Nrrgl

I'll probably stick with the metro but I whimper at the time difference between metro and driving into work.  Maybe if I break down the good and bad for each, I'll see it's ultimately better to take metro...

Good for Metro:  I'm being environmentally good; I probably won't have to put any money towards metro for a few months due to vacation/furlough/cheaper fares; free shuttle bus, which is cutting my metro costs WAY down as I would have to spend $4.70 each day on parking (yes, that's more than the ride); my reading stays the same, if not grows because I'm reading while waiting for the shuttle.  (I finished one book yesterday and am already halfway through another.)

Bad for Metro:  I leave the apartment at 7:30 to make sure I'm there for the shuttle bus, get in around 8:45 - coming home, I get to Huntington around 5:45 but don't generally get home until 6-6:10.

So, generally the only really irksome thing is that if I drive, it's only 30 to 40 minutes tops.  Taking the metro, it's about an hour or a little over an hour, because I have to wait for the shuttle (seriously, I get to Huntington at around 5:45/5:50 but don't walk through the door until about 6:10/6:15 [some of that is getting mail/slow elevators/RIDICULOUSLY LONG HALLWAY, so.]).  I'll probably get used to it but it is a bit irritating - it doesn't help that I probably get there just after one of the shuttle buses has left. :P

It really is down to what I save money on, though, even if I'd like to be home sooner - I chewed through gas in the last week and I'm counting pennies so free shuttle service + racking up metro money due to furlough/vacation is the deal maker.

REALIZATION EDIT:  Oh.  Well.  If my calculations are correct (and there's a good chance they aren't ;) ), I won't have to put any money towards metro until many months after the New Year.  There goes any argument I'll have - I'll swallow the extra time commuting if it means nothing leaves my pockets for roughly half a year.  (It's because I'm carrying over so much and it just keeps snowballing.)

(no subject)

Because my mood has been all over the place (and I realize I've been a chatty bitch lately, uh.), a list of things that just give me pleasure and make me happy right now.

1.  When you eat at the dining room table (with a gorgeous table cloth and a cat sleeping in one of the chairs after she has snuffled the butter), you can eat and stare out the sliding glass doors at the Potomac River and watch the kind of hypnotic flow of traffic.  Eventually, when it is cooler, I will have dinner on the balcony.

2.  Ben's suggestion has made me very happy.  I have my favorite chair in the world tucked away in the corner of my room, next to the window and the A/C and I can curl up in it and read and, again, look up to see the river and DC in the distance.

3.  Good bread, lightly buttered on both sides.

4.  Chilled white wine - on that note, being back in VA where I can get wine and beer at the grocery store.  Take that, MoCo!

5.  The cat trots out to great me when I get home, no matter if she was napping.

6.  The red and white plates my mom got me for Christmas from Johnson Bros.  They just make me happy and they're gorgeous (red and ___ combinations make me happy.  Red and cream; red and brown...)

7.  Rereading a favorite book that you haven't picked up in years - it might not be the best in the world, but it's kind of like slipping on a comfortable, familiar coat - while realizing you left something wonderful, like a $20, in the pocket.  Familiar, comforting but with forgotten surprises.

8.  Sleeping in a room that is comfortably freezing, with a dozing cat under the mound of blankets.  That's my idea of bliss right there.

9.  An iPod that doesn't crap out on me and since I grabbed about 2000 songs from Ben, hitting random and just waiting to see what's going to appear because hell if I know what's really on there now. :D

10.  Coming home last night to a meal cooked by the new roommate.  First real meal cooked in the apartment and I arrived home to it - brilliant.

11.  Well, you guys, of course. :)  (Aww.)