I guess why not. When you ride a train for nearly two hours a day it gives you a lot of time to reflect, to think, to play games on your blackberry, to read the paper, to do work, and to look at people
If I take a moment to break each of these down they play out something like this…
You get to the train station after dropping your boys off at school. You had hyperinteraction in the 40 minutes leading up to getting to this train. You need to help get the boys dressed, out the door, into their mini classrooms, kiss them goodbye, knock on the window, and drive to the train. Get a parking spot in the lot near the train, or sneak a spot, or park far away and walk.
But then you get to the platform.
No one talks.
There is a lot of looking ahead. A lot of peering down the tracks because after all, if you do, the train will come, or at least it will come faster.
If you are like me you take joy in the small victories in life. So you rejoice that you know almost exactly where to stand to get on a train first. Is this important? Not even in the slightest. But if it’s your only victory in the day then perhaps in the completely neverchanging days/weeks/months it is important. Can being the first person on a train give you just a moment of joy to start your day in a positive way? I only hope not, but it has happened.
Now on the train.
I like to read the paper in the morning. I always have. And when I say always I guess I mean for as long as I have read the paper I have read it in the morning. I look forward to it. I read the sports first. Living second. And then depending on what’s happening the rest. I do read the comics. Last. Always last.
I don’t usually take much time to look around. I don’t even usually use my Ipod. I just read. When I am done I usually am hit by the fact that I have another 20-30 minutes until I get into town. So it used to be I’d fiddle with my treo, then it was the Q, and now the blackberry. Yup – look at me. I have a new smaller than yours and faster than your phone.
I used to play breakout. I used to play some game on the q that required me to click on colored dots. I tried to play Lingo. I thought I could crush the world in blackjack, and I even wanted to really like soduko. In the end playing games on a fucking phone for an hour of one’s day is about as miserable an existence as I could think of having. I mean seriously- isn’t there anything else to do with one’s time? Playing games with my thumbs for hours over the course of a week.
I played that aforementioned dot game over 2500 times in less than 6 months. I’d play that game at the last stop before my stop heading home. I’d play it sitting outside a store waiting for my wife. I’d play it on the crapper.
Are you kidding me. You have to do a little more with life than play mobile video games on the crapper!!
I make no bones about this blog. It is selfish. I have no idea if I will still be writing this in a week but I hope so because somehow I believe that writing may be a better outlet than playing handheld video games and getting some form of carpal tunnel in my thumbs.
Honestly, my thumbs can hit a rollerball in such a way as to put backspin on a ball on a game called Brickbreaker. Yes, backspin, on a paddled ball on a screen game. I am trying to think of the possible practical applications of this.
There is always the chance that at some poijnt in my life while in the defense bomb shelter I will be called upon to stop a nuclear warhead due to my skill in maneuvering a trackball over a maze and if I get through the maze in enough time I will stop the warhead from hitting some small town in Spain which will prevent an explosion the likes of which has never been seen that would have caused Portugal to become an island. So abandoning this skill developed with hours and hours of ubertracball work may come back to haunt me.and the people of Portugal, but it’s a risk I am willing to take.
Work on the train. Yes, I’ve done it. I try to email people on the train because I think there are better ways to spend your work day than replying to emails. So if you don’t get emails from me until 6:20 at night, marvel at how late I am working, but really just realize that email has become more of a burden than I ever expected. I take no joy in 100 emails in my inbox, and I take no joy in sifting through them. I can not express how many times I have told staff to pick up a phone or actually go and see someone.
Email is no longer humorous. I remember writing emails 12+ years ago that were aimed at unwitty ex friends who sent mass emails with some dream of being funny, witty, perverse, or liked. Sadly, I fell into the roll of being the bigger dink who actually tore them a new one. How nice.
I do hope blogging gives me some sense of outlet. (The old ascot wearing nut next to me just sneezed spit onto me- no joke.)
See you soon. There is a lot to talk about.
