11:15 PM:

The Ann Arbor to Toronto to Niagara Falls to New York gambit won't work, it turns out. There's one Amtrak train from Niagara Falls to New York; it leaves daily at 1:20 PM. There's a Via Rail train that arrives there from Toronto shortly before that, which is what I'd planned to take, but it tunrs out that people using the North American Rail Pass can't take that train; instead, they need to take the other daily train from Toronto to the Falls, which arrives at 7:36 PM. I'd then have to stay overnight until the next day's Amtrak train to New York.

Putting aside the fact that I don't know anybody in Niagara Falls, and wouldn't have anyplace to stay, this is enough to shatter any possibility of my getting through the East Coast before my rail pass ran out; I was pushing it to the limit as it stood.

There are three options: (1) radically reconfigure my entire schedule, shaving off bits here and there, and hope I can get it all to fit and that nothing goes wrong; (2) drop Vancouver and/or Houston and shuffle everything; (3) screw Amtrak, Via Rail, and the trains they rode in on, and get a Greyhound pass instead. Much more flexible, more tolerance for error, and cheaper, but abandon all hope of getting anything done during the ride.

None of these are particularly appealing, but it's either that or (4) scrap the whole plan, stay home, and write.

[sigh]

Stay tuned.

6:55 AM:

Am I the only one who's confused by the recent Madonna video, "Die Another Day"?

Admittedly, I pretty much suck at understanding music videos in general, but what I'm really wondering about here is the very prominent featuring of a three-letter word in Hebrew characters. It shows up first in a tattoo on her arm, then dramatically appears on a chair at the end.

The word in question is meaningless in Hebrew (as far as I know), but means "not" or "a prohibition" in Aramaic. (The second of those meanings has been carried over into Yiddish.) Alternately, it could be taken as a transliteration of the English word "love." Either way, what gives?

(I'm not even going to ask about the tefillin imagery, mostly because I'm hoping that's not what it's intended to be at all. But I'm not at all sure about that.)

I've been trying to work out an itinerary for this whole tour thing, and it's been turning out to be substantially more complicated than I'd expected.

Part of this is due to the fact that Amtrak is much less flexible than Greyhound. Whereas the latter has buses going from everywhere to everywhere else all the time, the former tends to have one train going from Point A to Point B on a given day. At least one leg of this trip (Houston-Dallas) is going to involve hopping on a Greyhound bus; there's just no plausible way around it.

Another major complication is that I can't travel on Shabbos, which, practically speaking, means I need to be off the rails on Friday and Saturday. (Saturday night after nightfall is okay, but not always compatible with the train schedules. As for travelling on Friday before sundown, I've learned my lesson.) So, practically speaking, just about everything's being planned in five-day bursts.

Yet another complication is that this country is, like, really wide. So while I'd hoped to be able to spend one Shabbos in Chicago, go from there to San Francisco, spending a couple of days there before moving onto Vancouver and spending the next Shabbos there, this has turned out to be entirely impossible. One result of this is that the time spent roaming the western portion of the country is being expanded a bit, with a corresponding reduction of the amount of time I'll be spending on the East Coast.

Finally, just when I'd hit on a very tight but plausible schedule getting me just about everywhere I want to go, I called Amtrak today to book it, and discovered that the trip to Vancouver wouldn't satisfy the terms of the North American Rail Pass that require that one use both Amtrak and Via Rail of Canada, because Vancouver was, in fact, served by Amtrak. There's no comparable pass that doesn't involve Via Rail, either; somehow, I need to fit in some travel time up north.

I think I've figured something out for that; it involves going from Ann Arbor to New York the very long way, via Toronto. This also involves my staying in Toronto overnight; not implausible, as I do have a cousin who lives there, although I'd be arriving at a half-hour to midnight and departing at half-past-nine the next morning, so not exactly a great opportunity for catching up with him. Also, it would take 18.5 hours more than going from Ann Arbor to New York via the usual Amtrak route, but I can't think of anything that would work better.

(Of course, what kills me is that the route goes right past Niagara Falls, and I'm not gonna be able to get out and stare at it. I was there briefly on the way back from the aforementioned cousin's wedding, and my family practically had to drag me away. Niagara Falls is cool, man. Also, sublime.)

(If your immediate reaction to the above paragraph was "Slowly, I turned..." I don't want to know about it.)

It's coming together, though. It's looking like January 12-18 will be spent travelling to, and staying in and around, San Francisco; the following week will be spent getting to Vancouver, staying there briefly, then heading to Chicago, where I'll stay over the weekend; the following week, on to Texas, followed by a return to Ann Arbor; then to New York via Toronto, with stops in Connecticut and Boston during the following week, after which I return home. The exact disposition of the East Coast bit is yet to be determined, as is the question of whether I'll (a) start next Wednesday and spend the weekend in Chicago, and/or (b) stay on a few extra days in New York; either would involve paying a bit more for an extra Greyhound trip, but there's what to be said for 'em. We'll see.

11:41 PM:

Well, here we are, at the end of another year. I'm not sure how to sum this one up. It was an improvement on 2001, not that this is saying terribly much... even the bad stuff about it -- including the whole grad program thing -- was pretty much fallout from the year before.

Above all, it's been a year of change. Stopped talking to my father, started shaving, started dabbling in crossdressing, got booted from my grad program. I'm left with far more questions than answers, most of them amounting to various forms of "where do I go from here?"

It'll be interesting finding out what the answers are. Also probably stressful and uncomfortable, but interesting, and quite possibly good in the long run. One can hope.

Happy new year, y'all!

Y'know, it's been a long time since I last picked up an issue of Mad Magazine. Which is why, when I finally did so earlier tonight, I was stunned to notice that they now carry paid advertising.

The warning signs of the apocalypse were there before -- the sale to Time-Warner and Gaines's demise being two of the big ones -- but I'd still been holding out a bit of hope for a comeback.

No longer.

(Oh, and what I've skimmed of the actual content so far has pretty much sucked, too.)

11:03 PM:

As previously threatened... you can find a photo of my sister and me here.

What if the Lord of the Rings trilogy had been written by somebody else?

1:10 PM:

I should explain, perhaps, that this whole Amtrak Tour thing is extremely out of character. I hate travelling, and I hate spending even one night away from my own bed, and I've gone to great lengths in the past to avoid either. Spending an entire month on the road? Absolutely unheard of. And as the time for the trip has drawn nearer, I've found myself getting more and more tempted to weasel out of it; I haven't yet booked any tickets, after all.

I'm 95% sure I'm gonna stand firm on this; all I'm saying is that it ain't coming easily.

I hate travelling in part because I don't travel well. I can't read on cars or buses; after a few minutes, I get extremely queasy, and stay that way for hours afterwards. I'm better on trains, which is precisely why this is the Amtrak Tour, not the Greyhound Tour. Even so, the prospect of spending hour after hour after hour after hour riding the rails... honestly, is there anything more stultifying than a long trip? At best, it's a means to an end.

With that said, I do want to see a few cities and graduate programs first-hand, and I do want to see a bunch of friends, and if it takes a whole lot of travelling... well, I've almost convinced myself that it'll be worth the trip.

A few more words regarding Operation Futon Quest seem in order, by the way... a few of you have already offered to put me up for a night or three, for which I'm appreciative; I'm pretty sure I've replied to y'all individually. For anybody else considering doing so, here's a bit more information on subjects that've come up:

1) Kosher food.

Visiting Mary Anne several months ago taught me a few valuable lessons. One of them is that I'm taking her suggestion and buying myself a hotplate. I'll be able to cook my own food thereon. (I'll also be schlepping along a pot and -- most likely -- a whole lotta ramen.) The upshot of this is that lack of a kosher kitchen is not expected to be an issue.

(Oh, umm, I never did write much about that trip, did I. It was nice. Among other highlights, I got to watch Super-Friends with a roomful of SF writers-- if you don't think that sounds like a particularly notable experience, you weren't there. And she has one of the best bathtubs I've ever encountered; I filled it roughly halfway up, and it was much deeper than my tub. Plus, you know, we talked, we ate, we watched Buffy on her TiVo, we did a bit of shopping, I got to meet Roshani -- I instantly liked Roshani -- and, oh, yeah, she took some photos. You might wanna crank up the brightness on those, depending on your monitor.)

(But I'm getting way off the subject at hand.)

2) Pets.

Animals scare me. A lot. With that said, dogs scare me far more than cats do, and I'd like to get over my fear of cats. (I have no such interest in getting along with dogs.) So... if you have a cat or two, I expect to be nervous, but I'm willing to give it a shot. If you have a dog -- no matter how big or small, or how friendly or menacing -- it's nothing personal, but I'll find someplace else to stay.

3) Locations.

I'm still working out my schedule. As matters currently stand, I'm definitely planning to spend a bit of time in San Francisco -- and possibly elsewhere in California -- but am not sure I have where to stay. I think I'm covered in Vancouver (or, at least, I'm in touch with people therein). I'm definitely covered in Dallas, Chicago, New York, and Connecticut. Boston is a bit iffy-- I have extended family to fall back on there, but if I can avoid doing so, that'd be nice. And I haven't decided whether I'm gonna stop by Pittsburgh; there's a very good program there I'm considering, but its application deadline is far earlier than all the others I'm looking into, which may be enough to rule it out. Similarly, there's a chance of my stopping by Baltimore, but I have doubts.

At any rate, I haven't yet put together my itinerary, but it won't be long. If you're along the way to any of the above, or in any of the above, and would be interested in getting together -- whether or not you have a futon to offer -- it can't hurt to drop me a line around now.

Okay, I feel as if I ought to be expanding on the previous entry, but I'm not sure there's much more to say. I was up all night cleaning in preparation for my sister's visit, and, lo, my prediction from a few entries back came to pass; the place was still a bit of a wreck, but much improved from what it had been. Otherwise, I baked challah, it turned out well, and we got in a few hours of enjoyable conversation.

(Recipe for challah: Buy a box of pre-formed, ready-to-bake Kineret challah dough. Leave in freezer for months. Six hours before you expect company, remove from freezer, place in lightly greased baking pan, and cover loosely with lightly greased sheet of foil. At the end of six hours, challah will have risen to roughly double its original size. Place in oven. Remove about 30 minutes later, when golden brown. Allow to cool. Eat and enjoy, preferably with Skippy Super-Chunk peanut butter. Mmm.)

(This recipe is nostalgic for me, because my family used to use Kineret's challah every Shabbos. But if you must do it the hard way, Mary Anne has a recipe here, although I'm a bit dubious about the diced onion. Plus, there are those -- Erin included, apparently -- who add poppy seeds. This is entirely traditional, but as I routinely pick the poppy seeds out when it's been made that way, I see no need to add 'em in.)

Erin's eyes were somewhat lighter than I'd expected -- the photos in her journal don't do them justice -- but that was pretty much the only thing about her that I hadn't been expecting. I mean, I already knew her pretty well and considered her to be one of my bestest friends; it just happened we hadn't technically met in person. A mere technicality, albeit one I'm glad we've rectified.

Meeting Tom was nice, too. This is the first time I've ever met anybody who was dating one of my siblings, actually. Well, not including my brother's sister-in-law who went on to marry another one of my brothers, but I was only vaguely aware of her, and, anyway, I don't believe I saw her while she was dating my brother, so the point stands. Not that I remember where I was going with this.

Actually, that sort of pursuing a train of thought at top speed and then running out of track seems not inappropriate in recollecting our conversation, especially at first; the combination of sleep-deprivation and excitement had me somewhat more scattered than usual, which is saying something. I did settle down somewhat later on, though.

Anyway, I'm thrilled they came to visit; I wish I lived just down the block from Erin; and I'm happy I'll be seeing her again soon.

Oh, and she took photos. I imagine they'll be up before too long. Be afraid.