And the servings are so small.

I am tired of this sedate and reticent posting schedule. It makes me feel that the posts I do make have to meet some minimum level of wit or significance, and this is not a plausible goal. So, away with wit! Down with significance! Up with frequency! Blather forever!

We are going out of town for part of August, and then people are visiting us, and then other people are visiting us and so on ad infinitum, so there are bound to be gaps in transmission, but let's see what we can do.

Since we last spoke, you and I, I went to Boston and attended a conference. While I was there, I discovered that it is VERY HOT in places where people have been complaining of the GREAT HEAT lately. Shocking but true. I also discovered that it is extremely possible to get brain-meltingly plastered from a mere two drinks in a hotel bar, which is frankly one of the last places I would expect such a thing to happen, but there it is. 

The next day, when all my responsibilities had been discharged, I went out into the GREAT HEAT and had a splendid evening with lovely people. On the way to the lovely people, I had the honor of sharing a subway car with a man who was not pleased that the train was not moving more quickly.

"This is not a professional subway. This is a terrible, amateur subway," he mourned. "A terrible, amateur subway."

As the ride went on, he warmed to his subject. "WAKE UP, PEOPLE!" he boomed. "Wake up from your sheeplike lives! This is NOT RIGHT. This is a terrible! Amateur! Subway!"

I am not sure what he wanted the rest of us to do about it, but point certainly noted. Take some inititiative and learn how to run a major urban public transit network, I guess.

Later someone told me that the T is sometimes delayed because the tracks catch on fire in hot weather. Can this be true? How does this work? Maybe the tracks themselves, being metal, get extraordinarily hot in the anvil of the sun, and then detritus on those tracks catches fire? Although a few smoldering coffee cups does not sound like enough reason to stop an entire subway train. ("That's my point exactly! Wake up, sheeple!") 

See you tomorrow. If you know anything more about this burning track business, I would love to hear about it.

Comments

[Drew]

Honestly, the T's operating hours are pretty amateur subway. Midnight? Are you fucking kidding me?

[your friend whose google plus account was deleted]

YAY! I endorse more frequent & more careless posts!

The T seems so clean it's like a model toy subway. I'm struck by that every time I visit.

Regarding amateurishness - even the New York trains are not "professional" enough to galumph obliviously over flaming litter. I think your fellow passenger may have had unrealistic expectations.

[Ray Davis]

The T's problem is cronyism rather than amateurishness. A sweetheart deal with the New England whaling industry resulted in the legal requirement that all rail tracks within the commonwealth be lubricated with spermaceti. As a result, in VERY HOT weather the trains have to travel over what's effectively one long high-efficiency oil lamp.

[aleza]

Amatuer subway indeed! I say, having grown up in Boston, now living in New York.

In reference to track fires, I offer you this memorable ad from the MTA a few years ago, which indeed blames track fires on litter: http://iwantpink.blogspot.com/2007/06/i-mean-im-no-grammar-genious-but-im.html

[redfox]

You wonderful people DO know about this burning track business! Bless you. (No doubt the combination of litter and spermaceti is positively explosive.) And I kind of love that run-on sentence advertisement, exactly as it is.