hello, sweet rat race...

It's amazing the change in one's mental state that can arise from something as simple as getting up in the morning, putting on LONG PANTS for the first time in 3 months and then actually DOING SOMETHING before 9:00 in the morning. I wasn't even in my car yet, and I began to feel like a human being again.

It's 8:30 in the morning and I'm on my way into the city to take care of some paperwork and whatnot. It's going to be a longer commute than I thought. The drive to the station took 25 minutes. I was expecting a little less. There are other options to explore... other stations... even a commuter BUS that goes to Manhattan from up here. This is just the first trial run.

It's weird... even though I'm on a train that starts in NY and ends in NY, I'm riding on New Jersey Transit. Which means all new ticket machines and older trains than I'm used to. But still... this feels pretty familiar... and nice... why the fuck did I ever leave NY again?

Still no movers. Last night we were tucked in to our cozy inflatable mattress, only to wake up at 2:00 AM with our asses on the floor and our feet pointing at the ceiling. Apparently the thing has sprung not only a leak, but it has some sort of rupture between the main mattress and the "foam top" - causing a giant bubble to form on top of the mattress. The bed is now not only flaccid, but roughly spherical. Which means not only another $50 that we really can't afford, but we slept on the fucking BARE FLOOR for half the night.

WHERE THE FUCK IS OUR STUFF??

I'm not going to sit here and blog for the whole ride in... I have some work I need to do. I really only have a month to get ready for classes, since we're spending the last week or so of August in California for a wedding. (Just the wife and I! Woohoo!) I'm paying the price of developing courses so weird that no textbook can possibly suit the material, so I'm assembling my own "course packets" full of readings and whatnot. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but it involves a fair bit of editing (and a little bit of writing) on my part, and it needs to be DONE by September. Well... ok... I plan on releasing the packet in 2 parts, so it only has to be HALF done. But still... I have a lot of Aristotle and Galileo to plow through.

(There is a plug over there, I can SEE it... but there is no way to reasonably plug my laptop into it without running my cord in front of the emergency exit door. I don’t suppose the conductor would look to fondly on that, would she? Stupid New Jersey.)

I sat down on the train to find a nice flyer informing me that NJ Transit is conducting random baggage checks at random stations. I know they are doing it on the NY subways as well. That should make mass transit travel EVEN MORE PLEASANT!!

Ok... work now... really...

Urban Dave is BACK, baby!