One of my favorite times of the day, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, is the last 10 minutes of my workout session. This may sound totally retarded, but whatever. I endearingly refer to those 10 minutes as, “nap-time.” After 30-90 minutes of running, then a 60 minute workout, I get to just lay there on a massage table, with ice packs on my knees. It is so amazing.

I’m not one of those guys who works out with the blackberry in-hand. So gym-time is already kind of sacrosanct, in the sense that I’m “off the grid,” as it were. So, I totally love those last 10 minutes, where I can just let my mind drift, and veg-out, before showering and getting back to the inevitable inbox buildup that has accumulated.

Today particularly, I was realizing how much I appreciate my 10 minutes of solitude. During nap-time, today, I got to thinking how much I appreciate the small things generally, when things get particularly hectic in my life. For example, I love the re-designed tab on Orbit gum. It is now so much easier to close the flap.

I love it when Reagan sneaks some cookies into my backpack, in the morning, while I’m in the shower. I love it when I come down the last set of subway stairs right as the train is pulling up. I really think that is the kind of stuff that keeps me going. Anyway, sorry to get all pensive. I just thought I would share.

A lot of the time, commuting sucks. Especially when going all of the way from one end of the island, to the other, twice a day. This morning, for example, I needed to be in a bit early. So I made sure to get out the door at a reasonable hour. My efforts were, however, thwarted by a tunnel fire, which caused my train to sit idle on the tracks for nearly an hour.

But there are those intermittent moments that occur in the subway, that make it not suck so bad, at all. Last night, for example, I descended the stairs at the south end of the “A” train platform, at Chambers Street, and stumbled upon the scene in the photo above. There must have been 10 of those large bags full of balloons. I was temped to go ride in the car that they got into, just to see people’s reaction. Anyway, it brightened my evening.

Since my sleep schedule has been all out of wack, I have been fighting my alarm in the mornings. This morning was the first time in 2 weeks that I have had to get up early to move the car. I took advantage of the fact that I was awake, and got a lot done this morning. Including, coming into work early, to get a head start of a huge pile of rubbish that I will probably get trumped by something else, then firedrilled back to life at an inopportune time, if I don’t get it out of the way.  Anyway, like most people in this town, my headphones are part of my standard commuting gear. I always have them on, and turned up pretty loud. It helps drown out loud talkers, people arguing over getting shoved, etc. But occasionally, not having audible sensory of ambient noises can prove to be embarrassing. The combination of coming in early, and having headphones turned up, caused one such embarrassing moment for me, this morning. My daily alarm is generally set for 7:30, or 8 (I use G-calendar updates to wake me up for moving the car), and it is this really cheesy tune called “Eurotrance.” Chances are you also have a blackberry and know this tune. If you don’t have a blackberry, or haven’t heard this tune, the name accurately conveys the essence of the tune. Yeah, pretty fruity. Anyway, I got on the train this morning around 7:45, the alarm was set for 8. I arrived at work a little after 8:30 and didn’t notice that my alarm had been going off, until I got into my office and took out my headphones. That’s right, I was walking around [completely oblivious to the fact that I was] audibly blasting Eurotrance [for the benefit of my headphone-less fellow commuters]  for over 30 minutes this morning. Sweet.

Other goings ons:

-I have a mountain of reading to do right now. I’m currently reading Robert Hamburger’s new book, and TSAR, both which I received for Christmas. On deck I have 2 David McCullough books, one which I received in the mail yesterday from my dad (1776) and the other, which was given to me by one of our secretaries (John Adams) when he saw 1776 on my desk and assured me that I would also like John Adams. I can’t wait to read them all.

-Because of the books I listed above, I am about 2 issues behind on GQ and the rest of the men’s magazines. Was there anything good in the Jennifer Anisten (SP?) or Lebron James issues?

-Reagan and I are about to have an anniversary and I haven’t even planned anything for it. Ideas?

I was reading GQ this morning and I read a little blurb about Lil’ Wayne, that confirmed my embarrassment of our country for liking him so much. I feel like it is finally wa(y)ning (waaaaaaaaaaahhhhh! like the pun?) now. But, I swear, for a while, there you could not listen to a hiphop station, without hearing his disgusting voice, like every other song. I know that I get a little bit out of control when I talk about how much I dislike Weezy.

I know that there are much more worthy outlets for my time and energy, but LOOK AT HIM! It is not ‘93, no one wears their pants like that! You aren’t gangster! You look like a gremlin wearing grownup clothes. “But he is talented,” some say. Noooo, not really. In fact, not at all. He doesn’t have anything unique about his flow, and that voice. Are you kidding me? It sounds like a constipated muppet. Did you see him attempt to play the guitar while performing on SNL?

So, that was a pretty healthy rant, I know. But, back to the GQ article. It said that LIl’ Wayne (and Kanye [big surprise]), uses a computer program after he records, to change the pitch of his voice, so that it vaguely matches the tone of the background track.

Sorry to be so negative, I just had to get that out.

Reagan and I watched another documentary about “street art” last night. It is called “Bomb it.” It was pretty cool. I have to say that foreign graffiti writers seem to be a lot cooler than the ones in the states. The Americans they talked to all seemed like a bunch of total losers, except Shepard Fairey (who only marginally counts as a graffiti writer). Anyway, check it out if you are interested in that sort of thing. Be forewarned that there is a lot of crude language from the Americans.

Speaking of graffiti writing, I loved this picture today from Animalnewyork. Which reminded me that there were MTA workers handing out survey cards at my stop this morning. The card said that you could also fill out the “Rider Report Card” online at www.mta.info. This is true, but only after diligently searching the site for over 10 minutes, was I able to locate the survey page. Here it is, for those who would also like to participate. I hope that on the next report card, there is a box to rate the MTAs fiscal accountability.

On the train this morning I saw some kids dressed up like freaks, on their way to school. It made me miss the good old days. In grade school, even though we still had to go to school on Halloween, it was like a freebie day. We never had to do any work. We would wear our costumes to school. Generally there would be a parade around through all of the classrooms, so you could check out all of the costumes. Then we would go back to home room, eat some cupcakes/candy, drink witch’s brew and watch Legend of Sleepy Hollow, or Watcher in the Woods. That is exactly what I wish I could be doing today. Hanging out with my friends, all dressed up like freaks, watching the adventures Ichabod and gang. And they say that pagan holidays are meaningless.

I received a flu shot today. My firm offers them for free, every fall. I know that they are somewhat controversial. I have heard all kinds of bad things about them by flu shot opponents. Here is some particularly spicy propaganda from a flu shot opponent who is a self proclaimed “Crusader for health.” I can’t really say if they work or not, from personal experience. Although I have not ever had any negative side effects from one (that I know of). Here is what the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has to say about them. I have to say that I am a little more inclined to trust the latter. I hope that it does work, because I hate being sick.

On a totally unrelated note, I was totally punked by GQ this morning on my way to work. I received the latest issue a couple of days ago. It’s the one with Jimmy Kimmel on the cover. I should have known that this would be a crap issue. I hate Jimmy Kimmel. I consider anyone that was associated with the “Man Show” to be a bit low brow. Plus you have to be kind of a freak to want to date Sarah Silverman. Anyway, I was reading through the magazine on the train. As I turned one of the pages, I discovered that there was a picture of boobs in this issue. What? I hurried and flipped the page, but not before the two ladies sitting on either side of me had also seen the boobs. How embarrassing. In their heads they were probably like, “what kind of perv brings a smut magazine to read on the train?” So, thanks a lot GQ, for making me look like some sort of unchecked nymphomaniac who has to bring adult magazines on the morning commute. I’m sure that Jim Nelson has probably already received a huge stack of letters about this issue. I plan to add mine to the stack.

It was ideal weather to be dressed up in an inflatable nylon chicken suit this morning. When I was moving the car around 6:30 this morning, it was downright brisk. I brought a cardigan with me today, just in case. I guess that yesterday Autumnal Equinox made it official, and mother nature is complying.

Returning to the topic of dressing up as a chicken, Reagan has been pitching new Halloween costume ideas on a daily basis. Why do women get so into that stuff? First she wanted to be the Cobains, then [redacted under strict instruction from Reagan]. I’m not even going to write the idea that she suggested this morning.

Finally, on an equally random note, I changed the playlist on my IPod (AKA De JPod) shuffle this morning for the first time since before the LI Marathon in May. I had been listening to those same 200 songs on a daily basis for almost 5 months now. So, I was overdue. This morning, I handpicked about 50 or so songs, then just auto-filled the rest. It is amazing what a difference it made to my morning commute. I would go as far as to say that I’m pretty excited to try out the new playlist during a run, when I start training again later this week. One more thing; For some odd reason, I have been seeing quite a bit of ad media associating middle-aged white guys with the Flaming Lips. I would like to state for the record that I am a middle-aged white guy, and I HATE strongly dislike the Flaming Lips. So, stop telling me that I should like them. Please.

When I was walking from the train to my building this morning, I came across a guy wearing a huge scarf, thick corduroy blazer and wool slacks. He was visibly sweating. It is (and was, at the time) 70 degrees outside. I know that everyone just hit all of the back to school sales and is excited to try out all of their new garb, but come on. He is not the only person that I have seen do this. It is a phenomenon that I noticed from the first fall after moving to the east coast. It almost seems like a lot of people who live here dress according to the calendar, instead of the weather forecast. So there he was sweating away, taking every opportunity that he could to check himself out in the reflective windows that we were walking past. I wanted to say “Don’t worry guy. Yes, you still look ridiculously overdressed.” Just because the kids have gone back to school does not mean that it is appropriate to wear sweaters and scarves. My advice to you, buddy, is: sit tight. Don’t worry, soon enough you will be shivering wearing that same outfit. Milk the warm weather as long as you can. Your new clothes will still be there in a couple of weeks.

This morning I was right in the front of the train. Only the kid in the picture was in front of me. It is kind of a fun spot to be in, if you can’t get a seat, because you can look out the window at the tunnel (depending on what kind of train you get). I normally like to read on the train, but the magazine that I brought today, just arrived yesterday, so it was still in the plastic, and everything. I didn’t want to go through all the hassle of unwrapping it, and having the stupid little cards falling out all over the floor as I flipped through for the first time. It’s ok though, because I took this picture. It is one that I have wanted to get for a while. It seems like usually when I get this spot, I don’t have my camera with me, or it is too packed to try to get a decent shot.

The real reason, that it was fun to have this spot, this morning, is that the train engineer try to recruit me to his MTA basketball team. Hahahahah, I haven’t played basketball in like 1,000 years. It was so funny though. I was just standing there, and the engineer door popped open and I saw that he was talking to me. At first, I thought he was asking me to move. Then I could see that he was still talking to me, so I took out my headphones. He was like, “you play ball, man?” I told him that I hadn’t played for a long time. He then told me that I should come play with the MTA guys some time, and asked me where I was getting off. I told him that I probably am not very good anymore, and that it probably wasn’t a very wise decision to try to recruit me. I also told him that I would be de-traning at Chambers. He closed his door again and went back to driving the train. About 15 minutes later, his door popped open again and he gave me this flyer about where to meet up etc., for basketball. I was cracking up. I don’t intend on playing, but I was flattered that, to someone, I gave the impression of having some sort of athletic ability. You could pretty much say that it made my morning, in the most middle-aged, white guy, pathetic type of way. Hahaha