It was a hard slog yesterday, my first day back to work since before Christmas.  I hadn't even been on the T for a week, and that's always a shock, especially considering recent rush hour traumas.  I'm almost tempted to reboot my old T-Rage site. 

I do miss my bicycle this time of year.  Not only for the relative ease of the commute, the worse part of which for me is the feeling of being trapped underground at the mercy of an antiquated system operated by an organization that fluctuates between indifference and outright aggression toward those it ostensibly serves.  I miss the freedom of cycling in the city, too, and the flights of fancy it affords.

Leaving work at half-past four with four hours of light left in the day, I can take my time getting home, and enjoy the ride.  This time of year I leave work in the dark and have little but a trudge through the slush to the underground for a stress-filled commute to look forward to.

As for winter sports other than that there's shopping.  I'm not big on shopping, though, and when I do it's usually online if at all possible.  But a friend had suggested a book he thought I'd like, and I hadn't brought one with me for my commute in, so after work I braved icy sidewalks to the Borders on Boylston. 

Bookstores nowadays are a decent place to hang out — there's a little cafe in this one — but they're not really all that well-stocked.  Borders has significantly fewer volumes now than they did a year ago, due to their decision to display more books cover-out (I wrote about it here at the time).  If you're looking for the latest bestseller or just browsing for whatever strikes your fancy, they're fine, I guess.  But if you're looking for something specific that's a little offbeat, it's just easier to get it at amazon.

In fact, Borders' new concept stores, like this one in a Las Vegas strip mall, are basically the internet with more comfortable nooks and cushionier armchairs:

At the music stations, you can download music, whole albums or a mix of songs, as mp3s or discs. Also ready for download: 15,000 audiobooks. At the geneology station, you can run down the particulars of your family name or your relatives, complete with access to official documents. A screen in the travel section allows you to research a destination, then book a flight. You can even buy entry-level personal electronics — GPS naviation devices, small camcorders, point-and-shoot cameras. All very snazzy; it’s the company’s way of anticipating the role of bookstores in a digital age.

Needless to say, I didn't find my book, and I almost left, but wasn't quite ready to descend again into the bowels of Boston.  You can languish for hours in these big box bookstores, but all I really needed was a little shot of courage to face my commute.  I had plans for the evening, but I had to get home first.  I needed some jet fuel for the journey.  So I thought maybe I would have an espresso upstairs and go from there. 

I rode the escalator up, and made my way past the CDs, DVDs, and audiobooks towards the cafe.  And just before I got there, I ran into an old colleague from a previous job I hadn't seen since leaving it.  He is a voluble little Italian with a face of a pug by the name of Luzio.  Although it's always good to see him, it's better if you've got an escape plan.  He does tend to bang on, and he's a bit of a conspiracy buff.  They can go on forever, linking one conspiracy ingeniously to the next, as logic demands.  Life itself is a vast conspiracy, as any conspiracist worth his salt will tell you if you hang out with him long enough.

I remembered a moment too late this time that with some people you have to make your excuses before "hello."  Basically, start with "goodbye," otherwise they view it as an open-ended engagement that could go on forever.  The magnitude of my mistake became truly apparent when, in answer to my innocent question "are you still teaching?" he told me he had no time to think about work, as he was in the midst of a terrible personal crisis.

Oh, he's a master, alright.  Not two lines into our exchange, and already it was too late for me to bail.  I mean, what could I say?  "Sorry to hear that.  Godda run"?  Impossible.  He had put my decency on the table.  Anted up with my very humanity. 

It was female trouble, of course.  He and his wife had split after ten years. 

"Congratulations!" I said, and was about to add "godda go!" when he clutched his head and cried, "it's a disasterrrr!"

"She is mad!" he told me, a little wild-eyed himself. "It's all these crazy diets!  She is obsessed with her weight!  Up and down and up and down!  It's all she talks about!  Day and night!  Up and down!  And all these ten-steps books everywhere!  Typical American, she thinks she can solve her problems in ten easy steps!"

"I know," I commiserated. "I think it's actually twelve, isn't it?  You should tell her there's twelve.  It's like with antibiotics.  You can't just stop at ten."

"Ten years we were together!" he cried, ignoring me.  "Locked out of the house we bought together!  Oh, the house!  She could not just live in the house!  She had to change the house!  In Italy, we buy a house to live in it!  In America you move in and fix it up for the next owner!  I told her, I want to live here!  I bought the house to live in it!  And now!  Locked out!  It's a disgrace!  I have talked to three lawyers!  Three!  She's trying to get me kicked out of the country!  After ten years I am nothing but an illegal immigrant to her!  Ten years!  Three lawyers!  She won't let me in even to just collect my things!  She threw my books in the basement!  My books!  From my childhood in Italy!  These are not just things!  These are my life!  I have my pride!  This is my house!  These are my things!  Ten years!  Ten years!"

He had worked himself into a right lather, but paused a moment.

"And how are you?" he asked with a gentle smile.

"Me? Oh, I'm fine."

"Just imagine!" he resumed after a beat. "When I was there to try to collect some things her girlfriend was visiting!  They had been out on the town the night before!  They met two men!  Just imagine: GAYS!  And her girlfriend says, so what?  Sex is sex!  Right in front on me!  After ten years!  Having sex with GAYS!"

No self-respecting gay man I know.  Of course, it doesn't surprise me that a woman would leave her husband for a gay man, but it's probably more of a guru-devotee relationship.  I would not expect Luzio, in his current state, to see that what his wife needs at this point is not so much a husband as an interior decorator.

I certainly didn't have the heart to tell him.  And anyway, I was still racking my brain for a way out.  I've given you the Reader's Digest version of Luzio's War and Peace, which had taken considerably longer for Luzio to tell.  I felt I had heard enough of the variety of ways he had been humiliated in this affair to venture to sum it up for him, so I said, "well, you're better off without her."

I knew this would probably prompt a recap of the points of contention, an instant replay of the stations of the cross (and it did), but extricating yourself from this sort of conversational quagmire once you are in it is a process.  In the end, of course, it always comes down to "godda run!"  But if you don't have the presence of mind to preface your hellos with goodbyes, you've got no one to blame but yourself if you get sucked into the slough.