January 10, 1992

I didn't get around to writing yesterday on BART because I got caught up reading the Greenpeace magazine. and I wanted to get through it. I did, and went on to read my copy of World Watch, a new subscription this year (I'm cancelling The Sun and The Washington Spectator).

I have noticed a minor problem that arose when I quit my temp job may be abating now that I'm commuting again: reading. I could never get enough to read on the bus and metro-- magazines were ideal since the interruptions in concentration required by intraurban travel could be made to coincide with a natural break in the magazine's material. (Articles, essays, columns are shorter then novels or chapters.)

I also noticed that my magazine subscriptions tend to come in clusters. Harper's is a monthly, as is CallBoard. Mother Jones comes 6 times a year, and In Context and Greenpeace were quarterly (I was never sure when The Sun or W. Spectator or Utne Reader would arrive). But they'd ususally all arrive within a week of each other. So I'd devour them while commuting.

However, once my temp job ended, my number of hours on the bus dipped dramatically-- but the periodicals (now also incoluding the KPFA Folio and Ecology Center Terrain) kept coming-- they were piling up.

I have a difficult time reading magazines at home. (Except for Premiere.) I can't take them into the bathroom-- I'm never there long enough. And it seems I should be doing other things if I have free time at home: cleaning, paying bills, organizing files, whatever.... the magazines were starting to pile up. And I swear Harper's came early.

So I'm glad to be commuting again. Although I can't read on AC Transit 8 (too many curves and hills), BART lends itself to writing or completing unfinished Sci-Prov assignments. Nevertheless, I bring a few with me (today it's World Watch and Whole Earth Review) to pass the time at transfer points, preferably indoor ones, or sunny-- it's been cold lately and it's difficult to turn the pages of a magazine when you're wearing gloves. It helps to lick your finger but then you get a mouthful of that synthetic wool taste.

It takes 90 minutes door to door from SF to Berkeley to get to rehearsal by 1:00 PM. I'm ten minutes early but that gives me time to eat lunch.

I can't even begin to average time home- since waiting for rides and idiosyncratic routes to the BART station affect what time I get down the hill and how the commute in the City is at whatever time I catch the metro.

NOTE TO MYSELF: If you're goin to write poetry at home, or anything at home while using a kitchen table, write on this half, the bottom half of the page. Here on BART my hand runs out of support and the writing gets sloppy. It would be easier to fill a top half of a page while commuting.