Greyhound
Terri and I woke up early, trudged through another 8 inches of snow (sorry we didn’t shovel, Ed), and hopped a bus to NYC (I’m noting this on paper to be posted later). There’s a new sign down on the Mass Pike by Fenway which has me scratching my head. It says “Massachusetts. You’re more likely to live here.” What does this mean? I mean, I think I know. I think it’s supposed to be a clever way to say that we have a good hospitals and a longer life expectency. That heart attack might kill you in Wichita, but you’re more likely to live in Massachusetts.
Still, it just seems weak.
1) It’s on the Mass Pike: if this is supposed to make people want to move here, you’re preaching to the choir. 2) Bragging about “quality of life” is one thing, but bragging about “quantity of life” is somehow pathetic. You might be miserable (not to mention buried under another 8 inches of snow), but, by God, you’ll be miserable longer. 3) Somehow, making life expectency a selling point is counterproductive, because what you’re really doing is reminding people about death.
The woman behind us was talking loudly to someone she knew who she ran into on the bus. She was moving from Boston to Atlanta. Boston is cold, it snows, it’s expensive, and you can’t save any money. After going on like this for a while, they moved into French (I think they were Haitian), and so my eavesdropping couldn’t follow them there. Terri was napping, so I put on some Pharoah Sanders and took a half-nap myself. Some of the songs on Thembi (especially Red, Black, and Green, and Bailophone Dance) are a bit heavy-duty to listen to on an average work day, because they sort of alter the shape of my brain. It’d be like dropping some acid on the way to work; not really the best idea. Anyway, I listened to the whole thing, sort of drifting in and out of sleep. When I woke up, we were crossing the Connecticut border and I thought, you know, I’m glad to put Massachusetts behind me for a few days myself.