It's been a while since I've been on the train. Y'see, I started a Spanish class at De Anza College last week, and the class keeps me and my car in the South Bay two evenings a week.

I take the train on Mondays, but Tuesdays I drive down so I'll have my car to take me to class after work, then I crash at Rick and Ammy's place in the South Bay, and it's a blessedly short commute to the 'Hoo Wednesday morning. Wednesday evening the lure of my own bed drives me home, then it's back in the car to drive back down Thursday morning, class Thursday night, and back home. On the weeks when I can't telecommute Friday I'll probably take advantage of Ammy and Rick's hospitality again Thursday night. All in all it means only one day on Amtrak a week, and I can tell you that I miss the time cut off from the net.

In Douglas Coupland's book, Microserfs, the tiny group of hardcore programmers on a deadline would frequently code in their garage for 16 hours straight. They would refer to a stint like that 'flying to Australia' because that's roughly how long you'd have to sit on a plane to make the journey. "What'd you do this weekend?" "I flew to Australia twice. I could really use some downtime... and a couple Redbulls if ya got em."

Sitting on the train, getting into the writing groove that's enabled me to start telling so many of the stories in me, quite often I'm on the train, approaching my stop, and wishing I could just stay on the train, venturing on to Davis, Sacramento, Truckee, wherever. So long as I could sit in this seat where the words flow freer than behind any desk, watching the world go by outside when I should need a few moments of inspiration.

Listening to whatever comes up on the iPod's random shuffle and superimposing it over whatever is speeding past the window provides a wellspring of ideas. Unfocusing slightly and looking at the road paralleling the tracks while listening to REM's "Star Me Kitten" I can dip easily into childhood nostalgia to a depth impossible when surrounded by all the things that represent the now, be it a home, office, or car.

Time exerts itself less heavily around train tracks; consequently there exists the constant allure of starting out the window into anywhen.

Right now I'm about 10 minutes from my stop in Oakland, but I wish I could write all night. I've tried coding on the train, I've tried reading, and I've taken (this morning as a rare example) the occasional train nap. I never feel so at home as when I simply write, and there's no place else where writing feels so free.

I know precisely why this is, but that's a story for another telling. The point is that, for the next couple months, there will be a little less storytelling, parabalizing, and ranting. The class ends in June and time will flow like the sands after that. In the meantime, expect daily updates, but perhaps of the shorter variety, save for monday spews like this one.

Expect also an upswing in the work tempo of the pantheon of unfinished projects*. Underblog, Metacookie, Qwer and Randompixel will all get their turn as debutante before the Summer is out, not to mention Fury 4.0, which is already well underway...

Well, this is my stop! I'd love to write more but (now) you know how it is...