“Once again, we apologize for the inconvenience…”

I’ve had ants in my pants for a week. Well, a couple of weeks. Okay, let’s face it, it’s been the whole second semester. In the past few days I’ve developed a love for that expression—“ants in my pants.” I think it has something to do with my nasal Long Island iteration of the assonance: I have eyants in my pyants. Also it reminds me that “pants” in England means “underpants.” (Ooh!) So anyway, I’ve been squirmy, restless, itchy, whatever you want to call it… No visitors to the Writing Center? I’m over it. The uninhabitable desert that is Match.com? Done. Office drama? As old as last week’s mystery Tupperware in the department fridge. Ugly Betty reruns? I’d rather read Dostoevsky. Sitting around my desk, twiddling my thumbs, and waiting for graduation? Get me the hell outta Dodge!

In my head I’ve processed all of this, Wonder Bread over processed, probably. I’m bored; I have emotional ADD. But regardless of how I diagnose my petty whining, I’m already excited that I have no clear and definite picture of what the next few days, hours, weeks will bring, or what my re-entry to Long Island will be like. It’s unpredictable and exciting, and the fact that I am sitting in pitch black on an already-delayed train does not make that any worse. (That should wear off in about 13 seconds.) Remind me why I didn’t fly?

So anyway…it’s 6:29 p.m. on the 6:20 Amtrak train to Baltimore. We’re currently reversing back into Penn Station. Seriously. The train is going in reverse. Not only did I have to elbow my way to a seat, hoisting my luggage overhead (thank you, Yves, for all those reps with the Bosu), but we are already delayed. I mean, we actually got about two feet out of Penn before we had to backtrack. At least they apologize for the inconvenience.

Alas…no lights, no AC. Just the glow of my laptop as a beacon of hope to southwestern sunsets to come. And unfortunately, in the crush to board, I left my headphones and books in my backpack, which I can only access by o’erleaping the middle aged gentleman currently snoozing to my right.

More from Tennessee.

PS—6:41 and counting.

Road Trip Haiku #1: Seacaucus, New Jersey

Factory ruins—
an ancient fort, summer’s haze,
shore birds in still waters.

Road Trip Haiku #2: Seacaucus remix

An egret’s white neck
A yellow summer evening
Brown windows like broken teeth