Today’s soundtrack: I want the friction
Today at 7:17am: reaching for the seatbelt


What’s worse than jerking awake in a spastic haze at 7:07am when you were supposed to be up by six? And getting that sinking feeling of failure because you were supposed to be somewhere at 7am?

No time for coffee, dammit. Hastily dressed, I ran out the front door of my building with my arm held high, in case a taxi was passing at that exact second. One was. And even though the cabbie was jabbering into an earpiece, he spotted me out of the corner of his eye and slammed on his brakes, screeeech. Gotta love Manhattan.

For the first few blocks of the ride the driver was yelling at somebody in Arabic, but he put his conversation on hold at the corner of Houston. “You want me to take Lafayette or Sixth Avenue?” he asked. I love when cabbies give you the option, because it speaks of a certain level-headedness.

“Sixth Avenue, make it so,” I said. (Except for the “make it so” part.)

The rest of the ride--a horizontal rollercoaster of near misses, accelerative bursts and sudden stops overlaid with what I assume were Arabic curse words--woke me up in a way coffee couldn’t. Sure, caffeine will dilate your pupils, but sliding around in the back of a V8 Crown Vic piloted by an experienced hack will access your adrenaline glands with a thoroughness Starbucks will never replicate.

I gave him a big tip, because I liked his driving and I’m bad with money.