Enjoy the humor of the situation.

Chapter 1:

So, without going into all the details, I had a good night tonight. Went to an AMAZING concert, shared it with a friend who wouldn't have been there if I hadn't told him about it. Have been in my usual self-indulgent philosophical frame of mind as a result.

Got off the subway at my office to get my stuff.

Am much more observant when I am in this state of mind, so as I walk to the office, I notice the way the buildings look at night....the way the sidewalks arc off from the normal path...an abandoned baseball cap that says, "change the world."

So I pick it up.

Turn it around.

The back says "IBM."

Does anyone else see the humor in the situation?

What if I tell you that I had to let the cap out to make it fit? I'm sure there's something deeply insightful in there about small minds, but I'll just let you figure out how to articulate it.

And in the meantime...I'm considering it a gift from God because the thunderstorms have made it suddenly cold and resulted in my having a bad hair day (as though it wasn't already bad enough).

Hey...you have your Gospel, and I've got mine. That's the beauty of interpretation.

Chapter 2:

(This is officially the first blog entry I have WRITTEN on the train, as opposed to merely COMPOSED on the train. Anyone familiar with the obsolescence of my laptop should appreciate that that imposes a severe time constraint, due to poor battery life. I even went the wrong way on the line because I was so engrossed in getting this started, so you should all be feeling really important right now - I almost didn't get home on your behalf. Seriously - I could be way the hell over on the northwest side of the GTA with NO IDEA how to get home had I not noticed the "the next station is Wellesley...Wellesley station" announcement in time.)

As I left my office, I looked up as I walked to the subway, at the same buildings I always see. But they're particularly beautiful at night, as office buildings are wont to be. Offices are never pretty by the harsh light of day, but, much like planets, they take on a whole different life at night, when they produce light, rather than consuming it. And, for the first time since I moved here, I looked up at the city, and decided it was My City. I don't care who came before me...where I may have been before this...who or what may come after...it's the Right City for me. It encompasses everything I love about DC and Chicago, everything I cherished about Lafayette and Charlottesville. It's Freakin' Huge, but feels like a Small Town when it comes down to it.

Someone, please, give me a reason to stay here.

A job?

A man?

SOMETHING.

Because I really like My City. And the idea that I've already spent almost half of my time here is feeling WAY too close and finite. If I can't stay here, I really need a reason to be somewhere else. And that ain't happening either.

Chapter 3:

I realized on the bus that I, in my "change the world" cap...with my shoes in a brown paper bag (and yes, I was wearing another pair - I'm not yet weird enough to go barefoot on public transit)...my laptop bag tucked under my seat in the customary crowded commute manner even though there were approximately 5 people on the entire bus and thus no need for space management...I had become the sort of person I normally blog about. I was officially the oddest person on the bus. But a close second was the guy across from me, a drowsy fellow who was clearly packing a well-worn copy of the Bible. But he was even more tired than I, and struggled to find a comfortable posture in which to doze on the way home.

What I wouldn't have given to have had my camera on me at that moment. Picture it: a man dozing, Bible in lap, with a movie marquee in the window behind him reading, "Knocked Up." Again, not sure I can articulate the true deliciousness that is that slice of irony.

But seriously...how many people do you know, who are returning home dead tired with a splitting headache...yet, faced with the choice between going inside and going to my warm and rather comfortable bed and curling up on the cold ground in the park across the street, choose the latter?

I couldn't help it. Venus was lookin' mighty fine. And, I think, Mars.

I am seriously odd. And I have GOT to stop reading astronomy books.