A Cup of Tea & Biscuits

"Going home?" asks Ennis, a friendly grin on his face as I shuffle into the back seat of his Uber.  "Yes!"  "Belltown?" Ennis swerves sharply to the right from the middle lane with the intention of getting on the I-520 ramp from Bellevue to Seattle. I pause before I answer. "It was home," I s ay. "But I'm moving back to Chicago in two hours." To say that I'm delighted would be completely accurate. But it does come at some emotional cost, not to mention the exhaustion and mental tussle of a cross-country move. West Seattle 22 months in the Pacific Northwestern city of Seattle has been educational and interesting, and expensive too if I factor in the 13 trips I made to Chicago in the time. I moved for work, particularly for the people that I'd be working with, and not for any other reason (more of that tearful rip here ). And that is what I will miss most. So while it's not as heart-wrenching as my pr

By now, it ought to be obvious to anyone that is even remotely acquainted with me that I am addicted to swimming. It is my one vice that I latched on to some eight years ago, and nothing else has come even close to giving me the same type of elation or satisfaction. But this post is not about swimming or pools. It is about how that addiction grew, rather, leaped into my latest hobby.  Scuba diving. Photo by  Mitchel Wijt  on  Unsplash Snorkeling fascinates me, though I’ve never done it. Going anywhere that I can’t see the bottom simply terrorizes me. And yet, in March 2019 I received my  PADI Open Water Diver  certification, and just three days ago, after 9 dives, also got my  Dry Suit Specialty  certification. Photo by  Emily Morter  on  Unsplash Why did I do it?   I, who finds touching crabs distasteful and downright creepy, genuinely shocked by anything with tentacles, cringing at the sight of grey shrimp and scaly fish. What could have possibly possessed me to f

Also adapted & published on  Medium .   Photo by  Viktor Forgacs  on  Unsplash Let’s start with some quick math. 50 minutes twice a day is 100 minutes per day, which is 500 minutes a week, and 26000 minutes in a year. 433 hours is roughly the amount of time I spend in a year commuting to and from work. Sure, taking into some reduction when I’m in a different city with a shorter commute — 20 minutes each way — and also my vacation time, it’s still about 315 hours or 13 days a year spent on a train or bus getting to and back from work. Time is valuable, whether you use it to get some work done, “me” time, napping is totally up to you. But I think of these 13 days quite as additional time in my everyday life, 100 minutes I’ll never get back, and choose to make the best of it. Mass transit being my chosen method of commute — I am talking of trains and buses running within cities, not those the suburban ones — for nearly a decade now, I’ve come to es