31-December-2008 2:00PM

in the end of things they are as always
a shedding of that deft spiraling maze
you think you’re gifted, loved, respected, pled
only despised, loathed, phony, pseudo, dead

An “anticommuter” with a computer, how novel is that? One must wonder where he acquired such a piece of hardware. Another of these enters, and apparently knows the computer ‘toter’ and starts asking questions:

“Hey Needle!”
“Whaaaa?”
“Whatcha doin’ here?”
“Going to Capital Hill.”
“Whaheeeee?”
unintelligible

How interesting that it ended there, this so-called informative palaver which enlightened to no end.

The next “acquaintance” I make is at Madison and 3rd, an Emo kid dressed in you-guessed-it-black. Arms are predictably crossed in belligerent fastening, skin characteristically pale and pimply…it’s almost like he gives us others who enjoy that “color” (in quotations since really it is the absence of all color) for real a bad name. I hate this really. Why did he have to sit next to me so that I would miss out on the pretty smiling Asian girl with long glossy black hair that could have been sitting there instead. “Story of my life,” as is said over and over in certain circles.
***
This bus leaving at mid-afternoon is completely full; the mass exodus thus began for all the celebrations tonight. I am sure this Emo’s got all sort of plans tonight. Boy, would I ever love to speculate…
Luckily so far we encounter little traffic, which means that goofy knit-hat guy and dried-out knuckle man and his overweight female 80’s hairdo companion and those many others here that have to endure much more elapsed time spent upright, wobbling on their under-worked and sedentary legs. I bet you they are happy about that. Yeah, sure they are.
Someone over across the aisle whispers the language of gossip, all those “SSSS” sounds carrying through the throng of human media like a whale’s song through the quavering sea.
She said…and then she said…
It pretty much bears on from this, the tone supplying simply “lovely” connotations meant to transfer knowledge for those seeking only grim satisfaction…

31-December-2008 6:41AM

The extra walk does me good despite my poor attitude at the prospect. It turns out from the season being what it has been has victimized anything to do with commuting from one day to the next. I have not ridden, as a result, a bus for fifteen straight days, only to find my route just flat out cancelled this week of the New Year.

So here I walk down an artificially gravelly path, melting ice infused with loam humped upon the road shoulder, a reminder of how the simplest of conditions can bewilder and puzzle even those that profess omnipotent knowledge of the most complicated.

A connecting route slows to collect my trudging form, the driver quickly admonishing me for wearing such dark clothes so near the Soltice.
“Perhaps I should have carried that red light with me,” I say in response to him.
“If you want to live to see the ‘morrow,” he replies with a chuckle laced with seriousness. He turns to quizzing me about all things engineering since asking me where I was off to and what I did for a living. The questions just keep on coming like an interview for some news agency, when all I really want to do is just observe, think and exploit in the form of the written word. He specifically wanted to know how one becomes a “Professional Engineer” and whether a college degree is necessary. Hmmm…

When I arrive at the transfer point, I must step carefully to avoid those said sullied snow humps. The next bus that I have only taken one other time under similar circumstances waits there with its silver beehive-‘do driver like some sort of twisted and deranged honey trap. Only if one possesses adequate bus riding experience does one know to avoid this and wait for the next; for this present route will perform the proverbial endless “milk run” before going anywhere near the highway. It is like ten more minutes of listening to idling diesels and the sporadic crunching of snow before the present one departs and the desired takes its place. The five that wait in proximity file on like sleepless drones and fall like wet rags into each of their chosen abodes.
***
There really is nothing interesting to report truth be told. Just some nosy bastard that for a minute I was under the impression his head would topple off his neck trying to get a look at what I scribble in this little black journal. You know what they say, “same shit; different day.”

22-December-2008 8:22AM

The bus has not come here in five days. Just to trudge here I was made to dig a trench reminiscent of something out of the Western Front during The Great War. I half-expected the deathly screams of artillery fire to shriek overhead while I furiously removed the compacted ice to form a path of safe egress. However, all is quiescent, the only sonic reverberations being the feedback of ear drums long since damaged by "happier" times. The routines have been scattered by Mother Nature's thunderous assertion that at times unplanned, we are to submit.

So be it.

16-December-2008 7:03AM

One that is in the state of total discombobulation attempts to reassemble his vast array of paraphernalia into one consolidated pack. This process even goes as far as to extend to his person, meaning that his actual clothes are at risk of being pulled, pushed, and primped into every which way until a final comfort level is achieved. This entire fidgeted drama unfolds while a bible-analysis book disguised as an arbitrary school text, and a half-sized tabbed blue notebook is placed on the side-facing bench to his front. Not only that, but there appears to be some kind of mysterious baked good at the apex of said piling, and its misshape is such that it resemble a splat of softer poo dropped from a great height. I recognize this guy from before, although he is too early in this whole spontaneous process to officially name, to figure out what his deal is. All I know at present is that despite now holding mentioned book mound in his lap as if actual reading were imminent, they are instead held in suspension as he stares hollow forward while masticating on that bit of curious contemptuously counted on “cookie”. Each bite and chomping chew is taken at random intervals as if he suddenly remembers that it’s present, then he goes into a stasis before rebooting to go through this exciting turn events once again. Having little to work with here sitting aft on the bus, I cannot seem to restrain myself to avert the eyes in search of something a little less mundane.

Unfortunately Pickles seats himself out of range for observational analysis…

15-December-2008 7:39AM

This morning was what one would call, “A Perfect Struggle” to achieve oneself onto any form of public transit whatsoever. The weekend had proved to produce a quantity of snow and a continuous onslaught of sub-freezing temperatures, thusly icing over key gradient roadways making bus travel (even equipped with chains) an impossibility. Of course, when one walks upon these said roadways for first-hand observation this very morning, there did not appear to be any evidence of impassable conditions, only perhaps those roads’ shoulders and sidewalks where one would be forced to tread upon…
***
None of them wanted to believe me, those at the morning stop. They were mumbling amongst themselves: a middle age woman and a young female twenty-something about how late the current bus was.
I said, “It’s most likely they took the ‘adverse weather route’,” to aid in the alleviation of their vicious-circle bewilderment.
“Yes,” the middle age lady said in hesitant agreement.
“Where is it?” the twenty-something female asked me.
“Way down there, towards the end of the road,” I replied indicating with a terse wave of the hand behind me.
“Are you sure?” the twenty-something incredulously asked.
Am I sure about what exactly, where to pick it up or that it is not going to be stopping here? I thought to myself.
I then gave her the obvious and definitive answer, “Yes,” and turned to subsequently mention, “Well, I’m heading down there anyway...” not caring what they ended up doing, but feeling a tinge of guilt at being so brusque.
I started trudging through the ice-covered shoulder, its smattering chunks crunching like broken glass underneath my boots. I heard some of them follow, but I usually keep a brisk pace that few can match due to my unusually long legs. When I got within view of the arterial, I watched in frustration as a potential bus sped past, snow and ice trailing off of its sides like a whipping comet’s tail. So having no other choice, I hiked on, passing over a near full-moon’s illuminated landscape, large sheets of ice over ill-used driveways that forced my leg step into a downward motion and a gradually easy push-off so I wouldn’t end up on a bruised ass and scraped and burned palms. When I made it to the “adverse weather stop,” I checked the posted schedule on the marker and noticed that every single bus that either came or was to come was: (1) timed so that they all roughly matched their stop times (2) I just missed all of them, and (3) the amount of remaining distance (3 km) for me to walk to the “more reliable” lines would take less time than the next round of buses would take to arrive here.
By this time, my nose was starting to freeze through, making my face feel like a mask; something not at all part of my body. This realization of reality forced me to continue trekking across the tundra, which I quickened my pace and looked behind me to not see any sign of those that may have followed, wondering what had happened to them.
***
I finally did arrive at the “more reliable” bus corridor, checking the schedule and observing that I just had missed two out of three routes. However, the third did come (an event nothing short of miraculous given the circumstances), where suddenly I recognized a great deal of my usual route’s attendees, or fellow refuges of the same injurious inadequacies that had plagued the morning thus far. And this is only the beginning…

12-December-2008 7:06AM

[The following was written post-incidence, under the cover of a café patio umbrella where the temperature and biting wind and nefarious darkness kept a constant reminder at the required alacrity necessary to relay.]

The Lump of Fat literally plummeted into the seat next to me like a meteor hemorrhaging its outer skin from the violent friction with the atmosphere, it being converted to hot gas and plasma from its original gelatinous state. She struck me with all the force one would expect from such an event of impulse kinetic energy transfer with much pretentious haste and self-importance evident by the dramatic breathless pseudo-panic at apparently just barely making the ride to her “life and death” appointments. I didn’t know it yet, but I was in for a second wave of dismaying detriment, an aftershock if one would allow it to be said so. –For suddenly a grinding and scraping sound of vinyl on vinyl ensued, its sandpapery abrasiveness indicative of a great weight being shimmied little by little in oscillating rhythm. Unfortunately, this sonic disturbance within the din of the bus internal mediums was emanating from the just recently smashed (but regaining its shape at alarming rate) Lump of Fat just there adjacent. It seemed to have developed an opposing polarized magnetism toward my core and vectored immediately in my direction despite the gargantuan force-magnitudes involved until a serious mashing proceeded to flatten me against the sidewall, to which after the maximum deflection possible the forces finally equalized into a static condition leaving me comprehensively compressed for the balance of the ride.

11-December-2008 4:49PM

A bunch of Emo-kids (all female, allegedly) depart with superimposed and deliberately hormone infused scowls upon their faces. I enjoyed staring at them in a robotic ogle, as if I were some seat-mounted proximity sensor with the appropriate feedback-loop electronics in place to allow proper tracking of their movements. What I received in return was exactly what would be expected: even more sinister and dark leers, intended to intimidate and quash any further eye contact on my part specifically. –But as they shuffled down the aisle-way, activating to standing positions in one-hundred percent predictive chaotically random methodologies, I did not relent in my determined wide vacant-eyed demeanor. I never even halted this arrangement as they exited the bus casting this detached half-asleep gaze at them through the bus window until finally the bus’s forward motion disallowed any further visual commerce.

Thoroughly disappointed at this sudden breach, I decided to finally script out in here…

10-December-2008 5:32PM

…and all that’s left when I depart into caliginous evening shade towards home is a cataleptic transient-lush, who had unknowingly allowed himself to be zipped past the “last free stop” as well as every other possible.

What do they do with people like that” she asked.

“I don’t know what happens to them,” came the auto-response.

10-December-2008 7:04PM

Yeah, I missed the usual morning bus today as indicated by the time due to those unforeseen aspects that tend to plague the life without warning. I told myself I was going to sit toward the front so I could more closely observe that twerp from the morning ride of October 22nd (presently, I cannot recall if I named him or not, but I am very much leaning toward favoring “little bastard” for some odd reason), however I didn’t see a lick of him and his damned MIDI beeping phone. The fucker must be on vacation doing God knows what the Devil knows where.

Many from this route seem to be absent incidentally, leaving me with a lady who had complained about exhaust fumes collecting aft, so she moved up front to the first forward-facing row and now comfortably reads a 5X6 sized paperback in her lap. She is in front of another lady who reads as well that usually on the afternoon trips will literally implant herself into an aisle seat and not budge one iota. There really isn’t anything interesting about this description in the least, due to the fact that she sits like a weather-worn stone in the middle of a mild water rapid. Yeah, like very slim pickings indeed. The overall ambience is characterized by an encumbering sleepiness, as if all were operating in slow motion. This perception may be due to my earlier hopes being dashed that I might actually encounter a driver with a bit more lead in their right foot than the one from my usual departure time; but no can do. This one seems hell bent on speeds approaching a toddler’s wobbly drunken trot.

Hey, I know this is off-subject, but you know what I just realized? One can actually repel unwelcome bus commuters just by wearing fingerless knit gloves. I didn’t even have to place my briefcase on the seat adjacent to have the row all to myself, and all the surrounding rows are completely filled; by which I mean I was totally bypassed by everyone who performed a cursory glance at my person. Of course I am under no illusions that there may be other variables at work here such as “a sight for sore eyes” I am most definitely am not!

Regardless, I will have to label this here spontaneously as a “social experiment” with a successful outcome, albeit inadvertent.

9-December-2008 6:25AM

Every zipper unzipped that must be zipped, every unlocked lock that must be locked, every resting bag that must be hoisted and carried again, every distance not ambled but repeatedly ambled, every bus not ridden but ridden again and again…
Until that little death undoes the doing. I sense, and have been sensing one or more among this throng of human dispersions may have succumbed, although within the said semicircle or within the dotted line I can only guess: Mr. Shaggy Art Professor, Yarnhead, Broom Hilda, BOM, or even the cowboy hat transient guitar player down at the café in Pioneer Square…? -Missing, all of them.
Like distant memories, they have faded into that tangle of threads of connections and interconnections; like vanished fugitives scattering at the sight of the “PO---LEEECE” (the fuzz, man); like young children neglected for not even ten seconds at a crowded mall by their parent-professional shopper, poof gone; like a shrill whisper on the breadth of a howling wind; like the days and weeks that pass and pass with perceptible ever-increasing acceleration and collect there as grains of sand on some exotic beach.
Then the new enter brazen and basking in their self-supposed brilliance to replace what had been placed. They will redo what has been done, and then inevitably call it their own just for fun…

8-December-2008 4:41PM

Three “anticommuters” embark at Third and James; big fucking surprise: one with a fur-lined hood that sits out front with a hostile air as he scrutinizes each and every occupant continuously through the trans-downtown arena. The other two sit nearly full-aft, taking up maximum space for their short ride, thusly negating the efficacy of the adjoining seats to their resting and flattened buttocks. Meanwhile the “chip on his shoulder” entity up front on the verge of imminent attack flees out at Third and Union, so close to the needle exchange it can’t just be mere coincidence. So now, we approach the last stop downtown, which is announced as the “Last Free Stop!” the proverbial ‘queue’ to hustle off in other words since no one in their right mind would expect them to pay for any public service whatsoever. I am telling you, I am simply and flagrantly surprised that they didn’t not “hear” the announcement, in which a super-drama would ensue to either let them of at the Interstate Five entrance (they wouldn’t be, regardless of their most inarticulate substantial pleas) or at the flyer stop about one-hundred and fifty blocks out free of fare or any other encumbrances (the more likely scenario, but which would still enable them to act as though the whole entire human race is pitted against them).

c’est la vie, oui?

8-December-2008 6:23AM

Rain pings and pangs in a continuous din, making itself known not only with sound but with those “others” as well as I wedge my way through the droplets of condensation to the morning stop. The metallic clang of ozone-familiarity blooms through the nasal cavity as yet another indicator while I spot the whole gang out there, silhouetted like tar-covered tree stumps of various cut heights. It wasn’t until I board that I am able to distinguish their faces for the darkness that pervades: Jake and his wife, G, Not-So-New-Guy, and another nondescript. They all hurry out of the freezer-humidifier ambience and into the bus with a bit more haste than is customary, more so than I have witnessed in a great long while.

However, our “Late Bug” driver doesn’t share the same amount of gumption as his passengers may in fact. The avid frigidity, while numbing the extremities and facial protuberances jolts life into his temporary constituents to such that not one gazes the Sandman into the eyes directly for too long at least during the ride, but from the driver his usual lack of definitive drive to operate at the level of expected briskness contrasted to that of his fellow cohorts is in full effect, not at all leveraging his “right of way” status or taking advantage of a fully empty highway just after a goofy accident that had occurred mid-lane with sufficient speed to outrun a lumbering ox.

~SIGH~

5-December-2008 4:47PM

…and with a seductive whisper she said, “this is the end of the line JB, beyond this…”

5-December-2008 6:23AM

“Good morning,” comes a voice, in auditory appearance one that is disembodied and in inflection one that is definitely attempting to obtain attention. I had just swiped my pass through the reader, and now was concentrating on sliding the pass back into the wallet, when I think perhaps absentmindedly that the salutation was meant for me. My first instinct of course is to always regard these friendly greetings as meant for another; for they are already rare and few between. Gone are the days when they were the rule rather than the exception.
***
Luckily for her, she got on the bus a little more downstream rather than a little before mine, G’s, Not-So-New Guy’s, and Lauren’s stop; for this gives her an excuse of her need for G’s bus-companionship, as is evident from her usual gazes of longing that occur on a daily basis. –But not today obviously.

Today she gingerly sets herself onto that aisle seat of G’s row since it may be speculated that there is a hint of taboo going on here, and then enthusiastically engages in discussion about some restaurant that is opening somewhere arbitrarily in the city since she brought a newspaper cutout of the event to show and tell.

Happy as can be.
***
When one ponders it, the rapidity of the way things change at the Pickle-Ernie stop in such a short amount of time lends one to wonder what ever happens to those whom used to exhibit their presence there (such as Pickles and Ernie for instance) and set upon the new replacements that have yet to prove themselves interesting? One such of the latter makes deliberate eye contact with me just before glancing at an empty seat she passes, then choosing the one just next to mine. I open my mind at that very instant that her decision is made, but could not detect the rationale emanating from some ethereal plane possibly as a medium from her. Her circumventing of the path of least resistance is a puzzling circumstance, for it goes against the basic principles of Nature (although those “laws” cannot be viewed as absolute even by the greatest scientists). Human nature though is thoroughly contaminated with the fundamental motive of maximizing the benefit to them at every assessment point, so therefore it is here that the investigation should commence. Although for me there is a high likelihood that it may be an alarmingly awkward result, and for now I will suspend all cognitive abilities at my disposable dedicated to this effort. Immediately.

3-December-2008 6:23AM

Late again, and if history serves as a professor, then even more so at the destination; this driver’s name should be “Late Bug,” in honor of a short-term elementary school friend of mine who had labeled my own mother such due to her consistent tardiness picking us up from first grade parochial school. Suffice to say that under these particular oppressive circumstances I miss the usual shuttle at the terminus of this bus ride on a customary basis. However, rather than opting for a ride on the “Stinky Bus” in a lame attempt to make a semblance of effort, I surrender myself to the Fates and pick up the next shuttle much later, thus allowing some incredibly interesting observations to take place down there. I mean, try to think of the one place where all the supposed Seattle “tinkers” congregate for some banter-exchange and artsy espresso beverages purchased with alleged “pocket change.”

2-December-2008 4:37PM

The anticommuters are surprisingly absent this evening as the bus passes their favorite nesting locale at the corner of 3rd and James. Perhaps it was the clamorous arrival of police and fire department vehicles yester-eve, which scattered their lot to the ends of the civilized world, although it may be debatable how “civilized”. The driver soon after announces the “last stop on 3rd,” which also happens to be a favorite departure point for those of the most definite “have-not” category, although such as it is it has been stated, none are apparent or known to make themselves present. All we have here are the usual office drones that carouse themselves on the infinite loop of sleep, wake, bus, work, bus, sleep, etc…

One such looks me over with appraising scrutiny due to the fact that I sit all the way in the aft corner with one leg up on the side-facing bench brace, as if this sort of leisurely posture is either ill-advised or unbearable in its adjacency. I do nothing but stare back with a blankness that conveys apathetic belligerence, trying to impress a sort of fashion-model pose that may have been harvested from one of those old Calvin Klein advertisements. He takes the same said seat closest to my vantage despite this sans verbal exchange, taking out a worn and scratched iPod Nano while gazing with a smirk into its diminutive screen. Finding what he was listening for he relegates the device to his lap area, where he holds a portion of his earphone wire taut across the face lengthwise with both thumbs and wipes it down across the surface in some mindless mental game. Since this amusement is predictably short-lived his fidgeting continues into quite possibly more than a hundred different forms. Describing each of these in detail would definitely be beyond any kind of scope or interest to ever be considered, even seriously.

1-December-2008 6:26AM

The view looking up is to a knurled-slate indigo sky through the blackened clawing fingers of a maple tree, its leaves stripped completely clean as of this last Samhain (November 1st). The bus is late as it labors around the bend when I look down, its two lamp eyes flickering not as its gaze is directed at the five of us waiting: Jake, G, next door neighbor, myself, and a replacement Bike Man replete with full set of facial hair, yellow slicker, and long black spandex.

The start of the ride is quiet, peaceful even since being in close proximity to this past holiday weekend. The trudge through the predawn neighborhoods garners a tepid harvest of working stiffs, paled and lethargic from their four concurrent Earth’s rotations of so-called freedom from the bustle and drag of “rat race” tendencies. As the bus makes its way further, it scatters dead leaves like spray from a speeding ship over water leaving an uniform wake for the next vehicle to reaffirm its existence to them, as if they care an iota. What should be occurring is the listening to their implications, to their prophetic declaration that rings in apparent silent cacophony at the coming tide.

Yet, they are left behind and new roads are found containing none if not few, where speed and blind ambition are the chosen essences, which obscure and cloud the only known irrevocable truth to us all.

What does it matter though? It will find us in the end, regardless of the incessant wish and prescribed collective denial that persists and persists, and then some more…