I don’t usually write posts this long, but I thought it would be best to provide some context to my work.

This morning, I took a train from Seattle to Portland to meet up with an old college buddy of mine, more on that later. I had been awake up until 5:30 AM and was looking forward to getting a little rest for all traveling I had to do today. As soon as the train started moving, I was ready to catch some shut-eye when the dude next to me starts cranking his music. It wasn’t like he was listening to an open set of cans; these were through his crappy stock ipod headphones. His music was alright, and I usually like most styles of music; but working on 4 hours of sleep make some music genres sound extremely annoying. I tapped him and told him once to turn it down a notch, but a few minutes later on, he started it up again. Sometimes when he really gets in the song, he does this kind of weird half-hum-half singing. He wasn’t being obnoxious on purpose. He was just really into his music, looking for the next song as soon as the last one plays because he’s never heard of a playlist.

I figured I’d let it slide because I figured the guy would be so deaf afterwards that he wouldn’t understand a word I said. It didn’t look like the guy was unaware of anyone else around him, so I started making the first sketch below right next to the guy. I even put on my headphones to try to block him, but even that didn’t seem to work. No matter, it was something to sketch about, and he never noticed. So rock on, man.

Down the car, I see a train attendant walking down the aisle. I guess someone had their music or phone on too loud and as he passed he told them to turn it down. The lady shot back that it was, and it ended up sounding like a debate between first graders with the attendant shaking his head as he made his way to the other end of the car.

The area I was sitting was facing two other seats occupied by two women. Even though they were within the same earshot of Singer Boy, they managed to fall asleep soundly. Since I couldn’t fall asleep myself, I ended up spending my trip sketching people who did get some rest. I also notice a hat works well to break eye contact when sketching the more alert passengers.

Murder on the Orient Express was showing during the trip. I didn’t watch the whole thing since i was sketching, but what stuck out to me was Albert Finney’s character and Rachel Roberts hair. I hear it’s a good whodunit movie, so I’ll have to check it out again sometime. The rest of the day was spent going from Portland to Salem to Corvallis back to Portland visiting and hanging out with old friends.

And by the way…

Congratulations to Desmond and Chris on their new engagement!