The Back of People’s Heads: It invariably happens to us all. For one reason or another, we get stuck on a Red Line train from Metro Center to Shady Grove with nothing to read, nothing to distract our attention from staring out into the darkened tunnels or straight ahead at the back of the person’s head seated in front of us. So we stare. We start judging the health of their hair, the quality of their highlights or dye-job, how well their head rests upon their neck and sits upon their shoulders. And then there are those people who take pictures of those heads.

Hooray for Metro: Well, word has it that New York City’s three-day-old transit strike is coming to an end, though city officials are not yet sure when service will return. It was a few good days for WMATA, which, thanks to New York’s transit workers and their seemingly intractable demands, boasted of the highest ridership of any public transit system in the country. While we have been able to look to our neighbors to the north over the last three days and chuckle as we board our waiting bus or train, soon we will go back to playing second fiddle to New York’s expansive subway system. It was a good run while it lasted, though.