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    commute 2

    I am constantly consciously obsessing over physical symptoms. You know, shooting pain through my head or swirling muscle spasm in my back compounded with that weird cramp in my foot when I wake up every morning. And then there is that bump behind my ear. This morning I felt sort of dizzy and nauseas and I still had that bump behind my ear and I swear it hurt along with my throat when I woke up. I called Jonathan and explained all this to him, "Look it up", I said. He knew what I meant. It's driving me crazy. Everything is driving me crazy. every time i turn over or see the sun come up or hear a train go by in the distance as soon as I turn left on 40th I know it means the next plane overhead is dropping a bomb on the city.

    If I had a television I would blame it on that.

    Yesterday morning I had to wake up early to catch the train into the city to make my eight am class. I haven't been on time since the first week. There is something about the morning that always holds me up those fifteen extra minutes. I am always being held up. I cant figure out what I am doing all the time since its clearly not being where I am supposed to be at the appointed time. It must be the internet, or maybe all those billboards I have to walk by. If I spent less time on facebook and reading advertisements I'm sure I would be where I should be more often.

    Back to the train though.

    I love to stand in the middle of the car and look around at all the professionals in their slacks and sweaters, faces crammed in last years best sellers, and maybe one from the year before that. They have their faces in their book though, its pretty clear what they're doing. Its more intriguing to stare in the faces of those that choose to do nothing on the train. How many minutes do they spend, do you think, like that- Doing nothing. The commute to the city is 26 minutes from MacArthur, to Powell at least. If they do that commute twice a day thats 52 minutes and if you multiply that by five days in a week thats 260 minutes or 4.3 hours a week.

    I suppose not much can get accomplished in 4.33 hours a week.

    Maybe your chores.

    You can clean the house and go grocery shopping in that time .

    I suppose thats productive.

    Sometimes when I am on the train and we go under the bay my throat sort of starts to close and then I notice that swirling in my back again and realize the guy next to me smells really bad and the guy with the briefcase looks sort of suspicious and start touching behind my ear. Damnnit, there goes that shooting pain. I wonder if its weird to move to a different car.