Mar 09, 2001
The joys of unemployment are manifold (so too are the fears, but we will speak of them another day). Yes, I am finally fully unemployed, it having taken me a month to move from the idea to the actuality.
Time to take buses, a form of transport favored by those who are not in a hurry and those who injury or age has forced to take advantage of the kneeling bus or the wheelchair platform, as opposed to the treacherous bowels of our subway.
One could feel at home here, recovering from employment, riding with the lame, the halt, the blind, the aged and those prone to counting out loud or to narrating their own physical state between bus stops. My co-riders and I witnessed a beautiful evening; a female four year old's tantrum; a man with a giant head (or was it just a hat too small?) who nearly choked on his gum; a drunken boxing match on Avenue A, which was more interprative dance than violence owing to just the right amount of inebriation; the chef of Prune lugging grocery bags (more dance).
The bus is a delicious vehicle for the voyeur as one cannot be spotted doing one's spotting owing to the nature of the windows. I cannot imagine why it was decided to put windows you could leer out of but not into on buses, but I am deeply grateful. I was recently able to watch an old girlfriend's corduroy-ed bottom recede up Ninth Avenue for several blocks; it's still a fine bottom. Being a resident of Los Angeles these days, corduroy bottom was suprised at my lack of surprise when she walked into my late place of work to surprise me. I kissed her hello and asked what had been in the Jeffrey shopping bag (you should know that this is an uncharacteristic activity—shopping—for the above mentioned, something akin to seeing your favorite living philosopher purchasing People magazine) she had been carrying that afternoon. Buses give us the advantage.
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The joys of unemployment are manifold (so too are the fears, but we will speak of them another day). Yes, I am finally fully unemployed, it having taken me a month to move from the idea to the actuality.
Time to take buses, a form of transport favored by those who are not in a hurry and those who injury or age has forced to take advantage of the kneeling bus or the wheelchair platform, as opposed to the treacherous bowels of our subway.
One could feel at home here, recovering from employment, riding with the lame, the halt, the blind, the aged and those prone to counting out loud or to narrating their own physical state between bus stops. My co-riders and I witnessed a beautiful evening; a female four year old's tantrum; a man with a giant head (or was it just a hat too small?) who nearly choked on his gum; a drunken boxing match on Avenue A, which was more interprative dance than violence owing to just the right amount of inebriation; the chef of Prune lugging grocery bags (more dance).
The bus is a delicious vehicle for the voyeur as one cannot be spotted doing one's spotting owing to the nature of the windows. I cannot imagine why it was decided to put windows you could leer out of but not into on buses, but I am deeply grateful. I was recently able to watch an old girlfriend's corduroy-ed bottom recede up Ninth Avenue for several blocks; it's still a fine bottom. Being a resident of Los Angeles these days, corduroy bottom was suprised at my lack of surprise when she walked into my late place of work to surprise me. I kissed her hello and asked what had been in the Jeffrey shopping bag (you should know that this is an uncharacteristic activity—shopping—for the above mentioned, something akin to seeing your favorite living philosopher purchasing People magazine) she had been carrying that afternoon. Buses give us the advantage.
- rachael 3-10-2001 12:35 am