I worked for part of Turkey day, not too bad, half a days work for a full day of double time pay.

On the bus to downtown I noticed a very effeminate guy get on and sit in front of me. He turned his head and I noted his gelled perfect hair and what looked like eyeliner and mascara. Then I noticed his skin, no open pores, smooth very nice.

I need to moisturize more, was my thought.

Dang, I realized I was checking out the skin of another guy!

When I touch my feminine side I giggle.

Traveling on the bus a lot you tend to get to know the various characters on the bus, where they work, family details etc. All gleaned from overhearing their conversations. I try not to listen but I’m a blogger, I have to record this stuff for blog posts don’t I?

One guy, I know his name is Mark and he works in the same industry as me but for a company a couple of blocks down from where I work. He has a girlfriend who has a child by another man and he likes to spend the weekends playing video games or drinking or both at the same time.

This morning he sat behind me on the bus, his friend got on and asked Mark how he was.

Mark: Okay, well, not really, I spent the weekend drinking and I made the girlfriend cry.

Apparently his girlfriend was upset he had been drinking Thursday and Friday night. He promised he wouldn’t drink over the weekend.

Right! If he was willing to drink on nights during the week even though he had work, he was surely not going to stop over the weekend!

I was right.

Mark: I drank all weekend long. Then I stepped on a piece of glass and cut my foot badly.

He then told his friend that his room mate had come home seen the kitchen floor all bloody and called Mark’s girlfriend.

Room mate: You better come and find Mark, the kitchen floor is covered in blood and I cannot find him.

From what Mark said, his girlfriend drove to two emergency rooms to find him then they found Mark passed out in his own bed. So much for the room mate looking everywhere for him, blood on the floor and he doesn’t think to check Mark’s own room! The girlfriend didn’t think to ask the room mate if he had checked the bedroom!

I wonder what mischief he’ll get up tomorrow?

Technorati Tags: on the bus

I am sitting on the bus, scribbling away in my Moleskine trying not to forget some ideas for posts. I look up because I feel the hairs on the back of my neck raise. A woman sitting on the bench seat is staring intently at me. A cold hard stare boring into my head. I go back to writing but look up again and she is still staring at me.

I shift in my seat uncomfortable and stare back, she doesn’t waver. I even try the thing I do with kids and small animals, I stare into one of her eyes with both of mine, usually puts off the other starer. But she has the laser beam eyes locked onto me.

I instinctively check myself, no boogers hanging from my nose, I remembered to put clothes on before I left the house and there isn’t spots of toilet paper stuck to my face covering cuts from shaving.

Dude, you haven’t shaved for three days!

Maybe she thinks she recognizes me, my hair is unruly and needs cutting and when it is like that I am told I look like Jack Black. I try to think if I know her from somewhere, I have seen her now and again on the bus but that is all as far as I can remember.

I am wearing my baseball cap with “MIK” embroidered on it, a gift from the wife. In case I forget who I am, I can look in a mirror, “Hi I’m, er, ¹

Maybe she is wondering what “MIK” is, or mmm. Maybe she reads this blog and is thinking, I read a blog by Mik, he writes about people on buses, maybe this person in the hat is one and the same and I wonder if I made it as a bus character on his blog?

If this is the case, “Hello” Introduce yourself next time and yah, you made it.

The bus got to my stop and I got off and the woman did also, she gave me a look then walked off in the opposite direction, phew, least I didn’t pick up a stalker.

Technorati Tags: on the bus, paranoia

1. This inspired another post while I was on the bus and I posted it over at the Notebook blog: If the hat fits post [↩]

I think of myself as a courteous English gentleman, okay, I’m English at least!

I think nothing of giving up my seat for those in need on the bus or holding doors open for people. Whenever I go through a door I always check behind me and will hold the door open for others to go through. Sometimes I stand there for a while as a stream of people go through.

I get annoyed at people who open the door just far enough to slide through then let it shut without a thought of anyone coming behind them, selfish inconsiderate bastages!

I have only ever had a problem with one person I was holding a door open for. He was a homeless guy in England struggling with armfuls of bags, I was going into a mall and he was behind me. I held the door to allow him to pass but he just swore at me and told me in no uncertain terms that he was quite capable. I said “Fine,” and let the door shut on him.

Anyhoo, I got to the bus stop, I was first there then a guy comes along followed by a woman. When the bus arrives I was prepared to step back and let the woman on first then follow her on.

The bus pulls up, before I could move the guy barges in front of me followed by the woman. He pissed me off, the woman didn’t even give me a thanks or a nod of the head thank you.

Dang, so much for the courteous English gentleman, maybe I should be the brash selfish Americanized gentleman!

Rather than letting others who were at the bus stop before me get on the bus, I should just do as everyone else does and barge in front of the line and get on.

Courtesy and consideration for others goes along way peeps.
[/rant]

I am subject to the “Bus Rule”, this rule states that if I leave for work in the morning later than I usually do. Then, the later I leave the more chance that one or both of the buses I take to work will be delayed, not show up at all or break down in the middle of the journey making me even later.

My work is fine with late starts, as long as we get our work done they are flexible with when we can start. For me it is annoying because the later I catch the bus the more crammed it is, I hate standing up on a packed bus to commute to work.

That being said I just had a hard time rolling out of bed this morning so left the house late. First bus was quick and not too packed, I even got ideas for at least three blog posts from the people on the bus. I spent most of the journey writing away like crazy in my Moleskine notebook.

I got on my second bus, these buses are trolley buses driven by electrical power from overhead lines. I noticed the driver, the last time I was on a bus she was driving she had a brain fart. She had forgotten where she was for a moment and had turned down a side street two blocks before she was due to turn. There were no power lines running down this side street. She got in the middle of the intersection and the power rods came off the lines and the lights went off and the bus powered down.

She was berating herself and apologizing profusely, she had to wait for another driver to help move the bus back enough to get the power rods reconnected.

I thought nothing of it, and sat at the back writing in my notebook. We are on our way then suddenly, BANG!

The lights go out and the bus powers down, the driver starts her apologizing and going off on herself. I looked out the window and the power rod of our bus was wrapped around the power rods of another bus. The two drivers untangled the rods and the other bus took off, ours was going nowhere, we got off and I noticed one of the power rods was snapped in two.

So with one bus load of people waiting for the next bus meant the bus was going to be jam packed. I decided to walk back the way we had come so I could get the bus and maybe get a seat. Luckily I did get a seat on the next bus but when we got to where our bus had stopped.

It was standing room only, the driver kept asking for people to move down the back of the bus but there was no room to move, like sardines we were.

Dang, the bus rule got me again!

Tomorrow I am leaving my regular time.

Technorati Tags: on the bus

When I am on the bus I get an idea or observe something suitable for a blog post, so I whip the Moleskine notebook out and jot it down. The bus is bumping along the freeway and my hand writing isn’t the best anyway, but trying to write while getting thrown around in the bus is hard.

So kudos to the ladies who regularly travel on buses and apply their make-up without seemingly being affected by the bus motion. Applying eyeliner with a pencil, if that was me I’d probably stab myself in the eyeball¹.

A woman this morning was applying lipstick without even using a make-up mirror, skill indeed, me, I’d end up looking like a crazed clown².

Must be a skill taught from an early age.

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In other news:

Found another cool jewelry site, called Quanta Belle Jewelry, so I can let the wife check it out and pick out something nice for herself as I feel she has more than earned something nice.

They sell designer inspired jewelry and I am certain Carolyn can find something she likes, whether she will let me buy her something is another thing. Always hard to get her to allow me to spend money on her as she prefers to help others.

Technorati Tags: on the bus, ladies with mad skillz, mad skillz, jewelry for the wife

1. Not that I intend to apply eyeliner [↩]
2. Again, I have no inclination to apply make-up, no, really [↩]

On the bus at the front on the bench seat are three girls, channeling Paris Hilton heavily, same look, voice and attitude. Deeply tanned skin and bright bottle bleached blonde hair stands out in dreary Seattle, as do their dark heavy eye brows.

They are talking about scary stories and I have never heard the word “like” used so many times in a conversation. Not just one but all three are saying it every other word;

“A friend like, says that like, whenever they like, leave the house like, when they get back home all their like, framed pictures are like, off the walls and like, on the floor.”

“You mean like, if they go out for like, groceries, when they get back like, the pictures are like, down?”

“Yeah.”

“Like, scary.”

Stop that, stop that right now!

Technorati Tags: on the bus, Seattle, Paris Hilton, scary story

Sitting on my first bus I notice a guy sitting on the bench seat at the front. He was talking away to someone, stopping, pausing and answering questions. I wasn’t too fazed that he might be talking to himself, I could only see him in profile and assumed he had some sort of Bluetooth or hands-free cell phone device in his other ear.

At one point he was talking and wasn’t saying anything, his lips were moving.

Okay, no worries, I just suddenly went deaf!

But I could hear others talking so the guy was just not actually saying anything. I got up at my stop and as I passed I checked and the guy didn’t have any hands-free device in his other ear!

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Waiting for another bus a woman approached me and asked me to buy her a cheeseburger from McDonald’s, “I don’t want any money, just take me to McDonald’s and buy me a cheeseburger.”

AS she probably expected, I told her I was waiting for a bus and didn’t want to miss it by going across the street with her to McDonald’s, so I would give her money. She threw an arm around me to hug me and as I was digging change out of my pocket (how do these people know when I have spare change on me?), she asked for a Big Mac, fires and soda, dang the order just got bigger.

I told her I didn’t have that much but gave her want I had, which was enough for a cheeseburger, she asked a few other people then took off across the street towards McDonald’s.

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On the second bus I noticed a woman making little side-to-side flicking movements with her head. I knew it wasn’t some sort of seizure or nervous tic because she was reading a book. Instead of moving her eyes to read she was flicking her head to the end of the sentence as she read it then flicking it back to the start of the next sentence.

Technorati Tags: buses, on the bus