I am out of energy. Just plain out of gas.

Today did its best possible job of getting me to eat my words. At least in some respects. In others, quite the other way, there was an air of affirmation for my distaste for time in the seat. But I had more than enough to do, legitimately, today. Even if it continues to be revealed how preposterous everything else is.

I really think everyone finds themself on the precarious edge of giving up completely or hanging on. 2008 could look very different indeed.

On my way home, I boarded a Pittsburg/Bay Point train (the yellow line, though sadly no one identifies BART routes by color) and promptly forgot that I was not on a Richmond train (the red line, and my homeward bound line). I also hit that very dozy stage of reading right around the last few stops, so I was in that warped sleepy/tense state of involuntary rest, equal parts fading and concerned about getting off at the right stop. Usually in this state (probably one in three evening BART rides are like this, varying wildly on the engrossingness of the present book), all I’m looking for when the train stops are the colors of the stations. Shiny red brick is 12th Street, blue brick is 19th, outside is MacArthur, dull yellow is Ashby, and dull red brick is my stop, (Downtown) Berkeley.

I was pretty sure I was hallucinating when I saw a second consecutive outside stop, but I figured I must have just dozed hard at MacArthur. I tensed up a little more, and then realized I was in a tunnel at speeds and surroundings much like the Transbay Tube. But could the train have reversed course? Was I in the tube again? Surely this was too long to be the route to Ashby…

I was fully awake when the conductor announced “Orinda”. I sheepishly shuffled off and waited for a reverse train, which turned out to be San Francisco-bound. I joked to myself about reading, dozing, and winding up back on Market Street. Maybe I’d head back to work just for kicks.

I didn’t. But I paid for the experience with ten minutes in the cold at MacArthur, waiting for another Richmond train.

This story isn’t that interesting, I realize. Who doesn’t have a fell-asleep-on-the-train story? Well, before tonight, I didn’t. And maybe that’s why it seems indicative of something. Things took on a different hue this day, one of oblivion. And oblivion didn’t look like the end of the world or torture, it just looked different. Like someone had put a BART station in Orinda. I mean, really, Orinda?

Last night I stayed up by myself (Emily seems holed up in Sacramento almost indefinitely) and played online poker and listened to Pandora. (The link indicates that this was not my cat. Though I also listened to her.) Pandora (the site, not the cat) seems to have finally honed my taste down to a science. A limited science – I think they repeat the same 30 or so songs for me – but I still have given thumbs-up to almost all of them. And the new ones soon get one. I am impressed.

A recent song they keep drumming up for me has reminded me why Matchbox-20 has spent its entire career on my auto-buy list until, somehow, this album. (I mean really, the last one [“More Than You Think You Are”] wasn’t that great before this. And then where did they go? Rob Thomas had to do his solo thing for approximately forever.)

The song is called “How Far We’ve Come” and (how out of the loop have I gotten with music?) it apparently went to #3 in the charts at some point this year. Also, apparently the album is mostly a rerelease of old stuff, so I don’t feel crazy not getting it yet.

Anyway,

But I believe the world is burning to the ground
oh well I guess we’re gonna find out
let’s see how far we’ve come
let’s see how far we’ve come
Well I, believe, it all, is coming to an end
oh well, I guess, we’re gonna pretend,
let’s see how far we’ve come
let’s see how far we’ve come

What if the world ended and nobody cared?

This post is as bad as I feel.