The Girl On The Train

I was on a train back to civilization after the previous unfortunate incident mentioned in my last post, when I noticed a young woman sorting/fiddling with/playing with/straightening (whatever - the appropriate verb escapes me) her hair which was an uncommon shade of dark auburn (can auburn be dark?). She was rather attractive, and it reminded me of the scene in that awful movie 'Indecent Proposal' (1993) where Robert Redford's character describes his ideal love as being some girl he saw on a train 30 yrs ago. In a similar vein there is apparently a best-selling novel in Japan (purportedly based on a true story) called 'Train Man'. It tells the story of this guy who saves a girl from a bunch of thugs on a train, falls in love with the damsel in distress, but loses or forgets her phone number, and spends years via the internet (where else?) trying to track her down.

Is it just me or has anyone noticed there's a real trend of putting "Girl" in titles of books, movies and albums? There's the film "Girl With a Pearl Earring", Diana Krall's album "The Girl In The Other Room", and and ... well I'm sure there's more that I just can't recall.

A Day I'd Wished I'd Stayed Indoors

Despite waking up at 5am on 1 1/2 hrs sleep and taking 3 hrs to travel to a place at the end of the train line I was in a suprisingly good mood. I walked out of the station to find a pleasant locale with a little marina and clear skies.

I was supposed to go to a meeting for 10 am in a small industrial complex that according to the map was no more than 200-300 m walk. Somehow I got lost, possibly because of my crappy 'net printed map, sleep deprivation or a combination of both. Then I began walking down this long road lined with a shopping centre car park, to the right, a few small shops to the left, but then stretching on into the distance with nothing but condiminums and seeminly no end in sight. I started to the get the feeling that I was heading down the wrong street ...

The footpath terminated on the left so I crossed the median strip to the right side of the road, stooping below some low hanging foliage. As I emerged I noticed at first a brown substance, and then a liquid-paper white streak on the right sleeve my black suit jacket. Presumably an inconsiderate avian life-form had just defecated on me. I was not amused ...

Oh and later that day I went to McDonald's. I picked the queue on the right. The guy at the till was taking a while to take down the lady's order. Then while doing so he had to go and take out an apple pie to somebody sitting down. After returning he was still taking a while with that lady's order. Meanwhile on the queue to the left, three people had been served.