rowyn | Entries tagged with on the bus

I caught the Rockhill bus this morning -- just barely. It was running early, and I saw it cross Armour ahead of me. But it stayed at the Armour & Gillham stop to make up the time, and I had time to dash across the street and climb aboard. I fumbled my dollar into the fare machine while the driver printed a transfer for me -- bless him, he's better at remembering I need a transfer than I am.

I stood by the front of the bus, leaning against the massive wheel well. The new buses are built with the front half close to the ground, and easier to access for people with mobility difficulties; the result is that a large chunk of the front, where a row of seats might fit on a standard bus, is occupied by the wheel wells for the front tires. Often, I'll stand there for the duration of my ride on the Rockhill, since it's so short.

But today, I was Postman waving to me from a seat at the back half. I smiled and waved back, whereupon Knit Shirt Woman waved to me, too; she's a pleasant, affable sort of person, so I waved to her as well. Then I walked back to say hi to Postman.

He held out his hand, and I took it. "I'm David," he said.

I told him my name, smiling. "David?" I repeated. "I'll try to remember that; I'm not very good with names. You've been just 'Postman' in my head for quite a while."

He chuckled. "You've been on my mind, too," he said. "I've been thinking, there's someone I gotta talk to a little more. I suppose you've got a man up there."

I nodded. "I do." I smiled, the wistful, happy smile of a woman thinking about someone she loves.

Postman smiled and shook his head. "Figures. That's okay; I ain't mad atchoo. Jealous, but not mad." He looked a little amused, a little regretful.

My stop neared. I tried to reach for the yellow cord but couldn't quite make it from the aisle. Postman -- I should say, David -- pulled it for me.

We wished one another a good day, and I scampered from the bus, out into the chill, crisp morning.

I caught Paper-reading Lady's bus this morning.

There were five unfamiliar young men at the stop, sitting in a row on the bench beneath the bus shelter. For the first time, I saw Smoking Man -- who has always before been sitting on the shelter bench, smoking -- standing. He had a brown paper lunch bag in his hand, and he wasn't smoking.

Neither Postman nor BK Worker were there.
( But I took the bus anyway )

Yesterday I'd been running late, and had caught the Rockhill bus at Gillham & Armour. All the regular riders had been there, except Postman. Paper-Reading Lady and Knit-Shirt Woman and Little Lady and some others had all been chattering away merrily, about some topic I couldn't distinguish. No one seemed to miss Postman, except me.
( But I saw him today )

I'm taking my lunch break late, and at my desk, today. I've been snacking on junk food most of the day and have decided to skip eating lunch entirely. All right, perhaps not the most nutritionally sound of choices, but, face it, my regular lunch isn't exactly health food anyway.

I was thinking about the way I write the "Postman" entries. I made a conscious choice to present them as "stories" and not as "entries". One of the results is that I ramble a bit less, and that they are less accurate to actual memory than my regular entries.

I don't have a good memory for exact words on spoken dialogue, and bus conversations are particularly tricky, because the noise of the bus itself, and other passengers, will drown out snatches of dialogue. Certain things will stick out in my head, but other parts I will miss or forget. Trying to write it up afterwards, as a coherent conversation, is a bit like early paleontology. I've got some key oparts, and I can make a good stab at how they must've fit together, but really, I'm just guessing and most of my skeleton is plastic.
( Behind the scenes )

Our department has a monthly food day, nominally in honor of whomever has birthdays that month. Today is July's snack day. I'd meant to make something for it, either sugar cookies or apple crisp from a mix I've got.

But I was working on my novel last night, and I didn't feel up to using up a few more hours baking and frosting cookies -- it's the frosting part that takes the longest, I've found. The apple crisp mix is quicker to make, but it didn't go over all that well the last time I brought it, and I kept putting it off, until it was too late to bake anything at all.

So I got up this morning and poured most of a giant bag of miniature Reese's into a plastic container, and brought that.
( Read more... )

I left the apartment a few minutes before seven, and walked down to Gillham and Armour, planning to catch the bus on the corner and ride it to Gillham and Linwood. One difficulty immediately presented itself to me: the bus on the corner was already at the corner. I must be running later than I thought. Either that, or it's running early.
( Will our narrator miss the chance to see Postman and Paper-reading Lady entirely? Click to find out! )

I was running late, yet again -- I so often run late now that I may define that as "normal" and my on-time departure as "early" -- so I caught the Gillham & Armour bus this morning.

At first, I thought Postman wasn't going to be there this morning, but then I saw him coming down the street, his shirt unbuttoned and flapping over a white undershirt. He stood on the corner, buttoning it up. I could sympathize; I usually get out the door without quite finishing getting ready. I'm always brushing my hair and braiding it at the bus stop -- in fact, I was brushing it now. He waved and smiled to us as he finished and came over to the stop.
( The Saga Continues! )

It's been a long week. Not over yet, either.

I got my "Prophecy" quota wrapped last night, hurrah! One less thing I have to worry about tonight. I'm sort of worried about it anyway. I'm a bit under target for the monthly goal, and I'm not going to get any writing done on it this weekend, because I'm going to a convention. No, not Anthrocon. There's a con around 200 miles from where I live;

telnar is flying in and we're driving out to it together. We'll probably get there some time late Friday evening. I need to pack for it. Don't really know what I'm bringing. Since it's a good hike away, I'm presuming I'll see a lot of new faces there, which means people who haven't seen all my con outfits already. That'll be nice.

Of course, it probably won't have any of my regular photographers, so I doubt I'll get any pictures back to show off. Then again, that hardly matters since I've got tons of pictures of my whole wardrobe by now anyway.

I'm not too worried about packing.

I've been fretting over "Just Trust Me" and whether or not I should plan for a session next week. A significant part of me thinks that doing a full session next week just ain't gonna work. I want to keep the story moving and make everyone happy, but I also want to not stress myself to the gills doing so. Lately, I've been stressing over everything.

I don't want to work. I so do not want to work. I especially don't want to work on the Never-Ending-Nightmare-Undead-Project-of-the-Damned that's been lingering, largely ignored, on my desk for the last two months, and involves issues that should've been addressed, oh, 2+ years ago.

Whine whine whine.

I was running late and caught the Gillham bus this morning. Postman got on with me, and I sat down next to Paper-reading Lady again; she was wearing a navy suit with a gold brooch on the shoulder, and had her attention firmly planted on her paper. The oddest thing I noticed -- another Tarantino-touch -- is that everyone was in the same place as on Tuesday. Paper-reading Lady, Postman, me, even the two women I'd noticed smiling. It was as though we all had assigned seats. I've never noticed such a confluence of the same people in the same places before. Even on buses where I see the same faces, they're usually arranged a little differently.

Postman and Paper-reading Lady didn't talk to each other today, however.

I have a little bit more background information on the scene I described in my previous entry. Perhaps a week ago, I heard this same pair in the midst of another conversation.

In this case, the postman was eating a banana on the bus, and the woman was lecturing him for this. I'm afraid I can't recall her exact words, but she was going on at some length, and in some detail, on how generally reprehensible it was to eat bananas on the bus. Her general tenor and demeanor suggested that eating bananas on the bus was leading to the decline of civilization as we know it. I do remember that she remarked, "You think just because you wear a uniform, you can do anything?"

The postal worker did not say much in response to her: he was busy eating his banana.

I am predisposed to like this man; he's been friendly and good-natured.

However, I found myself wondering about the woman, and the relationship the two of them appear to have.

At first, I thought perhaps they really were friends, and her seeming tirades were, in fact, a running joke. But her tone has borne no hint of either irony or amusement. To all appearances that I can detect, she is sincere in her self-righteousness.

Given that she means her rebukes to be heartfelt, I had to wonder at the postal worker's continued attempts to be friendly. When a friendly overture is rebuffed, my natural inclination is either to give up, or to explain, if it appears my intent was misunderstood. The postman did neither: instead, he pursues the same course of action he might've had she smiled and been pleasant in return. That disconnect makes me think he is baiting her: he knows she thinks poorly of him, but he won't leave her alone anyway.

That conclusion made me re-think my predisposition to like him. After all, it is at least a little rude to continue to talk to someone who is so plainly signaling that she wishes to be left alone.

But -- even with that in mind -- I still find his unswerving good humor admirable. Perhaps it is a little unkind of him to bait the paper-reading lady.

But maybe the paper-reading lady really needs a little baiting. Perhaps, as Gen put it, he'll get a smile out of her, one of these days.

I caught the bus at the corner of Gillham and Armour this morning, the one that only goes a quarter-mile. I usually walk the distance instead, but I was running late.

A man in a postal uniform takes this bus daily, and boards at the same stop. He got on just after I did, and sat a couple of benches behind me. I was sitting right up front, in the seats that run parallel to the bus sides -- since I was only riding for a quarter mile -- next to a pretty woman in a suit and scarf. She was reading a newspaper.

From his seat, the post office worker said to her, "Hey there, paper-reading lady!"

She lifted her head from her paper, and gave him a Look. Now, he had delivered his words in a jovial, friendly voice, like a man speaking to an old friend. She gave him the sort of Look one generally reserves for leering men saying things like "Wha's yo' price, ho?" "Excuse me?" she said, in a tone aimed to chill bonfires.

"I said, 'Hey there, paper-reading lady!'" He was still perfectly jovial and pleasant.

"I believe this is America."

"Sure is."

"I mean, the United States." She stretched out "united" into "uuu-nighted" for further empasis.

"Yup."

"As long as I've bought this paper, I'm entitled to read it wherever I want. On the bus, on the street, in a restaurant, in the bathroom, wherever I want."

As she was speaking, I was covering my mouth to conceal the huge grin growing on my face. Across from me, another woman was also trying not to smile too widely, while a seat further back, I could see a woman whose grin stretched from ear to ear.

The paper-reading lady rustled her paper in irritation. "The nerve of some people," she said, to no one in particular.

"Oh, absolutely," said the woman across from us, smiling. She held out her umbrella like one proffering a weapon. "Would you like to teach him a lesson?"

The man said, half-laughing, "Careful, there! She might do it!"

But the paper-reading lady had gone back to her paper. I pulled the cord for my stop. As I was stepping off, I heard the postal worker behind me say to her, "And how are you this morning?" in the same cheerful, unperturbed manner he'd worn this whole conversation. I didn't get to catch her response.

But, just based on her manner, I'd have to say "irritable."