I think I'm actually starting to like the 1h20 commute. There's very little useful you can do while riding a bus and, therefore, very little you have to do. As a result, I spend most of my commuting time just reading or daydreaming, which is very satisfying in a relaxing, undemanding sort of way.

The commute seems to be especially good for reading popular science books. Although I like popular science books a great deal, under normal circumstances I find they're just too easy to get distracted from, what with videogames, internet, sketchpads, other people, &c all vying for my attention as well. However, on the commute there are no distractions, or at least very few. And because commute reading time comes in discrete, 1h20 packets of time, I'm less likely to feel overwhelmed or intimidated by the length or density of these very serious books than I might if I had unlimited time to spend with them.

In news more or less completely unrelated, cockroaches may be the greatest diet aid known to man. You just have to watch one scurry across your kitchen floor, and your appetite simply vanishes. Or at least mine does. My Bahamian housemate, who's used to roaches at least 10x the size of ours, doesn't seem at all bothered.

So now I'm engaged in a cleaning frenzy of a sort, although it's difficult to work up much of a frenzy with only an hour or so of free time a night, if that. A slow motion cleaning frenzy, maybe. Anyhow, I'm throwing out all food that hasn't been securely sealed, wiping down the counters, mopping the floors, and maybe if I get really brave I'll even try to clean out that tricky area around and behind the appliances, which probably hasn't been touched by rag, mop, or human appendage since the building went up.

It's a good fight, no doubt, but it's hard not to be bitter when I know it's probably going to take up pretty much all of my free time for the rest of the week. And that it still probably won't have a noticeable effect. And that I have cartooning and school newspaper pseudo-work I should really be doing instead. And that I really, really want to watch the rest of Dexter. And the first episode of the new Torchwood, because I have no taste.

And now my alloted ~ hour of free time is up. Must sleep, so I can get up early tomorrow to retch at cockroaches and read about string theory.