I know there are folks out there who paid for a white Christmas and expect a goddamn white freakin Christmas, but I'm loving this balmy weather.  It's mid-December and I have not once this season been forced to use the T to get into town.  Last Friday was bitter cold and there was an evil wind, but it was doable. 

And when I read something like this, from a fellow Boston blogger who's obviously been traumatized by her experience of watching not one, but two commuters almost killed by the MBTA's faulty equipment and negligence, it just confirms my conviction that using the T is not only unsafe and inconvenient, it's become downright immoral.  Because by continuing to even ride the T, you are helping to perpetuate evil in Metro Boston.  Do you really want to sully your soul like that?  And not even enjoy yourself in the process? 

It's not as hard as you might think to save yourself, either.  I quit the T cold-turkey eight months ago.  And have never looked back.  Granted, I live close enough to things that I can ride my bike wherever I need to go.  Even so, I have had my moments of weakness.  Though I now have thighs of steel, and alabaster buns...


...I sometimes find I'm just not in the mood to pump those pedals.  Especially when it's raining and there's an obnoxious headwind, my thighs are like, "dude, give me a break!"  And my buns are like, "we can't get any harder, more muscular and sculpted, or we'll burst the seams, bud!  Enough!"  All I have to do is think of the long waits, rude workers, and the condensed breath of hundreds of passengers on the windows of over-packed rush-hour trains, and I've got that little boost of energy I need to convince my lower half. 

And the fact is, even when there's weather it's faster and much less hassle to ride my bike than to take the T.  

Except for snow and ice.  Snow and ice are a bit problematic, I'll admit.  Which is why I couldn't be happier with the awesome El Niño warming effect we've got going on.   And why I won't mind a wet Christmas and a very balmy new year. 

Dang.  Now I've jinxed it.