I hopped on, opened my newspaper, and was promptly whisked to St. Paul on the 94C.

Fuck.

I swear that some of the lights were burned out on the route sign on the front of the bus, converting that “94″ into a “14″. Or perhaps I simply willed myself into seeing a 14. We shall never know.

At any rate, I was blown significantly off course, and as luck would have it, I forgot my cell phone today as well, so I was kind of up a creek without a paddle. Left with only my wits and a bus pass, I hiked from the first stop in St. Paul (I-94 and Snelling) to Marshal and Fry street and waited for a west-bound bus that I hoped would take me down Lake Street to the point where I could get back on my usual 14 at Bloomington Ave. After waiting 15 minutes in the chilly wind, I was joined by a group of three Chinese students who had no idea when the next bus was coming either. Somebody in a silver car honked at me as I stood there with my collar up – if you are a Bike Lover or friend, be advised that I could have used a lift…

At any rate, my Chinese students and I, travelers joined by fate, finally boarded a west-bound 21 and that took us down the hill to MPLS. Despite a little language barrier, we all sort of made friends as they practiced their English on me and I coached them on how to get to the Mall of America via the Light Rail. We wished each other a safe journey as they headed south on the train and I continued on to Bloomington, only to wait again for a 14 and finally made it home after wasting a little over an hour on a transit tour of the Twin Cities.

Next happy hour, I am just going to ride my bike.

In Duluth, generally, the further east you go, the more ’90210′ it gets. So as we coast eastward along Superior St I’m guessing we are in for a quiet ride on this DTA bus. Guess again. A young black kid with the most ghetto fabulous, sparkling white North Face ski jacket that I’ve ever seen hops on. I’m jealous. He’s talking a mile a minute on his cell phone to (I’m assuming) someone who cares enough about his sexual encounters with girls whose names he can’t remember, but hey, he’s homeless, she had a place, they both wanted to get laid and I suppose that’s what passes for flirting/romance/foreplay in this heterosexual interracial wasteland. This kid is full of shit and obviously puffing his feathers so everyone can hear how this ‘motherfucking white bitch’ whupped his ass and even sunk her teeth into his chest bad enough that I could see he had gauze taped all over his chest. Why wasn’t he heading downtown to urgent care to get this looked at? I make a lot of assumptions on the bus…some wrong, but there’s a definite unspoken code especially this far north that some people come to Duluth the same way people escaped to Canada or Alaska: they’re running from something bad, they’re not giving their real name to nobody, which means any medical problem or crime against them can’t get reported. They’ll just have to live with it…that’s the price of this temporary freedom…risks of sickness, violence, and homelessness. So this kid goes on and on about ‘this white bitch’ who, by description, I’m guessing is about 15 (this kid is 25 at least). I glance to my left at the 70-something woman who has a look on her face that’s just beyond description. We make eye contact like we were both witnesses to some bad comedy act.

Finally the bus hits my ‘hood on Woodland Avenue, and I’m getting off…the bus. You know, I’m young, I’m cute, dare say I’m a catch, yet being gay here is very liberating…I feel like a unicorn. There might be a variety of races and classes here, but gays do not live here. You don’t have dates. You definitely never get laid. The closest it gets is time spent bitching about how much Minnesota sucks on gay.com. But if I don’t get a sex life, well, hell…at least all I have to do is hop on any Duluth Transit Authority bus and hear how the other 96% (aka straight society) lives. Can I just say this? I feel bad for straight girls and I hope you’re educating your guys. They don’t appear to understand the basics (wearing a clean pair of underwear twice a week, brushing teeth, wondering how many girls they’ve knocked up rather than knowing)…

Cue in Alice Deejay’s ‘Better off Alone’…!

A man had taken his foot out of his shoe and was resting it on top of the shoe. But… he had no sock on, and he had the gnarliest long yellow toenails I have ever seen. Hope I never see anything like that again.

DUDE. Put some SOCKS on.

One small benefit of taking the bus is more time for reading, which is more important now that I’ve got an active book club to participate in.

I am convinced that if America is a melting pot, then the bus is cauldron where the real work gets done. Downtown office women, students, immigrants, slackers, down-and-outers and up-and-comers all sway together in (mostly) silent communion, brought together by happenstance and the need to somewhere else.

The bus is a real world cultural “butterfly effect” experiment that unfolds every morning and evening. Invisibly and imperceptibly passengers influence each other, as we move together, many parts as one unit, lurching along towards our now shared destiny.

Everyday the rest of the passengers and I would ride to our destinations without bringing attention to this woman. One day a group of kids from my school got on and sat near her. Throughout the whole ride they made fun of her laughing loudly the whole time.

I’ll never forget that day because it was more proof that humans are cruel when they don’t understand someone or something. I still saw her for a few years after that around the neighborhood. Every time I saw her I became sad because she was a reminder of the cruelty I witnessed.

When this happens, I always debate chasing after it, but I know the standard bus rules well enough to know they won’t open their doors at an unofficial stop. This leaves me with two options: 1) cry, curse, and wait inside the terminal for another 15 minutes (which feels like 40) or 2) take foot and see if I can catch it. And today, I’d like to tell you about option 2.

I sprint down 2nd avenue, turn left and climb the hill past the Target Center. In my mind, it seemed feasible that I could catch the bus by 6th and Hennepin, but it’s moving more quickly than I anticipated. 4 blocks into this adventure, I’ve worked up a sweat in my wool hat and my light-colored pants are soaked with dirty street slush. But there’s no going back.

My sprint has decelerated to a bouncing jog/walk and I catch a glimpse of my bus midway down 6th street, somewhere near City Hall. I pick up the pace and for a moment consider I might actually make it. A full mile into the adventure, I arrive at the bus door and desperately pound 3-times with my mitten-covered hands and the doors pauses before flying open to receive me. The bus driver smiles (and she never smiles) because she has seen me in her rearview chasing her for the 10 minutes and I’m convinced she was secretly rooting for me.

For once, I thanked the homeless guy who wears a garbage bag and pays for his fare in nickels. It was the only thing that bought me time to catch it.

Next to that 95 World Cup thing, this may be my most shining athletic achievement ever.