This is how the blog ends.
Not with a bang, but with a quiet goodbye.
I start a new job this September, and I'll be driving a car to get there. Not riding a train. And as we all know, you can't type and drive, unless you're an asshole. So there you have it. No more train means no more blog.
It was never really a blog, if we're being honest here. A blog is something that gets updated regularly, which this most certainly was not. It was more like a collection of rants or essays or thoughts, written as much to practice writing as they were to entertain. Ultimately I discovered that I am a social creature, drawn more to people than isolation, so inevitably I found friends on the train. The 5:25 crew. The Mt. Kisco gang of four. The Holiday Ladies from Katonah. Tripp and Maria and Andrea and John and Andy and Mark and anyone else who would have me. And these friends filled my time when writing used to, and the blog suffered.
Every single entry (except this one) was written on the train, almost always in the one hour it took me to get to or from work. There we're many ideas that never saw the big screen of my mac. How you can use the reflection in the window when its dark outside to watch people without them knowing. How the train always slows down before it gets to White Plains because its ahead of schedule. The praying man, who prays as powerfully as any man I've seen for 10 minutes every morning before he exits the train. How I take the wide, elegant air conditioned JP Morgan escalator in the morning instead of the terminal escalator because its a civilized way to begin the day. Or the topless woman I passed standing on 6th avenue last week as I dashed to catch a 4:20 afternoon train. Yes. Topless.
So after 13 years I'm trading my monthly pass for my Lexus. I will play my radio, talk on my phone, roll down my windows, eat whatever I want, sing as loudly as I want and be the commuter I could never be on the Metro North. But I will also be alone, and as much as I will enjoy my new freedoms, I will also miss my old friends.
You can take comfort in the fact that I will still have an effing commute. I will surely suffer the indignities of road rage, texting drivers, headlight flashers, flat tires, traffic jams and the rest of it. but this time I'll keep it to myself.
I knew when I started this blog that it would be a fun way to kill time. I had no idea how many of you would come along for the ride. Thank you for that, and farewell.
