You're thinking that the puzzle's too hard when you've been missing pieces

I have been seen off by selkie onto my homeward train, surviving in the process the Kubrick-lit, glass-walled, mirror-paneled panopticon that turned out to have replaced the normal concourse seating since either of us last wanted to sit down in Union Station. My seat is forward-facing this time, giving me at the moment a view of overcast tangles of wet trees, the sliding lines of substations, and iron-stained water beyond the convergence of rust-sided rails. I took very few pictures of any sort on this trip, but on the other hand I slept.

Yesterday we had originally planned a visit to the Smithsonian, which I have missed for decades and toward which I am feeling normally defensive at the moment, but the weather and people's bodies did not accommodate and if we had to choose one blowout of resources this weekend, the protest was definitely it. I had a quiet afternoon curled up on the couch while it rained and when my godchild returned from his volunteer job with horses, we finished the first season of Schmigadoon! (2021–23). Rodgers and Hammerstein had it coming. Cole Porter may or may not have, but I was still delighted. "And forward into the Stephen Schwartz," I said approvingly at the finale. The new plan is I come back for the Smithsonian and the second season.

Even pre-pandemic, the distance was rough. It is always worth it. I had a poke bowl for the first time in just about two years and a nice conversation with N. about science fiction I will read and of which they will then play me selections from the audiobook so that I can hear the plot-relevant element of the sound design. I sat with my godchild as he put together the borders of a 500-piece Steven Universe puzzle. I got to compliment one of his friends on their Great Rubber Duck off Kanagawa T-shirt. Selkie and I accidentally K-holed ourselves on some Holocaust research that made both of us feel unexpectedly better because of the higher shenanigans levels than historically visible. The Tarot deck backed off on the major arcana just long enough to cough up the two of cups for me, twice. I got a classic "sir—miss—excuse me—" when I went up to the concourse desk to ask a question, which however less safe than traditionally these days still makes me feel good about myself. I ate at least half a bag of konjac candies before discovering they are banned in Australia and the EU. I saw cherry blossoms only intermittently, but redbuds everywhere.

Does it feel better in that cold Boston weather?

WHRB was on fire when spatch picked me up from South Station, blessedly with roast beef sandwiches which we ate parked in the blowing rain beside the Fort Point Channel. I enjoyed the Backfires' "Dressed for a Funeral" (2024), Kingfisher (MI)'s "Reichenbach Falls" (2022), and 22° Halo's "Bird Sanctuary" (2024), but Diet Cig's "Harvard" (2017) is one of the funniest choices the station could have made short of Tom Lehrer's "Subway Song" (1944).

The catch of compiling that hundred books meme is that my library remains overwhelmingly in storage, meaning that I am waiting to find out which books of formative importance to the inside of my head got left off the list. [edit: Naomi Mitchison's To the Chapel Perilous (1955), for one. Andre Norton's The Zero Stone (1968), for another. Clare Bell's Ratha's Creature (1983). Elizabeth Marie Pope's The Perilous Gard (1975). Maybe I should make another list.] I excluded plays, poetry, most nonfiction, and confined myself to one book per author even in cases where I read shelves of them and hunted their work through new and used book stores for years. It's heavily biased toward childhood and adolescence and even then I had to prune in order to be able to reach college before running out of slots. I feel bad about sidelining Wilkie Collins, I figure Tolkien can take it. Please feel free to ask me about any books which you do not see on this list, or any which you do, for that matter.

Hestia sniffed my hands all over and then pressed her head against my fingers in such a fashion as to self-scritch, her recognized and imperious demand for petting which I granted, glad she had forgiven the scent of strange cats and a whole lot of train. My seatmate from New York to Boston asked if I would be more comfortable if he masked and then did so for the remainder of the trip, making him the first person since I started cautiously traveling again even to ask the question. He seemed very surprised when I told him so. It was just human.