I took the 1/9 downtown from 137th St. the other day. I can't remember exactly where I was going but as usual, I was on a mission. The sun was beginning to turn it all the way up. Once I was in the subway, it almost felt like I was trapped in central Texas. The heat had dulled everyone into a laconic stupor. Everyone stood around quietly in clumps on the platform like cows, ruminating on what a flaming nightmare the sun would be. No one had the energy for static. Even the small children were strangely calm. A voice announced that the uptown train wouldn't run past 168th St. due to construction. Because of delays, the next stop on the downtown train would be 96th St. As the train arrived and doors opened, the icy cool air blew the heat out of the subway for a moment and everyone on the platform stepped in an uttered a collective sigh of relief, I sat down, smiling at my good train karma. Just as I was about to break a sweat, the train appeared, and although it's a local line, this particular train is running express. This meant that for the rest of the day, I would make all of my connections without having to wait. (That's the rule and that's exactly what happened.)

It was then that the woman next to me began to talk to me as though she were continuing a long conversation that we'd been having. Immediately I thought, weirdo. She didn't look like she was nuts. She was clean, she had clean clothes on. Nice clothes. But she was babbling and my spidey sense was tingling. I played along, anyway. Why not? The ride wouldn't last long. Then again, even when the train is flying down the track, it isn't moving nearly as fast as you want it to if you're stuck with a weirdo.

Besides, she seemed harmless. Petite brunette. Low heeled slingbacks. Manicured hands. Slacks, for heaven's sake. Do weirdoes wear slacks? But there she was, completely jabberwocky, explaining the delay on the uptown line and how it derailed her day in careful detail. Everyone in the car eyed us suspiciously. Was I a weirdo to them by association? As she spoke softly, I felt the people nearest to us quieting down to listen in. And then I realized that she was telling me too much. Her feet hurt. She was pregnant and it was making her behave erratically and eat strange things. She was coming off like she'd known me for years and she hadn't known me for five minutes.

Everybody thinks they know what a weirdo is until they have to deal with one.

I remember the first time I went to San Francisco, Land of the Oddballs. I had been around people who considered themselves to be strange before, but there was something different about this place. While a lot of the skinheads from back in the day had grown up and gone straight, middle class college kids pretending to be punks had replaced them, begging for change on Market Street. Everyone I ran into had a tattoo or a piercing of some sort, usually in a private place that they would gleefully show me whenever the subject arose. They seemed genuinely surprised that I didn't "have any ink." The crackheads were everywhere and so were the homeless people, replete with broken shopping carts filled with things that they'd collect as they'd wander around aimlessly. It was as though they were constantly ambling through an imaginary grocery store aisle for useless smelly junk. I saw what had to be mental ward rejects, nutjobs who were so walleyed and confrontational, I had to think twice about going anywhere by myself. And of course, I saw plenty of weirdoes--half-naked, talking to themselves, begging for money, surly and filthy and nonsensical. After awhile, I saw the same weirdoes over and over again. The more I saw them, the more rude they became. It felt like everyone was trying to either show me or prove to me how weird and abnormal they were. Even the straights I met attempted to affect weirdness in some way or another, like that was some invisible badge of cool. This was a different breed of strange, the kind that looked for and expected provocation. What was weird to me is that no one seemed particularly interested in being themselves. It was almost as though life in that city was one big performance art piece about weirdness and everyone was in on it. After awhile, the people who wandered through the streets became a strange backdrop to my rather quiet and staid visits and I learned how to avoid them.

It was here that I learned the difference between a freak and a weirdo--neither of which should ever be confused with a true eccentric.

When it comes to weirdoes, San Francisco definitely isn't New York City. Our homeless aren't anything to be trifled with, either. In this neck of the woods, all deviants are to be avoided as a rule because they could become violent and kill you. Thankfully, they don't demand your attention. Or your money. If you leave them alone, they will leave you alone. As she jumped up in mid-sentence to run through the closing subway doors (only to change her mind once she exited, getting her arm caught in the doors so they would reopen), I realized that like most weirdoes here, this pregnant one posed no threat to anyone but herself.