Greetings from the bus. The sky over I-95 South is dense with cloud as dawn unrolls over this corridor of road, already bustling with headlights and taillights. This bus is extremely comfortable. I got into line early enough to snag a desirable single seat, and here I have established my little island of books and notebook and crossword puzzles and sandwich and water bottle. There is always a stupid movie running on the bus screens--at the moment, it's Bee Movie, which I do not watch as I cannot abide Pixar humor, but I do occasionally glance at it, anthropologically.

Rain is on the way: New York will be wet when we arrive, at about 1 p.m., and I will drag my stuff through downpour or drizzle to Grand Central Station and trundle down through the damp tunnels toward the Brooklyn lines. I've got my raincoat, my waterproof boots; I am ready to be soaked.

It's always a funny feeling to travel alone. I enjoy the sensation. It's pleasant to have to figure out everything myself, also pleasant to do exactly what I feel like doing: dawdle, waste time, not make the intellectual/cultural most out of every minute. My only goal today, other than getting to Brooklyn, is to buy an horchata at the Mexican restaurant next to my friend Ray's bar. An horchata, you might already know, is a lovely cold cinnamon and rice drink, and I always want one and hardly ever get one.

Otherwise, I travel at the will of wind and rain and bus driver and, later today, at the will of my son and my friends, all of whom will have plenty of thoughts about how I should spend my weekend. I plan to go along with every good idea; I plan to be entirely docile and cheerful, as long as no one makes me stay up too late or drink too much beer.

Now day has actually arrived, and the bus is speeding smoothly through Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and the red and gold trees along the breakdown lanes are still thick with leaves, and the tractor-trailers sail past like arrows, and I am floating in a jitney bubble and not one person on this bus knows my name.