I need to spend some time today figuring out how to get from Nowhere, Maine, to Somewhere, Connecticut, via our half-assed public transportation system. Toward the end of January I'll be doing a workshop and a reading at Westover School, which will be lovely, not only for itself but also because I'll get to go to New York City, and I could use an urban interlude. All this wood splitting and water hauling is healthful and intense, but sometimes I forget that such a thing as a sidewalk exists.

A bus trip from Waterville, Maine, to NYC takes roughly 10 hours and then somehow I'll need to snake my way back into Connecticut via Amtrak or commuter train. I'll also need to acquire a suitcase with a functional handle. Still there is nothing like leaving cold grey Maine before dawn and emerging, after dark, from the bowels of Port Authority onto gaudy 42nd Street. It's like kind of like getting trapped in a delayed Star Trek transport between the barren rocky planet overrun by giant wigged cavemen brandishing styrofoam clubs onto that vacation planet where Harry Mudd is shacked up with a plethora of cloned babes in hot pants and go-go boots. I always lose some molecules along the way.