Delay.

I’m reading a book about a porn star and artist. Each time I stop I close the book and admire the thick portion that I have already gone through and how this is my 4^th book in three weeks. I am back in action.  Inaction. The regular shuttle to car trip is taking an hour of more longer than usual. I have a book and a iPhone and a wireless card and an untouched Guardian yet I am bored. I hear a guy say he’s going to be late to his son’s first soccer game.  “What can you do?” He says this in a happy way, uplifting even, maybe he doesn’t mind missing the first half, maybe he prefers this adult conversation with random Caltrain riders maybe he prefers this to talking with soccer moms and dads, maybe he prefers this delay. I do not. I hear the speakers of an iPod 3 rows ahead of me and recognize it is Gwen Stefani and remember hearing No Doubt on the car ride to the station this morning as I sat parked behind a street sweeper and its entourage of lighted trucks. So I guess my day started with a delay and No Doubt and now is ending with even more delays and Gwen Stefani, this is much mush worse. I’m reading about sick things and enjoying the tone and style of the writing I begin to feel I’m learning more and more about myself each day and with each good book choice I make. The train conductors voice sounds like any of the men or women whom the Today Show recognizes for turning a century old.  He sounds at least a century old and he tells us that instead of being a bullet train that this train will stop at each and every one. I swear he said there are 59.  The guy talking, the one with the son's game to go to sounds really, really happy. He’s talking about baseball and help-desk tickets, what could be more fun? The girl behind me is reading the Fountainhead for the second time and she says she appreciates it even more this go-round. I don’t know why but I’ve always used Ayn Rand as one of my many litmus tests for people.  If you like Ayn Rand then you are stupid and therefore banished from my world. Turns out my world is getting smaller by the day. My little cousin is a Scientologist in a text message she tells me "there are things you will not understand." The man sitting next to the Rand woman asks her what she does she says she works for a tobacco company (I didn’t know there were any around here) go figure.  Guess everyone on this train doesn’t work for an internet company. I am typing on this embarrassing piece of company issued machinery called Dell. It is ugly and utilitarian much like Rand’s writing. Happy guy gets off the phone with his wife and it turns out she's running late too. His happiness is fading he says, “this is the worst train ever. One time I was stuck on the train for three hours.” I am not worried. I have a book and an iPod and a wireless card and people to text and games on my phone and an untouched Guardian and gum.  I can last here for awhile.