time oft stretched

Jan’s Story, Barry Petersen

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel, Rolf Potts

Both worth reading, but I need some fiction!

When I lived in New York City three summers ago, I kind of enjoyed seeing rats out in Union Square and on subway tracks [when I was little, I really liked rats.  My mom wouldn’t let me have one so I got a mouse instead, which is pretty much just a smaller rat.  Rest in peace, Sir Macintosh].  Sometimes they scamper around Dupont and I’m still not that mad about it.

On Sunday when I saw a rat run out in front of me on the sidewalk in Chelsea, I didn’t panic but sort of went “awww” as my companion instantly thought I was totally weird, which led to a conversation about how I (clearly) think they’re adorable.

Then I’m reading the New York Times today and I come across an article with the following headline:

I don’t know about you, but that’s the cutest headline ever.  It goes on to make such adorable comments as “rodent jamboree” and “rat restaurant” when referring to a garbage room in the subway, and then makes reference to rats with high blood pressure not liking to ride subway trains.

NYT then went even further and invited readers to send in pictures of NYC subway rats.  You can tell which side I’m on in this war (and which side the author of the article happens to inhabit).

I made a comment over the winter to the effect that the Biggest Loser obviously had some deal with the DC Metro system to make America stop being so obese.  The Dupont Circle metro station boasts one of the longest escalators known to history (I actually think it might hold some record), and at some point in January, the escalators simply weren’t running. That’s fine, since there are two exits to this metro station, but you swipe your card out of the station before you can scope your terrible fate. So you’re left walking up a bajillion nausea-inducing metallic stairs.

I thought to myself that this would be a great way to force America to get some well-needed exercise, and then forgot about it.

Until today.  I metroed all over DC.  All the up escalators are out.  Unlike the winter, however, not ALL of the escalators were useless.  The down escalators were working fine.  It is my well-founded belief that all it takes is a flick of a switch to turn the direction so that people can use, oh, I don’t know, gravity to get down stairs and have some help getting up.

But no. 

In summation, the Biggest Loser is conspiring with the DC Metro to force DC residents to work their muscles.

And to those who at this point would like to quote the great Mitch Hedberg with his great “Escalator temporarily stairs, sorry for the convenience” line, you try walking up 231 steps and try to tell me it’s not an inconvenience.

I’m taking a year off from school, having deferred my acceptance from law school until the fall of 2011.  This is…uncharacteristic, but I’d like to see some things before all I’m seeing is cases, cases, and more cases.

I want to travel, I want to follow up with things I care about.  Music.  Art.  The earth.  Innocent people in prison.  Photos.

Thus my plan is to work until January, then go check out the planet.  This is obviously a pretty sweet plan, but unfortunately my options look something like this:

And, like, the world’s a lot to handle.

So narrowing down reasonable itineraries is going to be a challenge (yes, I know, the best challenge ever, but a challenge nonetheless), and until then I will be a productive, contributing member of society.

Throughout this period I’m living in Dupont Circle, DC.  So if you’re thinking that you won’t hear any exotic stories about strange things people do until I fly out to Asia, you’re probably wrong, because people do strange things here constantly.

To that end, last summer I came up with this blog idea called “On the Circle,” detailing those exact strange things that went on, then I figured when I move to Boston I can change the name to “On the Charles” so the acronym can remain, though honestly, I just can’t imagine that there will be much weird stuff going on On the Charles.  Oh, Sperrys and polos with popped collars.  ………weird.