I'm sitting here in Kate's living room, me and Kate and Colleen, and Kate's at her computer and Colleen and I are both at our laptops. Mostly all you can hear is the sound of keys tapping, interspersed with people cooing at Kate's new kitten.

It's a hen party in the new Millennium.

So yesterday I went to work early, so that I could leave early and come to Philly for the Great Girly Weekend.

Because Kate doesn't live is an dorm or anything and doesn't have hundreds of pillows and blankets and things, I brought my quilt and a pillow in a garbage bag. I looked completely and totally homeless, dragging my bedding around like it's a bag of cans or something.

Whenever anyone at work would ask me about what the big bag of blankets was all about, I'd tell them that I was running away from home.

I decided to take the 6.11p train to Trenton, which meant rush-hour city.

Walking from work with the new guy, he said that since it was Rosh Hashana, that most people would be leaving early so it shouldn't be too crowded. Ha ha ho. It was just completely ridiculous, this wall of people trying to funnel down to track 9 in the 30 seconds before the train left.

I passed a guy who was standing more or less entirely in the way, who said "The problem with this train is that it holds too many people." Yeah, buddy, that's the problem with the train. You have such vision.

I got my ass into a seat, thank goodness, but it was in the middle of a seat of three, nobody's first choice of seating arrangements. It's not such a long trip to Trenton, though, and the guy by the window got off about halfway there, so I got to look out at least part of the sunset.

At Trenton I switched to the Septa, that again was just packed to the gills. Is nobody Jewish? What up with that? The train announcements were not noted for their clarity and promptness, though, because I had to get off at Suburban and I didn't hear a word about Suburban until we were pulling away from a station and they announced "Next stop, 30th St!"

Which is the stop after Suburban. Sigh.

Fortunately, I was totally looking at the wrong schedule when I told Kate when I'd be there, because it was way earlier than that, leaving plenty of time to get off at 30th and turn around and go back. Christ only knows why I bought a ticket at 30th, because they sell tickets on the train, and the conductor never asked for them, so that was $3 pissed away. But I hadn't had to pay for a ticket from Trenton, because I used the round trip ticket that Tracing had forced me to buy the last time we came out, and then got a lift to Trenton. If there is no discount, never buy the round trip, baby.

Got out at Suburban, which is just the Purgatory of train stations.

It is grim and beige and sad and filled with corridors and dimly lit hallways leading to the unknown. I sort of stood in what could have been the middle of the station and could have been the middle of nowhere and twirled around, trying to see if Kate was anywhere near.

Was I waiting in the right place? Why hadn't we arranged for a place to meet? I called her house and got Melissa, who said that Kate was on her way. I told her that if Kate called to say that she couldn't find me, that I was in Section A. If that meant anything to her.

I finally saw a sign saying "Suburban Station--left of SEPTA Office", which was some distance away. "Am I not in Suburban Station?" I thought, "Maybe they let me off in some wing near the staion, but not the station itself--the unfashionable area." The bit where I really fit in, carrying my quilt and pillow in a garbage bag.

So I walked towards the SEPTA office, and ran into Kate, just coming in. She took my garbage bag and led me out of the station. And I realized why she hadn't told me a particular place to wait. It was because there were approximately five million entrances and exits from this octopus of a station, and had she attempted to do so, I would still be there, or where I thought she had meant, staring hopefully at passersby.

And you know what? It's 1a and I'm just falling asleep as I type. Stay tuned for more Adventures of Five Swinging Gals (and one guy) in the Big City tomorrow!

Today's horoscope:
You will consider an ethical or moral issue. Remember that the world is not always the way we would like it to be. Be reasonable.

One year ago today:
And the answer to Diane's question of why the Brooklyn Museum is suing Mayor Giulani is because Mayor Giulani is a fucking troll.

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Last Updated Sun 1 October 01:17:09 2000