Pictures and Thoughts

A few images from the last legs of the trip:


New York knows how to do mosaics. Not a few subway stops had their names like this.

Here's a staircase at Union Theological Seminary in New York.

This was in the Boston subway, as you go down a set of stairs.

And this is something in Boston.

And now for our regularly scheduled programming:

Yesterday afternoon, my friend Peter called me while I was driving from one assignment/meeting to another. I stopped at a coffee shop, partly to avoid talking and driving at the same time and partly because it wasn't yet time for my next thing. I sat in the parking lot talking to him for a few minutes, then I went in, but I didn't get very far. The place was closed, apparently for painting. So I went back to my car and turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened. I wiggled the steering wheel. I tried it with my foot on the brake. I took the key out of the ignition, got out of the car, and got back in. Still nothing. So I called AAA and called the person I was supposed to meet. Took out my Harris Teeter bags and laid them on the ground so I could sit there and read. It was a nice day to be out of doors.

The nice man came and jumped the car, and I got home without a problem. But when I got here, it wouldn't start again. So I asked my roommate what one does in this situation, called Mom and Dad, and made a last-minute semi-appointment at the Honda place for this morning. So much for the day of mellow productivity I had planned for today. It wasn't so bad, though; I took my reading material, drank their free coffee, and got a new car battery. Afterward, I went to the grocery store and stocked up for just a little over half the full price, all told. Love it! It's super double coupon week.

I made some granola this afternoon for the first time in a long time. Got some reading done, and now after a little primping I'll be ready to go to an oyster roast, more for the company than for the bivalves.

I missed posting yesterday, due to nothing but neglicence. And car trouble. So let me say now that thesis readings are the best things in the world, and our creative writing program attracts brilliant, funny, big-hearted people and turns them out even better. What a privilege. I heard on Thursday night about a sketchy hitchhiking incident, a snow-and-ice rescue, a mob burning the home of a black woman for dating a white man, a southern boy's meeting with the Russian grad student who's running the psychology experiment he's part of, and two girls who are maybe in love in the midwestern winter when one of them gets involved with a paraplegic man. Where else can you get all that in one night, and so well done? Thank you, readers, writers, for sharing your talent and joy.