Headphones On

I sat down on the train this morning I felt energized and alert, actually eager to tackle my Wednesday morning. When I arrived downtown half an hour later I was sluggish and sleepy.

I got on the train after work feeling alive and excited. When I stumbled down the stairs at the stop near my house I felt near comatose.

What's going on?

I picked up a new book this morning on my way out the door... Underground : The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami. Murakami is one of my favorite authors but I'd put off reading this book for some time. Now I know why. As I put my time in on public transit it's probably not such a good idea to read about the victims and survivors of the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. As interview after interview unfolds I start to feel the nausea coming on. My eyes get hazy, the world begins to look darker. By the time I got off the train tonight (a good 80 pages into this book), the sky looked near pitch black. Am I suffering the same symptoms? Oh no... it's just a thunderstorm rolling in and out of the city. Regardless, I think I need to stop reading this on the train.