Talking is fine, but me raising a book is my cone of invisibility. You can read the cover, you can even talk to me about the cover, but you cannot acknowledge that the insides exist.

Well, it's true that when I am reading a book, I tend to forget about other people on the T. I consider it perfectly legitimate to cry when I have an open book in my hand (whereas, crying without a book is wildly humiliating), so there is something to the cone of invisibility on that front.

But it's up to the reader whether to acknowledge/accept co-readers. If the reader doesn't, no big whoop; the co-reader just reads what she can offa the page conveniently. (Some of the crap read on the T, you really only need 2/3 of each page anyway.) Ideally, unacknowledged co-readers are totally invisible to the reader, until such time as the reader chooses to notice them.

Bwah. I'm listening to a seven minute voicemail left in error by someone who was transferred (again in error) to my extension and is pissed that no one can take her call. She thinks she's hung up -- so I heard her cursing, and now her and husband are yelling at the kid.

I forgot to make oatmeal again. i am putting the dry in the pot before I go to work - so all I have to do is add the milk and cream before bed.

When is the new storm supposed to hit?

I checked again, and it looks like we're in the clear. I'm not going to look again, ever, just in case.

I consider it perfectly legitimate to cry when I have an open book in my hand

Huh. I'm adamantly against crying in public with the lights on. Which is becoming a problem in krav, since sometimes teaching makes me mist up. In a technically good way, but no less insane for that.

Ow. Now they're using kitchen equipment. Only a minute more of the phone message to go.

ita, you can delete phone messages in the middle of them, can't you? It's the only way I can control my mother's rampant abuse of cell phone.

I should clarify: I'm not a fan of crying in public, but if one has a properly acknowledgeable stimulus -- a book, e.g. -- then it's justifiable. If done silently.

One of my pet peaves? People on the platform who walk alongside the doors of the train as it slows to a stop, so they'll be right in front of the door when it opens. A couple of times I have had to step out of the way to let these people walk by... until I asked myself why I had to move out of their way when I was already at the place where the doors would be when the train stopped. Now I just pretend not to notice those people.

Heh. I am these people.

you can delete phone messages in the middle of them, can't you?

One can. I can't. It's like a license to eavesdrop. I listen to all the dial-in-error messages that get left (and with the lowercase, I'm often the first number in the cellphone directory). This is probably why my parents accidentally sent a text message, when they were using my phone, to someone who REALLY didn't need to be getting almost blank test messages from me. Kismet, they tell me the word is.

one has a properly acknowledgeable stimulus -- a book

Among Buffistas, that is proper, but is it among train takers?

I very rarely cry at books, and would expect to be looked at funny if I did.

George W Bush uses an iPod.

I'm waiting for a playlist punchline.

The only times I talk to someone about what they are reading is if I am reading the same book, which happens freakishly often.

Well, there was that one time on the plane when the man next to me was reading something stamped with both Confidential and the logo for a project my father helped head up, but really, that was just to be mean.

You all will be glad to know, by the bye, that "earworm" is gaining acceptance in published works. Next up: the dictionary.

Obladi, Oblada, Amygdala: Word as Earworm

eta: There. Fixed it meself. No big.