(no subject)

Long story, made short: All train service between Baltimore's Penn Station and Washington's Union Station has been suspended, due to a water main break in downtown Baltimore. I'm working from home today.

I actually boarded my regular train, which is scheduled to leave at 7:00 A.M. We boarded about ten minutes late and sat there at the platform for about twenty minutes before it was announced that the train was cancelled and that passengers should board the train which usually leaves at 7:15 A.M. That train is usually an express and misses the New Carrollton station, where I stop, but it would be making all local stops today.

Russell had forsaken me on the first train, leaving me to manage his jacket and briefcase while he sat with a beautiful, furry, bearded, red-headed man. We got off the train together, but we got separated boarding the second train while I figured out whether it was making local stops. He found me after we had boarded and he located a couple of seats where we could sit beside each other.

The train eventually left the station and made it as far as the tunnel before we slowed and stopped. And there we sat. I had a book to read, but Russell was getting a little fidgety, so I brought up Sodoku on my iPod Touch and gave it to him to keep him occupied, which worked very well.

Then the conductor announced that all trains were cancelled and we waited some more before slowly backing into the station and exiting the train to make that slow, shuffling march in a crowd along the platform and up the stairs into the station. It reminded me of the crowds I saw walking in New York City when the planes hit the World Trade Center.

The station was swarming with people who had no place to go. Rather, they had someplace to go but no way to get there. An announcement was made asking for people who wanted to share a taxi to New York. (?!) There were long lines at the ATM and at the ticket booths. The taxi stand outside had a line of people that snaked around the station. And now it was raining.

Me? I snapped up the hood of my all-weather jacket and walked back home. My commute was finished; I'll be telecommuting today.

(no subject)

I've started reading A Home at the End of the World, by Michael Cunningham. DT loaned it to me over the weekend, and I started reading it last night. I had watched the movie, never knowing that it was a book, first. I'm enjoying it very much.

I carried it with me on this morning's Commute to Nowhere and read while we waited for the train to move. I came across this line:

He had a talent for adjusting his expectations to meet his circumstances.

Wow. I stopped and read that line again, immediately recognizing myself in the words. That's what I do! That's me!

I think my father would agree. Once, in my school days, he was so frustrated with my academic performance (especially in light of the potential that everyone claimed for me), he declared that I would go without any sort of entertainment or distraction for the next grading period. No television. No books. Grounded. Everything but the furniture was removed from my bedroom. I'd have no choice but to study or be bored.

Except that it didn't work out that way. I daydreamed. I devoured my literature textbook. I doodled. Etc. I probably did some schoolwork, too, but when the grades came and I had made no improvement, he threw up his hands and admitted defeat. It was harder on him than it was on him, he said.

Nowadays, he enjoys telling this story. Then he describes me as being like water. He says that no matter what you pour me into, I assume that shape. And he's got a point.

Anyway, that line really caught me. It's going to be one of my favorite lines, I know it.