My Transit Dreams (...Helping No More)

Sunday morning, and I was at Tansit Camp all last night.

I got there on a subway ride that was straight out of The Warriors -- graffitti-covered cars filled with fearful, suspicious-looking old women, the ride a loud, clattering lurch of a trip.

Transit Camp turned out to be in a very generic office in a downtown highrise. Large, flourescent lit rooms, with plastic chairs and an ancient hissing coffee urn to one side. A table full of laptops. Nearby, a hipster that I met once was looking at a wall-sized bulletin board and complaining about the schedule.

I found an adjoining room, its perimeter filled with beat-up old couches, filling up as people filed in. I found a spot near some guys I went to elementary school with -- Curtis, Trent, Clay -- stolid prairie boys, all, and I worried that the whole thing would descend into Lord of the Flies-style chaos.

My alarm woke me up, and I was sweatingly hot under my blankets, the wind hissing outside, the radiator tchick-ing out steam heat.

'It can only get better from here', I thought to myself, and got up.