Rainy Days & Mondays Get Me Down

Standing on the Paoli train station platform yesterday morning with my fellow commuters, the rain cascading from the shoddy, shingled roof, I thought of The Carpenters’ tune, ‘Rainy Days & Mondays Get Me Down,’ and swore that this wouldn’t be the case for this rainy Monday.

Three hours later, I was struggling through the chaos of Penn Station with a two-ton messenger bag and cumbersome guitar case. I wedged myself and my gear through the subway turnstile, them jammed onto the uptown 1/9. Outside, I was greeted by crowded, noisy, rain soaked streets. Still, I swore that this rainy Monday would not get me down.

Into 1515 Broadway, dragging my baggage through security, up elevators, and though the newsroom, I found my office occupied by my boss and a fistful of coworkers already headlong into the day. I dropped my stuff, changed my shirt, and was off.

After work, I met uber-journalist Ron Lieber for a (salmon) burger and beers in Tribeca. What a great time. I don’t have a ton of male friends (I’ve always gotten on better with women friends ‘cuz so many guys are knuckleheads), let alone guys with whom I share so much in common — Midwesterner, journalist, music lover — so he’s a welcome addition to the circle of friends.

We covered a lot of bases in a short amount of time, everything from growing up in Chicago, to plane crash dreams, love in the Big City, and life in the newsroom. He about lost his lunch when he found out that I’d never heard Jonathan Richmond perform, so I made plans to take in a show with he and his uber-journalist wife, Jodie.

Walking uptown to the 1/9 afterwards, the Empire State’s dirigible lights were blinking through low-flying clouds, and I had another one of those moments of minor epiphany. This is why I’m here: long, productive days; dark, stormy nights, and the people, places, and things that make it all a life worth living.