Ten Random Thoughts on a Train

10. What is that Amtrak? I have to clear my things off the seat next to me because a lot of people are getting on at Union Station? But I just GOT my own seat. Here at Union Station. You know, when you stopped TWENTY MINUTES ago and turned off all the lights so that I couldn’t read and my computer died because you also turned off the electricity? I must try to look really menacing, and then no one will sit with me, and my iPod can have its own seat back, as it so rightly deserves.

9. I killed a Brown Recluse Spider this morning just outside my parents’ garage. I knew it was a Brown Recluse right away, even though I had never seen one before, because of the suspicious way that it kept staring at me. All shifty-like. I killed it with a shoe. Not my shoe, because my shoe was a sandal and I was wearing it and I was pretty sure that if I tried to just step on the silly creature, it would dart out from under my shoe with a quickness known only to superheroes and venomous spiders, then leap onto my foot and inject me with its foul venom. So I used a shoe that I found in the garage (Why am I finding shoes in my parents’ otherwise very neat garage? I don’ t know, but thank goodness, right?). I could have DIED. But I didn’t. No one else (Aaron) seems to appreciate the horrendous amount of danger I was in, and how brave I was.


8. It is waaaaaaaay past my bedtime, folks. But we have miles to go before we sleep (well, before I do, anyway. I don’t sleep on public transportation). Assuming we ever leave Union Station. (They’ve turned on the electricity, though. It’s a step).


7. Okay, so I like Lady Gaga’s music. I find her videos highly entertaining as well. So what? Make fun of me, and I will attack you with this Brown Recluse-venom-coated-shoe (no I won’t. It’s hundreds of miles away back in Newport News). I am going to listen to Bad Romance over and over for awhile, I think. So Aaron, when the traitorous iTunes tells you that the song has been listened to 107 times since being uploaded this morning—thbbt. I am 30 years old and can have bad music taste if I want.


6. Holy cow. A man of rather largish proportions and a sweaty countenance almost sat next to me. A young, slim girl slipped by him as he went to hoist his suitcase up, though, and took the seat instead. Thank goodness. I think I shall thank her by not listening to Bad Romance 107 times after all. Or at least listen to other things in between occasionally. (I don’t know for sure that she can hear my headphones, but I always assume that everyone can).


5. I started my new job as a TCIS (Technology Curriculum Integration Specialist. Duh). I still work for the Newport News Public Schools, but I no longer have to do report cards! Instead, I get to help 50 other teachers do theirs when they run into tech issues. Ha! No, really, it’s great so far. Overwhelming because I’m trying to learn so much in a short amount of time. I also work at two schools now. I’m still at my old school, Lee Hall Elementary, but now I’m split between there and Yates Elementary. My new job is basically helping teachers, well, integrate technology into their curriculum. I work with students doing model lessons, but my main job is to teach teachers how to teach technology to their students. Get it? Trying to move teachers beyond just, “Here’s a PowerPoint on the Civil War that we can all look at together!” to “Let’s all work together to create a PowerPoint on the Civil War!”


4. The man who almost sat with me is now talking loudly on his cell phone! Bullet totally dodged. Thank you fabulous girl who sat next to me instead! Of COURSE I can plug your Mac into the outlet. Do you want to be my new BFF? I enjoy shopping and know far too much about Sesame Street.



3. Ten thoughts really seems like a lot.


2. Aaron & Eamon left me. Well, not PERMANENTLY, obviously. See, months and months ago we had planned to visit Aaron’s sister Meredith, her husband Marty, and their two kids Elise and Lucas this week in Philadelphia. But then I got a new job that started August 1. And it somehow seemed sort of wrong to be like, “Hey, thanks for giving me this job over your dozens of other applicants, and by the way, can I have the second week off?” So, Aaron and Eamon went up on Tuesday, as planned, and here I am, riding a train that should arrive at 11:59 PM on Thursday to meet them.


1. That means that I had TWO DAYS all by myself to be cool and hip and single once again. I shall tell you all a secret. See, some of you reading this might be single, or not have kids. And sometimes you update your Facebook statuses to say things like, “Slept in until 1:00PM today LOL” or “Made (really complicated but tasty dish) and plan to open a great bottle of wine and then read a really good book” and sometimes? Sometimes, I am a teensy, weensy, tiny bit jealous when I read those and think that I have already been up for 7 hours and feel really proud because I am planning to cook TACOS before watching Wipeout and then passing out at about 8PM. So, with my 2 glorious days of no one else around the house…no obligations…nothing but free time and free space…would you like to know what I did?


I made graphs. Of student SOL test data. In Excel. While rewatching True Blood on HBO.


Because without Eamon and Aaron?


I’m kind of a boring workaholic.


Which is why I’m on a train at 10:15PM, hours past my bedtime, speeding towards Philadelphia.


I don’t think I can get there fast enough.