I Work From Home and You Don't

There are always too many people milling around the station. They have time to sit around, read a newspaper, have coffee or breakfast, or wait in line to buy a magazine or a winning lottery ticket out of this rat race. Well, that is what it's all about. I mean we all want to get out of this rat race. 

We know the rats are winning. Remember that ugly blue-striped building? We go to work every day so we can some day stay home and not go to work. There are plenty of good jobs in the city, plenty for us to leave when we get tired of the crowds, the endless walks, the broken sidewalks, tripping potholes, sudden-stopping tourists, Bible spouting commuters. 

If we look long enough we'll see Murray the groundhog frolicking in the safe zone under the catenary wires. Murray is fat, dumb and happy. He doesn't have to commute to work in the city. Neither these days does Proud Mary, nor I. I write from home.... 

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Life is the New Jersey Turnpike

I guess if anybody would know, it's the folks at AARP The Magazine.

The group's July & August 2007 issue has a story on Things To Know By 50.

Number 42 is How To Stay Married.

This article in "the world's largest circulation magazine" instructs poets to "pretend your relationship (marriage) is a road trip. Your wedding was the Holland Tunnel. Your life is the New Jersey Turnpike. Death is Philadelpia. Pretend there are no exits, only rest stops."

I've actually been to Philadelphia and I don't think it's that bad.

Now, if the Turnpike is your life, ugh, perish the thought, that might explain why so many hapless commuters drive so fast to get to Philadelphia!

The Holland Tunnel a wedding. I've been in that tunnel, and the tiles and the fumes were intoxicating, but but not in a wedding way.

I know I'll never make it as a poet now. I can't "pretend there are no exits, only rest stops."

All I can think of is going home at the end of a long day.

I thank God when it's Friday.