Snowbound and Irate

I thought this was a brilliant idea when I planned it: take the parents to the airport, take myself to the train station, take the scenic route up to college. Stare out the window at the Atlantic coast, maybe do some writing, catch up on some reading...watch the terrain change and view it all as some meditative, contemplative 'my life is changing' sort of journey.

I'm sure Kali, Krishna and the Buddha are all snickering at me behind their hands now.

I'm not going to bitch about the screaming kids, the world's smallest sleeping room, or the way that the crap infrastructure in this country means that this whole mechanized monster rocks at just the right frequency to keep me from sleeping at night. I know, I can already hear my nonexistent readers asking: "But Bill, it's a blog! Aren't they meant to be filled with too-personal whinging about the state of the world as if you were the center of it?" And I agree, dearest reader...except if I've learned anything in this wild, wacky world of ours, it's this: complain where someone can hear you, and it'll always get worse.

So instead, I shall immortalize this rite of passage as...quaint? And trying, but all trials have to be that way or they wouldn't be doing their jobs. Besides, the food in the dining car isn't half bad, and teaching kids to play poker in the observation car has got to be one of the better ways to pass the time while you're stuck for two hours waiting for them to clear the remains of an alligator off the line. The nights are even sort of peaceful, watching the stars stand still as the world rushes past underneath them. Watching the lights of cities come and go, a glow on the horizon that's soon enough left in the wake of this iron snail leaving its mark across the surface of the world. And every city is another marker, another stepping stop taking me away from everything I grew up with, and everything I would just as gladly leave behind.

Oh, there it is. I knew the emo maudlin mess would have to come out eventually. Time to look ahead, to New England. If nothing else, I have to look at it this way: come Spring Break, I will be the guy to come to for planning a little fun in the sun. Besides, snow bunnies need to be warmed up too, right?