Some plans just don't pan out. Yesterday morning's plan was to finish a book on the train, but I couldn't negotiate the words quick enough and had five pages left by the time we reached the station. My brain had been flooring the accelerator, but my eyes couldn't go any faster.

Books are like roads. Some are nicely paved with gentle grades, providing a smooth, safe ride for the reader. Yesterday's novel was such a road, but my eyes lacked the horsepower to pick up the pace. Other books are littered with potholes that make the literary journey bumpy and somewhat difficult. Still others simply have a massive boulder sitting in the middle of them, in which case, it's probably best to backtrack and choose an alternate route, since packing a book with explosive charges and blowing it up isn't really an option.

While on the train, I noticed an inordinate number of people snoozing. The entire lower level was out cold. It was just bizarre and felt like something out of The Outer Limits.

I'm accustomed to taking the late train where people are awake and avoid social contact by absorbing themselves in books or newspapers. I'm not used to the early train where people apparently catch up on the sleep they lost in order to avoid the late train. It then occurred to me that I might be the only person not sleeping. I suddenly felt like the chump who everybody volunteers to stand watch at night and raise the alarm if any bears or wild squirrels enter camp.

To wrap this up, I'll end with a quote I quite liked from Guards! Guards!, the book I finally finished during my brief lunch break yesterday.

"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides."
- Lord Vetinari to Captain Vimes, page 337.