Back in the West
Just got off the train in good old Colorado. I'd rather wait to post for when I'm not so tired, but I have a feeling if I do that, I'll never actually make the post. So, in no particular order, some things from the trip:

On the train to Chicago, I was munching on some Cheez-it crackers in a bowl (this was my main form of sustinence for the past three days), and a lady walked by and said, "Awww, little snack-ums! That's the way to travel!" When she walked away, I made eye contact with another lady who was sitting across from me, and raised my eyebrows: wtf? The lady across from me raised her eyebrows in agreement: wtf.

I finished reading Anansi Boys. I read the first two thirds over Thanksgiving Break, but then finals hit. Up until the end, it was a really good book. After the end, it was a great book. Neil Gaiman is so amazing.

Which leads me to . . . after I finished Anansi Boys, I was a little bummed, because I had realized that I actually had less reading material than I had thought for my three day trip. And I was all, "Woe is me!" Then I happened upon one of those shops you get in airports and train stations, the kind that sell packs of gum and magazines and overpriced souvenirs. Usually the books in those places hold no interest for me--it's basically all romance novels and war novels. Oh, and Sudoku. I swear, I was in an airport this summer that had no less than six different Sudoku books, and not a single science fiction novel. So, anyway, I definitely didn't expect to find anything of interest, but it was worth a shot.

They had Good Omens.

Not just, "Oh, hey, an author I like!" No, this was, "Omigosh, I'vewantedtoreadthisbookforages and NOW IT'S MINE!" So, I read that all the way from D.C. to Colorado. It was also very good. I'm redoubling my determination to write over break. (Although, reading the masters like Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett can be a little discouraging . . . except, it's so good that you mostly manage to forget that you will never compare.)

But you're probably interested in things that happened that don't involve me buying geeky books. Well, when I got on my last train in Chicago, the lady sitting in front of me turned around and said, "You're awfully young to be traveling all by yourself!" I told her, actually, I was 20. She said, "Honey, you don't look it." I'm going to hope that this was because I had been wearing my hair pulled back in a French braid. But, seriously--airlines stop treating you as an unaccompanied minor when you're 15 . . . so how young did she think I was?

Taking that Biology class has altered the way I look at the world. In Virginia, there are lots of deciduous trees shedding lots and lots of nice yummy dead leaves, which decompose into nice soil, from which spring yet more deciduous trees. It's self-perpetuating. Here in the Rocky Mountains, though . . . well, okay, there's a reason they're called the Rocky Mountains. We went through a canyon that had walls of solid granite going hundreds of feet into the air. But here's the thing--there were still trees growing there. One way or another, these trees--I think they were either spruces or firs, but my bet's on spruces--managed to scrape together enough soil on this solid rock cliff face to grow. I've always been aware of how much plants out here have to worry about water, but it hadn't occurred to me until just then that just finding dirt to grow in was also so hard. Plants are pretty amazing.

There were lots and lots of small children on my car from Chicago to Colorado. Believe it or not, I enjoyed this. Kids on a train really bring things into focus for me--they're so into everything. There was a family with four kids under the age of six. Apparently their minivan had gotten hit by a careless driver in Chicago and the insurance companies were putting them through some ridiculous rigamarole. The thing is, though, they seemed like they really had things under control. I mean, if I was traveling cross country with four kids--one of them a toddler--after having my vehicle destroyed and not knowing if I'd be getting the money I needed, I'd be pretty scattered. They get lots of bonus points, even though I'll never see them again.

I need sleep. Remind me to post my list of Goals for Break sometime.