“Hello, Ladies and Gentlemen. Thanks for riding the Amtrack Pacific Surfliner with us this fine Friday. I’m Anthony, and let me be the first to extend a cordial invitation to visit this surfliner’s Café, located on the lower level of the northern-most train car. Don’t know which way’s north? That’s the way we’re headed, folks. We have some lovely fine dining options today, throwing back old-school style with some class.

First on our menu is a perfect penne-pesto pasta—say that five times fast!—offered with a side of garlic bread. The pesto is fresh, the pasta is coated in a ever-so-thin layer of gourmet olive oil, grown right here in the Santa Barbara region; the garlic bread is garlic-y. We offer a plethora and variety of sandwiches, served a la carte or as a meal. You may also try our complete care-package meal, a fine way to treat yourself or someone you love. The care-package comes with a crispy Cesar salad complete with crunchy garlic croutons and zesty parmesan cheese. Then you’ll find some fire-roasted salami nestled between a artesian banquette, and then comes our organic—ORGANIC—homemade applesauce. This fine care package also contains a sample of just lovely nuts—that’s right, nuts ladies and gents. For a fine treat this fine Friday, you could try a five-nut brownie, or a fresh fruit bowl… for those watching their figures.”

—Northbound train to Santa Barbara, San-ta Bar-bar-a, final destination Gol-e-ta, Northbound train. Approaching stop Camarillo, Cam-ar-illo, Ladies and Gentlemen. Please take a moment to gather your belongings, make sure you’ve left nothing behind—nothing behind, please, this train isn’t turning around. Next stop Camarillo. Camarillo, next stop—

“We also offer a diverse selection of soda pop and hot coffee, lovely loose leaf teas, cream and sugar. Of course, we have adult beverages. 21 and older, please. It’s five o’clock somewhere!

We also have the classics—hot dogs, pizza. Our four-cheese pepperoni pizza has an exquisite flakey crust, baked to perfection, flecks of golden brown around the edges. We offer a jalapeno cheeseburger, as well—often imitated, never duplicated!

If you’re thinking of having a nice big lunch with one of those giant, multi-national corporations, why don’t you cancel it and head down to the café car on this Amtrak Pacific Surfliner. I’ll be waiting for you with open arms and baked bread. Have a wonderful Friday now. T.G.I.F. That means, thank God it’s Friday! Thank you, and good morning.”

Parking lots, rows of gleaming cars. Junk yards, lines of matte cars, diluted colors, crumpled bumpers, scratched mirrors. Fields of strawberries. Citrus fruits, unripe oranges. Backsides of windows—a slide-by glimpse into homes. A kitchen window cozies up to train tracks, a window-sill decorated with plates and tiles, propped up in steel holders, white and adobe backs. Cars parked in driveways, people walking too slowly. Flooded marshes and puddles, a quiet grey sky. Forecasted rain—those are some nice red boots ma’am, the ticket-collector had said; that’s a nice beret, I said. A fashionable fellow, he was—sunshine peeks through clouds, crashing waves, a surfer paddles, paddles, rides whitewater and falls over. Surfers bob up and down, wet-suits shimmering, until we swing inland. Flickering foliage, muted green, pine needles and mud. Along a garbage-sprinkled street. Bud light boxes, orange peels, and perky cacti. Hang over a precipice, slide back down to sea, over rocks and brown foamy waves on grey and black-glinted boulders. Oil rigs in the water, evenly spaced, calm.

—Final stop, Goleta. Ladies and Gentlemen, if you plan to be heading back with us this afternoon, please note that ALL Southbound trains headed back to Los Angeles and San Diego will be STANDING ROOM ONLY. The calm before the storm right now, please note that ALL SOUTHBOUND trains will be STANDING room ONLY. Goleta, fifteen minutes, final stop, Go-le-ta, fifteen minutes.—

“We will have plenty of food and beverage here in the café car for your way back, no matter how crowded it may be. Please stop down and ask for Anthony. We just so appreciate your business. Have a lovely day.”

And a happy Valentine’s Day to you.

Last year on this very day, I was in Nicaragua. In Nicaragua, as well as most Spanish-speaking countries I presume, Valentine’s Day is called “Día de Amistad y Amor.” Friendship and Love Day. Now, really—what is there not to love about that? A day to celebrate your friends and the people you love. Who do not, necessary, include a significant other.

And so last year, we—my Nicaraguan friends and I—went to a party in Tola to celebrate each other. So this year, in the United States, where Valentine’s Day explodes on the scene in one of two forms (for females, at least)—a nice dinner with your date; or, a lot of chocolate and wine and a little bit of single-person bitterness with your girlfriends—I’ve decided to do neither and instead celebrate friendships and love.

I’m blessed to have wonderful friends, and I’m blessed to be able to spend time with them. On Friday night, I went out for drinks with girls who I’ve known for almost a decade now, and although we’ve all changed since middle school (I would hope so), I still just love each and every one of them. I have wonderful friends in Colorado—a best friend from college sent me the above card; how well she knows me, for who likelier would like to recline in a tub of chocolates than me—and we’re scheming to meet in Peru soon. This Valentine’s Day, I’m celebrating the fact that, although I am living at home and don’t necessarily want to be living at home, I have a wonderful family. My extended family, flung across the east coast and mid-west, just got a little closer, as a cousin moved to Los Angeles, and I get to see him today, too. My sister and her boyfriend make me want to gag sometimes because they are probably going to live happily ever after, but you know, today that makes me very happy—that I don’t have to worry about her.

~

It’s still unseasonably warm today. A summer’s Sunday. Couples are out and about. There’s a couple sitting across from me at Buster’s in South Pasadena. He’s a wirey pale fellow and she’s a very curvy, Hispanic lady with a tattoo of a cross on her left shoulder. They’re taking photos of themselves and each other right now, which is why they even caught my attention. She’s wearing a very low cut shirt and, unfortunately, I can see her nipple. It’s poking out of her also-exposed bra. And now they are making out. Now, really. What about Valentine’s Day makes people think this is acceptable public behavior?

I’m wearing a pink sundress, mind you, and munching on the chocolate hearts my spin instructor passed out in class this morning, so, you know, I’m festive, I’m into the spirit of St. Valentine. But, this couple really must stop taking pictures of themselves kissing and she should go to the bathroom and put herself together. I mean, honestly, we’re in an ice cream shop—there are children here!

Rollerblading! I had absolutely forgotten about this former childhood pastime of mine until yesterday, when, mid-afternoon on an unseasonably warm Saturday—after weeks of rain, summer descends upon Southern California in mid-February—I went rollerblading.

Every Saturday, my mom, sister and I used to suit up in full rollerblading attire—safety first in the Kimble family, no matter the cost: wrist guards, knee pads, and the ever gawky elbow pads—and head to the Rose Bowl. Round and round we went, and I remember it being great fun. Such great fun that we continued doing it for years, going through several pairs of blades as our gawky knees grew further from our feet.

And so, yesterday, around 3 p.m., for no other reason except I didn’t want to go to the gym and it was warm out, I located my old rollerblades, confirmed that, miraculously they did still fit, and head once again to the Rose Bowl (this time in possession of a driver’s license). I made the adult decision that I would not wear the elbow pads, laced up, and started off around the three mile loop.

Arms flailed and people stared—I guess rollerblading is no longer en vogue—but for the most part, it was like riding a bike. I did fall, once, on the first downhill section I encountered, when I so into my one-two-one-two rhythm that I forgot that I was standing atop tiny rolling wheels failed to dodge a stick in the road. A flail and a plop, and I was on my bum. But, that’s what they’re for, so I dusted myself off and continued on my merry way. En toto, a successful Saturday afternoon activity.

A mind is blown when something that you always feared but knew to be impossible turns out to be true; when the world turns out to be far vaster, far more marvelous or malevolent than you ever dreamed; when you get proof that everything is connected to everything else, that everything you know is wrong, that you are both the center of the universe and a tiny speck sailing off its nethermost edge.

Michael Chabon