Today, I'm attending Social Media Week in New York City and caught an early train in from Milford. It's been quite a while since I took the train into New York, and several things caught my eye. In the pre-dawn light, we passed a small pond surrounded by fir trees. It looked idyllic, as if it were out of Maine or perhaps a Scandinavian country. The train continued on its way into Bridgeport where I saw empty fields in sections of the city. It made me think of some of the urban gardening initiatives I've been reading about so much recently. As we approached the train station, I saw red sun peaking up over the horizon. There wasn't a ferry at the port and the water looked still, placid. Slowly, the sun climbed into the sky bringing a a yellow hue to the the scene.

We passed an old decrepit factory. The courtyard, which once saw masses of labors changing shifts was now empty, except for litter that had blown in from somewhere, and perhaps, to a discerning eye, the ghosts of workers from a bygone industrial era.

A young woman entered the train and the guy in the seat in front of me shifted over as if he knew her, was expecting, perhaps even longing for her. They softly spoke with one another but betrayed no emotion. Were they just coworkers who took the train together, or was there some other hidden dynamic. The song "So Much In Love" came to mind, mixed together with "Brown-eyed girl"

so in love are we two
that we don't know what to do

In the misty mornin' fog
With our, our hearts a-thumpin'

Another woman entered the train and sat down to read one of those glamour magazines.

As we rolled into Stamford, I looked at the new construction and my thoughts shifted to Cat Stevens,

Well I think it's fine, building jumbo planes.
Or taking a ride on a cosmic train.

I know we've come a long way,
We're changing day to day,
so tell me, where do the children play?

Back on our way, we passed through Old Greenwich and past a frost covered golf course. What that some sorted twisted metaphorical response to the question the songs in my head were asking? I watched the ads as the flew by, BBC is now available on Cable. Use a smartphone or a DVR. Other ads were harder to figure out and I drifted back to sleep.

Arriving in New York, there were people wandering around in summer clothing talking on conch shells. Apparently, it was a flash mob advertisement for a cruise line. "The Sea is Calling". The only way I figured that out was from some tweets after the fact, where one jaded New Yorker responded, "Sorry, wrong number".

I had a similar reaction. The first person I saw talking on a conch phone I thought was some young artsy type trying to make a statement. I then wondered if it was part of Fashion Week, some new line of cruisewear. Ultimately I guessed it was for cruise line, but I had no idea which one.

Yet as I looked more and more, it seemed like a bad scene out of Snow Crash, or some other science fiction movie where people became part of some cult worshiping the sea and acting erratically. The bad premonition was amplified by seeing robocops on their motorized tricycles.

Finally, I have made it to New York. It is lunch time and during the break, I write down these thoughts. The next session starts soon and I expect it will be a long afternoon and evening.