Winter trains part 3

There might have been a sense of community in the broad atrial waiting area of the station, but it was quickly drowned out by the survival instinct that emerged among comfortable people who are slightly alarmed. Lines formed quickly at the handful of fast-food/coffee places and people scarfed pizza with wary eyes trained on their neighbors, eating as a dog does: quickly and too efficiently to relish the alimentation. Sulking overcoated patrons trudged everywhere to and fro or circled shark-like for the remaining seats on the benches. Smart ones read to stave off impending madness, with ever-more erudite reading fodder glimpsed around every corner.

I was reading Tony Judt with two different frowns. Alternately I displayed my public-transit-has-forsaken-me-never-will-I-see-home-again grimace, and then my furrowed-brow-because-Tony-Judt-is-postulating-a-complex-political-idea-in-clear-and-readable-prose-and-I-am-striving-to-understand frown. I have discussed with my significant other that I ought to stop frowning when trying to understand something or flesh out a thought because the expression is frightening at close range. Maybe I'm often puzzled. I do feel the need to manifest what's going on in my head to the world at large. I furrow my rather prominent but nonetheless brow and try to work out a sentence that might express what I'm thinking.

written

There is too much going on right now. I can't focus on any one thing, because there are approximately a dozen things going on.

I don't remember what happened the last three years, or I remember it too well, I'm too close to it right now. The world and its habit of sneaking up on me. The decisions I will have to make soon, and whose consequences I will have to live with. The implications in our conversations, which I like. There is very little agency here, mostly just swimming with the current, hoping to make minor adjustments.

Maybe in this light, I look about four years younger than in this picture, or this mirror. Serious talks that we have had; sometimes I am proud of how serious we are capable of being. This may not be cause for celebration, eventually. Sometimes I can get deep into a subject, and forget what was bothering me. Sometimes, the light comes through, and the realization dawns that there was nothing to worry about all along. It goes dark again, but what if everything was OK, light, no sorrows?

This place is so comfortable. Will I be able to live in discomfort? Couldn't we settle down, be old together. Pen and ink, early retirement, happiness and fulfillment of all these designs and schemes.

The hard part comes next.

Ice cream paint job

My father kept turning things off or changing the channel just as I was getting interested in the programs

I sent the same message twice, but doubted that Nancy would notice

I like to play fast and loose with the rules late in the week

Just sitting here idly querying databases, as one does

The usual end-of-the-month posting binge

Smuggling tires to Norway to make a fast buck; riskier than it sounds

I only eat ice cream when it rains

Slush on the sidewalks is worse than ice; ice can't enter your shoes by osmosis

The chair, another item that doesn't get its due for the huge role it plays in modern life

Every single day of my life

I feel the intoxicating allure of limitless possibility.

The future beckons.

On my way.

with my ear to the ceiling

/;.


first things first, always

dream a little dream of me

shouldn't i quit it with all the rhetorical questions?

the writer

over his shoulder gleamed the radically bald and goateed visage of trent dilfer, professional yes-man former pro athlete

as preston is my editor and my witness, i will not see this post through to its logical termination

not alone by choice, by myself only because i want to be

from her to eternity

Mass Bay 153, OK to go!

pewter pot

The audacity, really, of these train advertisements is what's appalling

intention

fatwa

it has none

lackluster

Mr. B— felt deep in his bones that Contador was a coward and Schleck had been wronged. His mind could never change on this point; it was as a closed book. This was his strength and greatest weakness: consistency.

....could only fumble at the expression "God helps them who help themselves."

cars shark-like, marauding more than driving...

all lined up

I had at least 7 great conversations in the last 5 days.

Lorne Michaels' Couch

I have been away from the blog.

With good reason.

I went swimming in Walden Pond and the Atlantic Ocean.

I ventured into the Allston Cafe with A.

I ate quiescently frozen confections.

I piloted a bumper boat.

It was a fun weekend, as you can tell from my dry, adjective-free descriptions.

It really was a good weekend.

Coyness is nice, and coyness can stop you from saying all the things in life you'd like to

May was a momentous month. It was long, hard sometimes, easy others, pretty. I liked you, May of 2010, you were solid. Thanks for the memories.

This is basically just to keep up with my self-imposed baseline of 10 posts per month for 2010, but I was hoping to maybe stumble on some truth in the process. Doesn't look like I've succeeded, does it?

I bought four books at the Rodney's closing sale yesterday. The titles:

-The Rising Sun in the Pacific 1931 - April 1942 (History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, volume 3) by Samuel Eliot Morison

-Salvation in Death by "J.D. Robb"

-Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game by John Feinstein and Red Auerbach

-War Diaries: Politics and War in the Mediterranean January 1943 - May 1945 by Harold Macmillan

I bought the Morison volume because it was a pretty nice hardcover edition and I had previously done a book review paper on his Leyte Gulf volume from the same series. His stuff is very readable and heavy on facts, so it seemed like something worth having around, to get to sooner or later. I bought the "J.D. Robb" book as a joke, mainly to tell A that I bought it next time I talk to her, so we can laugh about Nora Roberts and her insane productivity. Yes, I am the kind of person who drops two dollars on a paperback "futuristic suspense" novel just to use it as a conversation piece. So sue me. Also, I had noticed that the book makes a pathetic, mainly symbolic attempt at playing it coy about the true identity of its author. I quote: "J.D. Robb is the pseudonym for the number one New York Times bestselling author of more than 170 novels including the futuristic suspense In Death series. There are more than 300 million copies of her books in print." As if there is anyone who would buy this book and not know who actually wrote it. Plus it says copyright Nora Roberts 2008 inside the front cover. Don't insult my intelligence by still attempting to maintain the facade that your about the author section could still deceive people. The Red Auerbach book I bought because he's bound to have tons of really good stories, and the guy is one of a kind. There could never possibly be another Red Auerbach. I bought Harold Macmillan at least in part because everything in the store was fifty percent off. Exactly what do I have to lose in buying an enormous volume of per·spic·u·ous·ly detailed diaries of life and war in the Mediterranean during the years 1943-1945? Space in my already cramped apartment, you might say. Well so be it.

Did I mention that every book in the store was fifty percent off?

I'll leave you with a spot of appropriate Housman, the first two and last verses of "The Chestnut Casts His Flambeaux". Good luck in June.

The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.

There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.

...

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

Everyday I Write the Book

This is a beginning, not an end

This is not an exit, it's an entrance

This is my life, and I have the power to make it what I want it to be


"The way you walk
The way you talk, and try to kiss me, and laugh
In four or five paragraphs
All your compliments and your cutting remarks
Are captured here in my quotation marks"
-Elvis Costello

one sentence blog post

The fire in her eyes as she railed against Ernest Hemingway's misogyny and the flatness of his female characters was almost more than I could bear.

Hot Property!

Thoughts on the weekend ahead:

-73 degrees F ought to be nice. I'll count each of them as a blessing.

-I should try to live in the present a little more, and not think about next weekend on Monday.

-The rain will stop eventually, won't it?

-There are a great many things to live for in the world. Warm spring weekends are one of them, though not the most important one at the moment.

-I'm winking at myself. A private joke.

strange abstractions that come out of my head from time to time

I'm not afraid to be myself. I guess that's the biggest thing. It feels like being free. It feels like I'm finally coming into my own, like I'm right where I ought to be. And maybe that means recognizing that there isn't anywhere in particular that you have to be, and that right where you are is just fine.

Feels great,

Affirmation.

I can only write poems on trains

Things that run and roll
Trains, balls, coins,
Coil around the loop in the tracks,
Fall gracefully through a suspended ring,
Score a point

Help me rush, rush to God-knows-where
Let me see in you things that aren't there
I love you

Break out the red pantsuits: it's State of the Union time!

-How can you sell a wildly unnecessary punctuation mark? I really wish this was a sick joke, but as far as I know, it's not

-Say what you want about him, but Adam Carolla is a funny man, and a talented talker

-I measure my workouts in sweat, and little else

-Seems that more often than not, the anticipation's better than the real thing

-Being able to make a living from writing seems a long way from here

-A lot of people couldn't support themselves on the money I make now, or even twice the money I make now. I guess it's easier when you're young. You don't have a life's worth of obligations to pay for. Children, mortgages, new cars, medicine, it all adds up

-It must be some kind of natural instinct for people to always find something to complain about. You couldn't find a person in the world who doesn't have a complaint. Just ask Tiger Woods

-People want Barack Obama to fix the country with a snap of his fingers. That expectation may be partly his fault due to the message he campaigned on, but still, it's not that easy, for anyone, even Barack Obama. Give the guy some time for Pete's sake! The only person who got less time than Obama was Conan O'Brien

-One of my number one priorities for the rest of my life is to never have to take prescription drugs

-As far as going to the gym goes, I am firmly on the wagon. I could see myself hitting a wall in the next month or so, but right now, it's smooth sailing

-Beware the escape-goat!

-Yes it's the T's fault for running inefficiently and slowly, but it's also your own fault for not leaving a healthy margin of T error-time

-Barack is delivering one heck of a speech tonight

come sail your ships around me

My semi-conscious thought during the drawn-out process of waking up this morning: I'm Captain Ahab and getting out bed is my White Whale.

Avast!