*

Language is overrated.  A few years ago I was on the T heading toward Kenmore Square when the preceding sentence was dramatized by the passengers sitting opposite me.  (This was right when they were introducing new T-cars on the green-line with the weird steps to a second level -- I didn't understand the new design, but I suppose that they might all be like that by now, so I should get over it.  I THINK that my particular car was a big painted advertisement for Code-Red Mountain Dew  -- that might not be right -- it was something like that though.  This parenthetical statement may seem like the mother of all non-sequiturs, but Boston insiders will recognize this as a unique moment in time and imagine passing The Elbow Room, Viper Video, The Avenue, Lee's 2 convenience store, that one bum who looks like an African American Abraham Lincoln near Harvard Ave, and stuff like that.)  The passengers across from me were a young couple in love.  They had big backpacks and I overheard references to Europe, so I think they were on their way to the airport.  The guy had rimless glasses and seemed like the kind of nerd who becomes an engineer: i.e. he had tendony forearms and seemed confident, but he didn't care quite enough about humans to be socially talented.  He probably ran exactly 6.2 miles a day and knew how to use every feature on a graphing calculator.  He was going on and on and on about the locations of various pieces of camera equipment that he had carefully packed and he was very pedantic about it.  I guess he wanted the girl to be able to repeat his packing method in the event that he was incapacitated and she became responsible for the luggage.  The girl had one of those black leather rocker belts with silver studs on it.  She had a pixie haircut.  She had an ironic T-shirt.  And, she wasn't listening to a word that he said.  She just stared at him with adoration.  Sometimes she would sarcastically say "uh huh uh huh . . . that is VERY interesting."  Sometimes she would kiss him while he was in mid-sentence.  He would pause to kiss her back, and then proceed talking about a lens.  At the time I was dumbfounded.  I couldn't figure out how this relationship happened.  They don't communicate AT ALL.  Then I realized that language doesn't matter.  Very little that anyone says is probably ever heard, and if it is, it's probably not interpreted correctly.  The couple on the T communicates just fine -- just not their thoughts.