Shock Culture Reverse

This is my last post to this blog. As I said in my previous post, we are more or less over our culture shock after more than a year as suburbanites. I hope you have enjoyed this blog.

I have started a new blog -- The Dashing Commuter -- so that I can continue sharing the little stories that crop up along the way.

See you there!

I plan to close down this blog soon and start up another. After all, we have been living the commuter life for a little more than a year now, so the cuture shock is pretty much over.

But, before I move on, I thought I'd write a little about the one thing you lose the most of when you become a commuter.

Time.

The time spent on commuting every day -- in our case about an hour and 10 minutes to an hour and 20 minutes each day -- blows a hole in your daily life. And, if you sleep on the train -- as I often do on the morning commute -- that's more lost time. And, for reasons that continue to baffle me, I wind up feeling very, very tired by the end of the week.

For Diane and me, this has been the biggest adjustment. But we have figured out ways to cope. In the beginning, we wound up doing nearly all our errands on the weekends -- which added to the exhaustion factor. We have learned to try to do as much as we can in the evening after we get home. Diane recently bought most of the groceries on a Friday night, which completely freed up the weekend.

I still find the time thing odd. After all, in both London and New York, my daily commute took 45-50 minutes -- not that much different from now -- and I did not feel it nearly as much.

Maybe it's the inflexibility of the train schedule. After all, if you miss a subway or a bus in the city, you can always wait for another one. If you miss a commuter train, you have to wait anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour for the next one. That increases the pressure to make your train.

Time and timetables have also hit our social lives. A friend not long ago e-mailed me that she had seen more of me when I lived in London or Bangalore and saw friends during annual home leaves. I am now consciously trying to see more of my friends, but it is not always as easy as I would like it.

Jay has probably had to make the biggest adjustment. New school, new friends. The hardest thing for him must be the lack of freedom of movement. In London, he was able to travel around the city by Tube or bus, and we felt comfortable about his safety. In New Providence, N.J., he can only travel as far as his bike will take him. That means the mall and other destinations are out. He can take the train, but that has its limitations and his friends -- used to being chauffeured everywhere by their parents -- are not inclined to use the train.

I hope this does not sound like whining. It is intended to be more of a reflection on the changes brought by a change in scene.

We are back from a wonderful vacation in London. We saw old friends, bought some books and walked around London. I got to see the wonderful Hogarth exhibit at the Tate Britain museum and drank some great British ale.

I took this picture at the Tate Modern, the modern art museum in a former power station on the South Bank of the Thames. The structures behind Jay and Diane are giant slides.

Saw this sign in my dry cleaner's today:

LEATHER
WEDDING

Sounds like fun! Or a Billy Idol song ...

On this morning's train, I found a flier on my seat advertising auto insurance.

The ad concluded, "You deserve it. You are a COMMUTER!"

I wonder what else I deserve. Chocolates on every ride? A neck rub?

Driving home from a visit to my brother, Jeremy, yesterday, Diane noticed that Holy Sepulcher Cemetery is on Granny Road ...

This billboard for "Adult Swim," the Cartoon Network's late-night show, can be seen en route to Penn Station as you walk south on 7th Avenue. It creeps me out.

A friend recently expressed concern because he had not seen a posting to this blog from me in a while. Well, I have been "away" due to embarrassment.

This blog wound up getting hammered by the Awful Blogs Web site a few months ago. And, I have to admit, some of the criticisms are accurate. I did get a little carried away with my new Macbook and it's built-in camera (and I have since deleted some of the pics that were "quoted" in Awful Blogs.)

I also plead guilty, as charged, to writing some mundane, banal stuff. After the first couple of months, I had found it hard to find much to write about. Let's face it: living in New Jersey, working in New York City and commuting between the two of them are not as interesting as blogs about living in London or living in India.

The other problem: my audience is not necessarily the general public. This blog is intended for a) friends and family in the States and b) friends in Britain, who have an interest in how Americans live (There are differences. What we take for granted in America may be unusual elsewhere).

Another issue: because my "day job" is that of a journalist, I can't write anything containing political opinion. That would be wrong (and could get me in trouble with my employer). So, I have to keep it pretty vanilla sometimes. Like my other blogs, it's more of a travelogue.

So, what to do? Change the blog. It will be more like my London blog in its later days. There will be an occasional posting when I see or hear something interesting or funny. That includes pictures. I almost always have my camera with me.

I hope this makes the blog more interesting and more fun. And will keep me from getting the attention of Awful Blogs again!