with their outdoor voices and sports equipment.

So: consider yourself warned. If you happen to spot Emma today, you’d be well-advised to run away, or at least buy her a cup of chai while assuring her that the whole bedhead thing is either endearing or fetching or both but certainly not sloppy, because all she really wants at this point is to crawl back in bed and read some trashy contemporary science fiction, but instead she’s on her way to a god damned Linguistics lecture, of all things.