WASHINGTON—You have a creative thesis. You ride the Metro to work in Washington, D.C. These are not incompatible facts. You have read about people who toiled in cubicles for years, suffered long commutes, and emerged from the chrysalis of public transportation into the butterfly fulfillment of authordom, having penned some Great American Novel during the hellish trips. Since during the course of your short life you have had no success following the diligent examples of others, of course this is the time to do so.

If by “the time to do so” you mean “the time at which you realize you have no concentration span.” You like to people-watch too much. You get distracted from your thesis and console yourself with the thought that understanding people contributes to literary development. (You belatedly remember that the second person is “distancing.”)

• • •

The Metro is great for people-watching. This must be at least as good for aspiring literary types as wearing black and smoking. I decide to try it, because writing a Great American Novel by hand on the train is about as intelligent as George W. Bush making political pronouncements from the driver’s seat of his vacation golf cart. (Which he did this week. Wish it were the only place he’s in control.)

The Metro, no longer Intellectual Haven, becomes instead Lessons in Human Nature. Which is not as far from Large Fish Tank as I would like. It’s about as social, about as intelligent and about as clean.

Today the subject is Guy on Metro reading book about diamonds. Hypothesis one: he is getting engaged. Hypothesis two: he is a geology student. Hypothesis three: he thinks I am weird. He gets up and moves.