Full moon tonight. Bright enough that it almost hurts to stare.

South Station, Sunday, 6:30, the bus is late, the iced coffee is too small, and i could swear my pace is quickening.

Urbane concrete interiors, air whipping around the edges of six-sided, six-wheeled transport boxes. Buildings driving on blacktop. There's very little other than joe-tinged air moving through this plastic straw.

These days, dear diary, are silly, endearing, and hard to predict. Something like a fractalled Fraggle.

I'm taking the bus because I missed the train. I missed the train because I stayed seated at the South Station subway stop. My statis-seated status, passenger pastoral, was caused by the new Mogwai album.

I was all lost in thought y music pouring through my slick new headphones. Didn't see the doors open or close. I hopped off at Broadway, the CD skipped and my neck was bleeding, I had to pull a paper towel from a trash can to apply pressure, and I kept looking at my watch and fidget-stepping in frustration, no subway in sight, the benched woman with the bicycle looking toward me, uncomfortable. My bleeding slowed down. The T came, I boarded, it sped up, it slowed down, and after I bounded up escalators and sprinted between slowpokes I discovered I'd missed the train by two minutes. The evening sun lit up parallel empty platforms, aluminum structures, my $5 green shirt.

It felt like the bleeding melancholic inevitablility in the music had dictated that I should would miss the train. Soundtrack guiding plot. Sad, suggested events.

I sometimes cry in moments of innocent and insignificant loss, a child's baloon bursting on a hot car. Joyful tears come at points of simple selflessness, an unexpected gift of milk and cookies, Benicio Del Toro in the final moment of Traffic.

The bus climbs onto 93 South, and through the tinted window I see Big Dig construction, but no backup.

Happy Birthday, love, thought I at the stroke of midnight, when (after dinner and drinks and laughter and chit-chat) my friend Virgil's Saturday-night bachelor party culminated in the arrival of two strippers and a large man named Jimmi. The mustached Jimmi told us the rules. The girls entered the bathroom to change, then walked in wearing very little, and that little was soon gone. What followed, on their part, was a series of gyrating movements and a lot of peculiar configurations. What followed, on their parts, was a series of dollar bills and a lot of rubby-rubby. What followed, on my part, was an unexpected combination of boredom, intrigue and sadness. After three peices of pizza, two pint glasses of water and one long night, I curled up on the carpet in the front room. Dinner was nice.

bernoulli's principle: as the velocity of a fluid increases, the pressure exerted by that fluid decreases. there must be an equation, but equations haven't interested me much during the last few years. moving air exerts less sideward pressure. a moving air mass pulls. this is the science of flight, of ping-pong balls stuck in funnels, hurricanes bursting windows, sailing, eddies, al roker. it helps me understand how frisbees stay afloat on a sunday afternoon in downtown plymouth. how cigarette smoke gets sucked out of a car window when we're driving through the state forest.

i've been thinking that it's much the same for people and our activities, actions, hobbies, recreations and routines: as the velocity of an activity increases, the pressure exerted by that activity decreases. productivity breeds productivity, yes, and through practice the demanding routines become easier. Moving activities supplant others, pulling at surrounding blocks of time. what follows is the ebb of scheduling and the flow of personality.

there is inertia to all of this, laws of specific relativity. sometimes when i'm busiest, i don't feel like i'm moving. long hours working on the golf course in the 90 degree sun, driving a cart, listening to sound, watering grass and hydrating coworkers. nights getting busy relaxing and being social. weekends visiting friends in boston. a little coffee and a little croquet. playing with matt and a giant styrofoam glider. a good night's sleep. we can all stand to get a bit pastoral now and again. the velocity of springtime has pulled me from the screen, and just