personal

Autumn is the new summer

If you’d told me that, near the end of the first week of October, I’d still be complaining about it’s being summer…well, I’m not sure I’d have believed you. But the weather has been ridiculous this whole week, disgustingly humid and with temperatures in the high seventies or higher.

I have the air conditioner on high as I type this.

Again, it’s October 5th. I was kind of hoping we’d have some kind of fall.

Meanwhile, the Long Island Railroad isn’t making the commute through that nasty humidity any easier. This morning, they told us all to move up the stairs and across to the opposite platform, when my train was running late, only to have that train stop on the original platform instead. This evening, I got to Penn Station only to discover crowds of people emptying out of my evening train. “I don’t know,” somebody said. “They told us to get off.” The train opposite us was going to the yards, not taking any passengers, so it’s possible there was a mix-up. Or it’s possible the LIRR was just being its usual self.

But it’s not all bad. I was finally able to launch Kaleidotrope’s autumn issue, with lots of science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories, poems, art, and horoscopes for your reading delight. Check it out, won’t you?

Monday

I wish New York City buses paid more attention to traffic laws.

I wish the Long Island Railroad realized a train “running thirty-two minutes late” is a train that nobody in their right mind is waiting for when they have to get to work.

I wish I knew why my subway was so empty this morning (and a little bit this afternoon). Was today some kind of holiday?

I wish I hadn’t needed to sit through a two-hour training session on the new user interface for one of our internal systems. But at least that interface does seem like a genuine improvement.

I wish I could sleep late tomorrow and not worry about my commute, or buses that run red lights, or trains that don’t come, or training sessions that eat up the afternoon.

Oh, wait, I can. Tomorrow I work from home. I do so like Tuesdays.

Sunday

Except for short breaks to do the crossword puzzle — not terribly fun, as it happens — and watch the latest episode of Doctor Who — about which I actually do intend to say more later — I spent the whole day working on Kaleidotrope. Oh, okay, I also played a little of Infinity Blade II, with which I am slightly obsessed, and way too many rounds of computer solitaire. (And you know, I get that there are some hands of solitaire that simply can’t be won, but it’s annoying that the Windows version includes so many of them.) But lots of Kaleidotrope. The Autumn 2012 issue is very nearly done.

Completely done would make me happier, but it’s getting there.