11.16.16 This is Union Station, Los Angeles. I’m halfway through my trip, about to board the Southwest Chief bound for Chicago before zigzagging down to New Orleans on my way home to Brooklyn. Tonight’s train is delayed by several hours, so I entertain myself by making a list of the activities that each passenger is engaged in:

• 1 woman peeling an orange
• 1 man reading a magazine
• 1 man doing crossword puzzles in a paperback book
• 1 child doing math homework, presumably geometry, with a metal ruler.
• 1 woman scrutinizing an Amtrak ad for railroad-themed cocktails available aboard the Coast Starlight
• 1 man wandering the waiting area with a rolled up newspaper in his hand. He periodically beats it into his other hand as though it were a billy club.
• 5 people watching an interior decorating show on a flat screen tv built into the wall.
• 34 people looking at smartphones.