I know it's been a while since I've really written anything, other than listing the ways I put my two-hour commute to good use, so I hope this post doesn't startle anyone too badly.
Life has been busy for the last six weeks. I haven't really added up all the hours, but there's something pretty draining about having to commute this far to work, even though I'm not driving.
I'm not used to getting up at five in the morning, for starters. Vicki and I take most of an hour in devotional reading and prayer, then maybe ten to fifteen minutes reading our daily dose of
the funny pages. That leaves less than 45 minutes to shower, dress, shutdown and pack my computer, and otherwise get ready for the day. If we leave the house before 6:57 I can pretty consistently catch the
MARC Brunswick line train at 7:07 from Germantown, since Vicki (wonderful woman!) typically drops me off and I don't have to take the time to park.
The train usually arrives at Union Station a few minutes after eight, and I take
MetroRail: first the Red Line to Gallery Place/China Town, then the Yellow Line to Eisenhower Avenue. From there I take a
DASH bus to the Baker building where I work. Baker also provides a shuttle, which is usually a couple minutes quicker than the bus. Either way, I'm usually in the office just a couple minutes before or after nine o'clock.
Returning home is usually a reverse of the same process. On Monday and Wednesday nights, when I have a rehearsal in Columbia, I take the MARC Camden line from Union Station and meet Vicki at the Savage station. So not only is this arrangement taking a lot out of me, but Vicki is bending over backwards to make it possible for me to continue with the brass ensemble twice a week.
I can usually use my laptop on the MARC trains, and I'm typically focused on work-specific computing. On MetroRail it's not a likely that I'll get a laptop-friendly place to sit (or any place to sit, for that matter) so I use that time to work through language lessons or study brass musicianship by listening to the
Brasscast podcast.
On the nights when I have rehearsal (Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday in Rockville until last week) we typically don't get home until eight or later, sometimes much later. It takes time to unwind, get the kids pointed toward their beds and spend a few minutes with
the birds. I'm usually headed for bed before eleven, but not much before. So I've been running on six hours of sleep on an average night for the last six weeks.
The last few weekends have been beautiful weather, and I have felt a compulsion to get outside, in the guise of visiting some of
the wealth of National Parks in our area. The kids have been earning Junior Ranger badges right and left: and I'm delighted to watch that happen, especially when it means that I get to stroll about, breath some fresh air and internalize some of the history documented in these parks.
I'm not sure what I'm learning from rehearsing all of this to you. All of this explains to some extent why I haven't been able to think introspective, blog-worthy thoughts at moments when I can create blog posts. In fact, I feel very much like I'm spending five days running at full throttle, trying very hard to think work thoughts and accomplish work, followed by being a good leader for the brass ensemble, and at all the remaining moments, I can't seem to think or do much else worthwhile. On Sabbaths I'm so desperate for rest that it's hard to get to church, much less Sabbath-school. It's a mental/emotional imbalance problem, and the last few Sabbaths have been critical in helping to restore that balance.
I'm grateful that I have found ways to use my commute time, rather than staring at tail-lights. And there's a significant degree to which I'm happy to be commuting because there's no other time when I would listen to Brasscast or study languages. On the other hand, . . .
If we could relocate close to the Baker building in Alexandria it would free up nearly four hours of my life every day. That's huge! But housing in Alexandria seems to be even more ridiculously priced than in Germantown. Our 1,200 sq ft townhouse is worth more than $200K, last we checked, but the townhouses next door to the Baker building are over $600K! It seems improbable that we could move close enough to improve the situation. Dropping the brass ensemble would help, too, or convincing them to rehearse at a better time and closer to our home. But that doesn't seem to be the right answer.
I don't know if I'll have time to write two more posts, but I've been mentally sketching them out as I write this one, and here's what I
would write about if I had time. Part 2 would talk about everything that happened last Thursday, and how that throws some of this into doubt,
i.e. doubt about what, if anything, to attempt to change. Part 3 would talk about where I am now, and why I have time to write a blog entry this afternoon.
Given that I have so much to say, I may forego the triple-check editing I usually do, in the interests of getting more words out of my head.
