Blood on the Amtrak

These short days and long nights are all right. The sun goes down--'goes down'? too Christina Aguilera--the sun 'sets' rather, a little after five. Since I make such a muck of them, it's best that my days are as short as possible.

Like Alicia Bridges, I too 'love the nightlife.' Perhaps in a slightly different way. Not so much because 'I got to boogie, on the disco 'round, oh yeah.' But I do like how the previously daytime hours are now steeped in darkness. Six-thirty's now a little bit sexy.

On these longer winter nights I bring out the telescope. It's a big, clunky, orange affair bearing the name 'Celestron,' which I can only say in a robot voice. It dates to the 1950s when my Grandpa probably bought it to catch a glimpse of Sputnik, or Laika, that dog shot into space by the Soviets. I look at the shadows cast on Jupiter by its moons. Or I train the telescope on a seemingly empty patch of sky then look through the eyepiece to see the galaxy as busy as swamp water under a microscope. I like the liberating feeling of insignificance I get staring at such infinity. George Bush is just an random tangle of molecules that will disassemble soon enough.

Uh. Ground control to Major Tom. I'm back. I'll be going to Chicago Monday. Biznass and pleasure. When through with the biznasty, I'll see Priya. See her? I'll be staying with her. There's a Chinese dish that describes what I'm feeling. Ah, yes, 'Double Happiness.'

So best: I'm taking the train. There's a certain 1830's-to late 1950's romance about that. If my life were directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet I would have a saucy French bob haircut and would spend my spare time hanging out at the station, running after trains, saying tearful goodbyes to perfect and grateful strangers.

I love me the Amtrak. It's perpetually dying, hemorrhaging public money. The bete noir of conservatives, the St. Sebastian of, well, maybe only me. State subsidized inefficiency on a national scale? This is as close as I'll be getting to a vacation in Spain for a little while. And there's the fact that every time someone actually pays to ride Amtrak--or use public transportation of any sort except rickshaws--Tom Delay cries.

Then a job interview on Wednesday. The last time I interviewed for a job I spied written on my evaluator's form: 'He's articulate, but nerdy.' I took that as a compliment. Though since the woman who wrote it was inordinately into the March Madness of NCAA basketball, I doubt she intended it that way.