Peeking Through Weary Eyes

The Passing of a Malcontent's Muse

2012-01-23T16:33:00.001-08:00

With Ill Regulated Proclivity in Tow

2011-12-28T16:22:00.001-08:00

A minivan cuts off the bus to which the driver slams on the brakes and screams out "goddammit!!!"
The entire cabin-populace nods forward from the inertial deceleration in involuntary uniformity. The sudden outburst elicits a rather intense discussion between a select few anticommuters sitting by the driver. One in the side-facing row behind the cockpit wearing a newsboy cap and sporting a neck tattoo of a sword-wielding angel is the second most vocal. The most outraged is one on the opposing side that blasts story after story of his experiences with driving under such conditions. I attempt to drown out the verbal deluge with a bit of The Chicken Farm pouring out of my earphones.
It is to absolutely no avail.
None.
Their whining enthusiasm remains unmatched and unheeded in every which way. The only solace I possess is the knowledge that they will be departing the bus soon. How do I know this? I just do. Call it experience, alchemy, prescience, hocus-pocus, whatever. It just has finally come to this regardless of what one's preconceived notions may be about prejudicial inklings; I just can tell if one belongs on a certain route, wherever it may originate or its final destination. Those I speak of did not belong on this route, hence my nickname, "anticommuters." And just as predicted, they all leave at the last free stop downtown.
The reader (a few and far between) can take this anyway they'd like. Rest-assured they will, indeed with their ill-regulated proclivity in tow.

It Is Only a Matter of Time When The Rain Will Come

2011-12-06T16:54:00.001-08:00

I sit here after just embarking for the ride home on the per diem route. After the usual mix of anticommuters taking advantage of the free ride zone and the customary regulars hop up a pair of "unusuals" take seats a few rows up from myself. I could tell because they spoke incessantly in low undertones. They consisted of a plump woman with '20s style cropped highlighted hair in dark horned rimmed glasses and a taller man with lamb chop sideburns of dark brown wearing a "newsboy" cap. They pass my seat to my left. The woman must be in her late thirties, a black and white tweed long coat covers her porcine frame. The look on her face is grim and I can hear her take the row directly behind me with a rocketing plummet. The man possesses zero expression and walks with an easy stride of someone whose age is hard to pinpoint. He has a tan canvass satchel strapped across one shoulder that he swings forward before taking the aisle seat.
I hear the woman speak first: "Why doesn't he just save himself the discomfort and pick the side-facing row?"
"Maybe he likes his knees folded like an accordion?" came his reply.
"I'm being serious."
"Who cares. People do what they do."
"Yeah but it just all seems so insane."
"And pointing out the obvious accomplishes-?"
There was silence here, which allows me to catch up on writing this dialog. Luckily I am able to follow, for their voices are held low making them speak slowly.
"Why are you always like this?" she continues.
"Like what?"
"Can't you just go along with it? You always must fight or say the opposite thing."
"What would be the fun in that?" he says with a laugh.
"I'm just trying to relieve a little tension by talking about anything. It helps-"
"The only thing it helps is your self-rationalization of superiority over the common element."
"Not that you're any different."
"As it has started, so this conversation remains meaningless."
"You never admit to anything."
"Why continue to follow a pointless thread? It'll always end frayed and limp without any usefulness," again I am able to catch up since she pauses and he waits for her to respond.
I cannot imagine that it would end here...
"Really, you never speak plain. Can't you relieve yourself of speaking in riddles. So pretentious."
"Jeez."
"What?"
"I said, 'JEEZ'!"
"Nothing else to say?"
"Anything I say shall be picked apart into a zillion pieces like a toddler shredding up a newspaper." [I think this is what he said, although I may have had to paraphrase.]
"Yeah. You always did try to take the easy way out of things. You'd always rather hide behind your large words and self-assured existence."
"Find my way out of what exactly? So far there has been no purpose to anything that has been said. I mean if I were to write down this entire dialog people would read it and become pissed off at me for actually taking the time to waste their time."
"Go ahead. Hide what you really feel. It makes no difference to me."
"Obviously."
"Obviously?"
"Yes."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning out of your own self-proclaimed apathy you ironically continue to speak."
"You're such a jerk, you know that?"
"If it makes you feel better, by all means be my guest to call me names. After all, you are an expert tongue lasher."
"How dare you."
"Please, spare me your sanctimonious outrage. You always have something to say, something to spurn, something to scourge for no other reason because you can. You can't ever just shut up. You always must rally your troops for the sole purpose of boosting your self-deflated ego. Well bravo to you. Let your pride surge through you."

Ok, not listening anymore. Besides, my writing hand really is starting to cramp up.

The Wood-Fired Pizza Place Is Sorely Out of Business

2011-12-05T07:17:00.001-08:00

The one just across in the tan leather jacket doing the morning paper crossword sits in a nonchalant manner. I'm not sure if he recognizes me. I do however recall his existence. One late afternoon last summer he talked my ear off amidst a swirl of distillery fumes emanating from his oral cavity. In the present time one would not even guess of such capability. His face reminds me of Henry David Thoreau, except with shorter hair. He might be approaching the "civil disobedience" bit if he continues hitting the happy hour hard, but then the opposite effect would be realized for the remainder of the "philosophy." Nonetheless as I observe him, he appears at a relative peace in the world regardless of the crossword from the Seattle Times that seems to stump him to just two completed words. Well, now only three.
In another scene a long line of red peels out through the bus's front window. The darkness of the morning accentuates the dreary mobile lights. They are passed subsequently out the right-side window much like the silhouetted landscape, except at a slower pace. The line disappears momentarily as the bus stops above the freeway. The recalled man in the tan jacket finally gives up on the crossword. He folds the paper up and inserts back in his bag. Once the pack is zippered he slides himself to the window seat from the aisle to make room for would-be passengers embarking. Only two other in fact do with no takers yet. It matters not to him though. With deliberate intention, he fells his head forward and closes his eyes to snooze until a quick thought overtakes his senses. He then begins to root around at the left-inside pocket of his tan leather jacket. The crackling sounds of thick cellophane interrupts the drone of the diesel as he pops a mint in his mouth. With vigor, he pushes it around his mouth as if were a washing machine on the spin cycle. This activity keeps his eyes open at intervals when they keep fluttering closed. Arms crossed, legs bent at a right angle he moves nowhere else but for the before-mentioned.
He disembarks at the transit station. He walks with a briskness in the freezing morning, first north then west. Before disappearing behind another parked bus he waves at a short squat woman in a red p-coat. A brief smile can be discerned flashing on the face before melding into the per diem accompaniment of proletariat symphony. It is an uncanny duality to be sure.

The Avenues Are Clear Despite the Air Stuffed into Them

2011-12-02T07:34:00.001-08:00

They all get onto the bus.
Some ask questions such as, "Does this go downtown?"
Some say, "Good morning," or "I'm glad I made it," as if their lives depended on it.
A few of these run to catch the imminent lurching vehicle that could at anytime just pull away from the curb without them. I watch each and every face with discreet sensibility. Most seem focused or preoccupied with the immediate task at hand whatever that may be. There is after all a thick fog that fills in much of the outside space along with its cohort, darkness. Perhaps that is a collective metaphor for some nebulous feeling. I could not say for sure, but the sensation certainly suggests this direction.
As the route continues its onward journey through the neighborhood, the seats fill at an increasing rate. All workers of different sorts unified by the simple need to get from point A to point B.
The cabin is quiet with the exception of the periodic shuffling, random singular conversation, and the occasional motor noise seeping in from the avenues outside. My knees are propped up on the seat in front of me as I take in these minuscule events. It is a two-fold habit of mine. I try to keep still so as not to press the seat-back excessively. A man in a royal blue jacket reading a hardback entitled, "Born to Ruth" sits there. It's bad enough that I cough from time to time.
Something is off about today in spite of the witnessed apparent normalcy. I cannot place it, much like that name of that place I visited at age sixteen when I thought I was something but in fact was not. As I ponder this and unsuccessfully attempt to decipher my caliginous emotion, the bus continues its progress. Straight and true it goes without delay or care to the otherwise. I find I must act as the bus does as is per my own custom with my own "World Interaction." After all if one dispenses with theory and embraces practicality, the conclusion is perception is in fact, reality.

The Darkness Is Felled and Left By the Wayside

2011-11-04T15:45:00.001-07:00

The darkness is felled and left by the wayside; left to grovel and spew its hatred and fear into the ditch of its own design. So the story goes usually at the end of all things. Pessimism had not won out in this case. Optimism has finally gained the upper hand. Cynicism becomes replaced with compassion. The clouds break apart. Their endless rain sheds its last tear. The nearest star bathes Terra Firma in its fiery light. The air is cool and crisp as it licks the colorful leaves away from the tree branches. A covering of the Earth's floor is formed to walk upon anew. The breeze whispers that the change has come, that revolution has freed the soul, opened the mind and made the way clean and clear.

Nothing More or Less

2011-10-14T07:34:00.001-07:00

MWF (Mobile Wife Fighter) is on a roll this morning with socializing. His first encounter occurs at the dimly lit stop. A short woman with short hair and glasses glances over at his approach from further north. MWF's progress is interrupted by LMBM (Last-Minute Bald Man). He comes down from the hill, and waits close to the woman. Next he espies MWF to move quickly over to intercept. His rather hasty exit from our proximity erupts curiosity from both myself and the short-haired woman. I can almost hear the thoughts themselves leaking through the cranial cavity:
Do I smell?
Is it something I did?
Did he forget something?
Are they lovers?

"Well there's always the seven-forty bus," MWF tells LMBM.

LMBM disappears into the gloom without anyone realizing it. The bus arrives at that moment. His departure from the scene is obscured by the onslaught of the bus. Its roaring diesel and bright headlights clamor the air into sensations of utter distraction. As I sit here, I wonder what has happened to him. For instance, why does it seem so abruptly that MWF is chatting up the family court judge about ballet and the associated facial make-up for performances?

Perhaps I am still asleep. It could all be a dream. Nevertheless these insignificant mysteries shall remain what they are: nothing more or less.

There Is Not Much Else to Be Said

2011-09-21T07:57:00.001-07:00

Two or three new faces materialize out of the lurid morning. Actually one not so new. The one that I call "Newsboy." The other is an older woman with long straight black hair. The third is a young man in his late twenties with brown styled hair. All three do not move a muscle except for the reaction to the occasional bump and turn of the bus itself. Newsboy is usually found with a pair of retro-looking covering-the-entire-ear headphones replete with brass-wire exoskeleton. Not so today. This morning yields only him attired in the old newsboy cap. The woman with the long straight hair leaves almost immediately. It is almost a shock to see her move so quickly after not moving at all for so long, almost as if she were a crocodile at a muddy river's edge. Not much else can be said about the last one, except he's got a pair of giant horn-rimmed glasses. It makes his face look pointy like a woodpecker. I always found it strange how a simple pair of spectacles can drastically transform a face.

Done.

To Deny the Existence of the One-Legged Galuphhasnot

2011-09-20T08:43:00.001-07:00

No one talks. There is an exception to that however. There is one and only one speaking loudly into his mobile device. The engine I have my back to obliterates any chance of discerning his one-sided conversation. Instead it becomes fleeting and minuscule. I can see how it could be used as torture in a PSYOPS episode. It's perhaps the equivalent to Water Torture. This soon will end however as all things do.

"I cannot acknowledge the existence of the one-legged galuphhasnot," the man with the long chin beard says.
As I do a double take with my ears I notice an open book in his lap. It's called "Gauntlorivm" and every chapter contains a picture of two crossed scimitars above the corresponding number. He is seated directly in front of me in the side-facing row.
"Galuphhasnot?" asks his beady-eyed companion who sits directly across from him.
"Yes," replies Chinbeard.
"If you say so."
"I do say so."
I am not sure what to think of this so I just continue scribbling down what is said as best I can. There is this suspended silence between them as if Beadyeyed needed to continue, his questions being inexplicably conjured by Chinbeard.
"You got to be kidding me, right?"
"I wish I was."
Beadyeyed gave Chinbeard a crazy grin of disbelief. The latter only returned the stare with a resigned humor.
"C'mon, what the hell is a galuphhasnot anyway?"
"It really doesn't matter."
"It doesn't matter?"
"Well it has no matter."
"You mean it isn't made of anything?"
Chinbeard looks at him with a laugh just under the surface.
"Seriously, are you being serious?"
"Yes! Yes that's exactly what I mean."
"Ok?"
"Sure I shall explain it," Chinbeard says then continues, "you know when someone is under some impression..."

I tune the rest out. I am not sure I am hearing any of this right. Besides I'd rather ponder the sunrise out the left windows. The rays of orange-yellow light cut across the occupants with vivid brightness. I plug my earphones in and I hear someone sing, "Caribouuuuuu, caribooooo-who..." A good thing it drowns out all other sound because as it turns out the 'galuphhasnot' discussion seems to be getting even more intense. I wonder how someone can get worked up about something that as Chinbeard said, "doesn't matter." Beadyeyed is taking it all way too seriously. I think perhaps he should just forget it and move onto something else. -But he won't give it up. It is amazing what happens when blocking out all sound the clarity that ensues without that distraction. I actually notice Beadyeyed's adam's apple start to bulge, his mouth opening a little wider at each word, the muffled sound of his voice breaking through my earphones.

Ugh when will this bus ride end anyhow?

The Sun Provides the Truth in Its Unexpected Luminescence

2011-09-19T17:13:00.001-07:00

A look in the reflection yields the true age. Some would say otherwise, but the truth is known to the beholder. Insouciance is the name of the game with respect to this realization however. The question should always be: how can this onward march of time be halted? The answer always is that it cannot be by any of the human-explained phenomena. Obviously. So why bother trying to circumvent it?

A Wand Is Not the Only Source of Magic

2011-09-17T16:03:00.001-07:00

"Your daughter is very cute," the odd woman declares.
"Thanks," the sitting man replies from under the bus shelter.
"How old is she, four?"
"Yes, yes she is."
"She's very active."
The woman stands there grinning at him with the sun behind her. She's wearing a black backpack and looks at him with eyes through thick suspended lenses. The undulating breeze can be heard from the rustling trees far above them. The sun casts rippling shadows about their spontaneous palaver.
"Yes, she's been like this all day. Nonstop."
The woman switches subjects, "Well I'm off since Friday and don't have to work until Monday."
The man glances back at her with curiosity then formulates a response.
"Yeah, same here."
"Same here?" she replies in disbelief.
"Yeah," he says with a smile.
"That's good," she says.
She turns around and heads to the bus marker.
The four year-old drops a pile of sticks and leaves into her father's lap. He laughs and asks her what he is supposed to do with all of this.
She asks, "Which flower is your favorite?"
He looks down and points at a slightly small curled leaf of oval shape and says, "This one."
She tells him to hold just that one, takes one long stick and swipes the rest onto the ground. At that moment the bus arrives. Dead leaves swirl up in its wake and surpass its stopped form. The little girl runs to the opening doors with the long stick in her hand. Her father follows as the odd woman climbs aboard,
"Is this our bus?"
"Yes," her father says.
"Let's go!" she says with excitement.
"Hi!!!" she says to the driver, "I picked you a flower!"
She hands the driver a wilted dandelion. However one can tell that the driver is filled with pleasure at the gesture. In the girl's other hand she carries the stick she had before. She runs down the aisle past the smiling odd woman and proclaims, "To my favorite seat!"
She sits all the way in the rear on the far right. Her father carries a giant bag of dog food in one hand and the other carries some rolled up newspapers as well as the curled leaf. He sits down next to her as she jumps below between the seats. They seem to play a game that they only know the rules to. It involves the stick and the leaf, and some manipulations of both. They smile and laugh.
Finally her dad says, "Ok, I need you to climb back up on the seat and then pull the cable."
"Ok!" she pipes.
"All right, now on the count of three..."
They count together, "ONE, TWO, THREE!!!"
She pulls the cable with much enthusiasm. So much effort went into it that she doesn't realize that the "Stop Requested" light had turned on and the corresponding bell had went on as a result. She keeps tugging at the cable while still clenching the stick in the opposite hand.
"It's ok," he assures her, "see, you are going to make it stop."
He points at the red sign. She looks up and searches for it. She finds it and grins then hops down to the floor with stick in hand. As the bus halts she runs up to the front.
"Bye!" she tells the driver.
"Is that her wand or her stick?" the odd woman asks the man.
"I think it's both," the man replies.
The driver laughs.
The woman says, "Here's my wand!"
She holds up a small straight stick about ten centimeters in length.
"That's cool," he says as his daughter watches the exchange quietly.
The little girl jumps down to the street below all of a sudden. The man follows her as the leaf he carries is whisked on the wind out of his hand and disappears into faded memory.

Crisp Weeds to Pink Wigs Intercede a Gloomy Scape

2011-09-16T08:07:00.001-07:00

The morning is cool to cold. Brisk, crisp, chilly and biting to the ears and tip of the nose it is. A bit of a shock. My walk to the morning stop reveals two large weeds growing tall. I grasp them to pull out of the ground but they have spines on their stems. I pull it out anyway then continue onto the marker. The prickly stem bites into my palm. I feel my face wince a little as the root ball comes out of the ground. I drop it to collect on my way back hours from now and dust off my hands then proceed onward. To look around the morning is dim and cloudy. Distant cars from the highway make themselves known from their tire treads whipping against the interstate's surface. I can hear my shoe treads do the same thing, except in miniature and in harmonic fashion.

As I approach, the bus already is hurrying to the same point. Only G is there poised to embark. In haste I trot to the open doors and barely make it. Someone is sitting in G's spot, so he turns to sit across from there. However when he sees me he changes his mind and sits all the way in the back. I in turn just choose the seat he deferred from for whatever reason. It just seemed like the natural thing to do, not really sure why at this point.

I prop my knees up on the barrier in front of me to suspend the feet in the air. Looking out the window only informs silhouetted trees, blackish-blue bushes and the occasional gloomy landscape. More of the same happens as time progresses. Commuters step up, take their seats, unzip their bag, pull out a paperback, then start reading. No one talks. A few sleep. Some listen to music.

When I arrive downtown to walk to catch another bus I see a gray-bearded man ride a yellow Harley onto the sidewalk. He is wearing a pink helmet with a pink wig adhered to its outside surface. It doesn't sink in, meaning the reason for why into my stupid little brain. Next thing I know there are all these people crossing the street. A whole horde of pink-attired (yes some with pink wigs) traversing north along 1st Avenue. Then it dawns on me. It's the Breast Cancer Walk of course. So many people so early in the morning gathered around the stadium. The Seattle Police are out in force stopping traffic to supersede the traffic lights to allow the flow of pedestrians to continue their march. They are motorcycle cops mostly that keep their helmets affixed to their heads.

Finally I enter the last bus. The driver is stopped by those very police as the marchers file by. Then rather unexpectedly the bus lurches forward through the intersection and the scene folds back into memory. Now the mind must turn toward the work that must be done, as it does over and over.

When Toddlers Chase Chickens

2011-09-15T16:32:00.001-07:00

It's loud, a regular cacophony of high compression ratio of diesel power plants. They assault the ears and nose and sense of vibration out here at the afternoon stop. The buses pound their way through the balmy air. The thick clouds above suggest imminent rain with their buffeting breeze heralding. Again I sit on a black-coated steel mesh seat amongst a variety of commuters from all walks of life. Most rush from their downtown office jobs, walking swiftly to the destination of daily choice.

Never have I witnessed such a driver that annunciates his words so clearly: "Third and James! King County Courthouse!"
The ending "S" resounds through the cabin like a hissing cobra. There is only a complete understanding of every single statement. Definitely this is not a typical situation. Of course in all the years riding public transit the muffled and ambiguous opposite is true. -And that is that with that.

It's funny to watch people wait for the bus from inside one, especially those with nothing to read or look at such as a phone or otherwise. I imagine I look funny too if I would happen to see myself from the same vantage. We never know how to position ourselves, our eyes, our stance, stashing our arms, level of comfort, and supposed concentration. It all must cast itself of and about bewilderment. Why it's so amusing to me I'm not sure. I think perhaps it reminds me of something, like a bunch of chickens being chased about by a toddler that just learned how to run from walking. The birds don't know quite where to go or how to take the sudden onslaught of the unusual or out of the ordinary. I wonder if we feel the same? When we're between our worlds of existence is there this tendency to fidget mentally? It's like we are unsure of or what to occupy our minds with during the alleged purposelessness.

Do I Taste Onions?

2011-09-12T17:25:00.001-07:00

They glance up then spit on the sidewalk. Cigarette smoke wafts after the saliva is expelled giving the illusion that the splat might have been steaming. I sit on a metal mesh bench with a glass semi barrier separating me from them. It does little to suspend the smoke's assault. The scent is heavy in the sun-leaden air. Shadows even elicit themselves in gaseous form. Soon after the two lift themselves after a moment of bemusement then move off. I don't observe where, nor do I care. More and more I become a fixture of apathy. It happens for whatever reason, but as always for the most part by choice.

A woman walks from the north down 4th Avenue South yelling something intelligible. When she arrives at the bus shelter, she proclaims that "this bus here will take me home!" to the world at large. I look up at the route and it's my own. It's like she fills in my thoughts for me. I follow her on and hear her make the same exclamation to the muscle-shirt attired driver. Actually I'm not sure if it is a muscle shirt. The sleeves are just short, really short. I head aft and take the seat behind the back door.

Soon muffled voices work their way through the music in my headphones. I attempt to look back but accidentally lock eyes with an expressionless young woman also listening to earphones. I go back to scanning the phone trying to ignore everyone squeezing into the bus. I fail at this however. The interior fills to standing room only. The loud talking in the back continues to bleed through. I suddenly recall lunch. The memory is fleeting and doesn't inspire much.

Inspiration. Aspiration. Yeah I had been "officially asked" to provide what does and which I possess respectively. I provided answers, flavored with my style of delivery, whatever that is. I'm sure there will be someone to relate what their opinion is about it. Yes, there are many of those, so many. There is no escape from that.

Do I taste onions?

Homogeneous Soup

2011-09-10T15:47:00.000-07:00

Which one is it? All the windows are open. The air swirls about mixing altogether into a homogeneous soup. This causes a situation of adverse ambiguity. My olfactory senses cannot get a fix on the position if not only the direction. It is a prime example of Heisenberg's Principle applied to the stench cloud of human preponderance.

Luckily I undergo a phase change. I find myself aboard cool and sparse surroundings. I sit behind one acting like she's leaving but instead is only shifting to consume the remnants of a roast beef sandwich. She dabs her mouth with a napkin then returns to rifling through her bag. The second half of the sandwich is brought forth and masticated swiftly.

I turn my attention elsewhere. I listen to music. It turns out to be a retroactive excursion into the early 1980's post punk. I am reminded of Los Angeles. I was there then of course. I went to parochial school, ditched detention, learned how stingy my mother was, breathed in photochemical smog, road on a banana-seat bicycle everywhere, and experienced my first real taste of music (besides the easy listening crap my parents listened to).

Neither here nor there; I am resigned ...

A Rurgitation of Miniscule Proportion

2011-09-09T07:36:00.000-07:00

I am glanced at by a man with a pair stylish earphones containing a shiny brass exoskeleton. The interconnecting strap of the speakers spans over a dark brown newsboy hat (sorry, I really don't what else to call it). Really, the headphones look like an attempt at retro, especially in conjunction with that hat. Makes me wonder of he's got some large platform spinning a shellac "78" on his lap. Knowing people nowadays and their stylish affectations of yesteryears who knows? It could be true. You just never know.

Anyway, I stroll by while returning the glance and head to the seat wondering at his sudden curiosity that would pull him out of whatever sentimental funk he's got himself into. Oh yeah, this wonderment is lost though, so utterly swallowed up by the noise the tires make on the worn highway. It evens everything out with it's entropic tendency. It spreads thin anything that would otherwise rise to the top. The swells and depressions are all flattened. The truly great or lousy is obscured by the mundane statements of the obvious and mediocre proffering of idiotic intrigue...

Indigenous Not

2011-09-08T07:02:00.001-07:00

An orange shirt guy enters with apprehension, glancing left and right and heads halfway into the coach. He sits one ass-cheek and one ass cheek only on the barest edge. Just before he extracts his smart phone from his pocket, then forever tilts his head down into that little glowing screen. His eyes never again are lifted from this pose, at least for this bus ride.

A woman, skinny, long bushy red hair arranged in a topknot with yellowish tinged skin slinks by via the aisle aft. The burning and oppressive rank scent of recently spent cigarette butts buffets the air at her passing. I sense my throat constricting, my nose wrinkling, my eyes watering. My mind supplies interrogatives rather than declaratives.

The moving picture out the window yields a polished steel sculpture of squares swept in a wavy pattern up from a platform. There must be six or seven of them. They're close to the town's City Hall building. Why they call it a "hall" is anyone's guess. It resembles it not. Regardless someone in there thought it was a good idea so they did it. So there it is, sitting out there instilling mental images of perhaps a frozen acid trip frame. Indeed.

Saturday Morning Arrives on the Heels of Thoughtless Supposition

2011-08-27T11:07:00.000-07:00

The air is bright and clear. A small breeze whisks at the face as the giant evergreens supply their telling old forest scent. I amble towards the bus stop, my feet hugging the road's edge. I try to maintain that balance between walking into traffic or falling down into a muddy drainage ditch. A woman walks about thirty meters ahead of me wearing a giant shoulder bag and a pair of high heels attempting to sustain the same equivocation. Her pace is slower than my own. I have no desire to catch up so I slow my stroll to match her speed.

I turn my attention elsewhere. My approach to the bus stop for instance. The stop nears, shaded by a cedar tree. The tree drapes its strangely formed leaves over like a shop's awning. I sit myself on the road guardrail. It's not terribly comfortable but it does the job of resting the bum. I notice graffiti scrawled in pubescent script on the galvanized steel extrusion. It's black as if it were made from a "Sharpie" or something similar. The vandal apparently possessed a fixation on penises ejaculating. I discern more of the same written on the bus marker and the metal post that supports it.

With a sigh I again turn my attention elsewhere. The bus is going to come soon. I check my bus "app" on the phone. According to the "app" it'll be here in seven minutes. I start writing this here meaningless account of nothing important when the sound of the bus jolts me to standing at attention. With a smirk the driver eases the coach to a stop and hisses the door open. I wave my ORCA card (One Regional Card for All) in front of the reader. The reader beeps its acceptance and I move on into the bus. Everyone glances at my passing but quickly avert their gazes at my returning them. A blue-capped fat old man wearing a gray muscle shirt, a hipster attired it hip specs and hip Tshirt sporting hip sideburns, and a Costco employee in uniform are some to name a few. I often violate the "no eye contact" rule out of shear spite. I don't know why. Maybe it makes life more interesting. Perhaps I search those eyes for some semblance of a soul that I might have known in a previous life. It could be that I could debunk this antisocial trend we have here in the World of Big City USA, but I doubt it. If there is anything I am not it is a trendsetter. If you saw me on the street you'd take absolutely no notice. If you think I'm joking or exaggerating let me just say I have many years of backing data. I have observations ranging from the sickening emotional to the coldly scientific. You'll see (or not as the case in fact is). One glance at me and you might as well peer at a tree, or a pebble on the side of the road, or even a glade of grass in a middle of an abandoned lot.

The driver uses a stick to reach up to the display control to change the route information. The route changes numbers from the 331 to the 345. How do I know this? Why the "app" of course. The "app" has been telling me a lot of things lately. I haven't gotten around to trusting it completely yet. I hope one day that time will come. Until then I shall remain apprehensive. However I can't seem to shake my skeptic philosophy, no matter how convincing the counter argument may be. So forget it. My apprehension will remain firmly in place.

Four Nincompoops Encounter Public Transit Vehicle!

2011-03-30T19:58:00.000-07:00

Two suspected anticommuters enter the bus in front of me at the Fourth and Jackson Island. The couple, which comprises of a man and woman are attired in country get-ups of plaid over Wrangler denim. The man possesses a colorful banded straw cowboy hat while the woman has a perched high blacked-billed baseball cap with the word, "Fish'n" embroidered along the side. The man carries presumably a long fishing pole within an odd-shaped tight-fitting black-formed pouch. He is of normal to slightly rotund proportion and talks with a glacial creep, much like his "old lady" that precedes him entering the bus with laborious intent. The woman is in no uncertain terms fat beyond belief, what with her ass cheeks the size of beach balls swaying to-and-fro like a gargantuan double-ended pendulum. She takes one step at a time pivoting her legs at the hip joint because of some unclear inability to bend at the knee. It takes her about a full twenty seconds to ascend the platform four stairs high. Her man decides to wait until full clearance of the stairwell is made before ambling upwards. She of course chooses a side-facing row and takes up two and a half seats' width, while the man chooses to sit in the very first front facing row on the same starboard side.

Shortly thereafter, my cataloging of these "important" events is interrupted by a bike messenger that was zigzagging in the middle of the bus corridor that was almost clobbered by the side of the bus as the driver guided the coach to the stop at the corner of Third and Union. The first thing that I notice was that the bus is jerking to a stop in an unnatural manner bordering on whiplash-type conditions.

This incident is followed by the sudden appearance of the bike-messenger by the front door screaming the words, "I WAS HERE FIRST ASSHOLE!!!!"

The driver begins to retort, but before he could get out a complete sentence the bike-messenger pedals abruptly off to continue his zigzagging around shifting public transit vehicles up the corridor.

Meanwhile, the suspected anticommuter couple looks on the scene, remaining firmly in place all the way up to...

...Well I don't know exactly, because I broke my time-honored rule and fell asleep like a nincompoop.

To Be Counted Less Than First in a List of Priorities

2011-03-29T12:51:00.000-07:00

Silhouetted against a backdrop of dim ambiance, the Ponytail Man stares straight at me as I stand to wait for the bus. He faces his whole body in my direction, as if this was a requirement for total concentration on lunatic-observation. Most I must believe would become self-conscious with this kind of onslaught of unreasonable and freakish examination, but with my own mind curiosity is the only feeling to make itself known.

Just as I was conjuring my counter-observance tactics at this rather odd Ponytail Man, he performs an awkward and rather robotic flourishing about-face with haphazard deliberation. I almost choked out a laugh as a result, but quashed the urge right away. I realize he is doing this because the first distant groans of the bus can be discerned, and apparently the apt ascertainment of the inevitable arrival of the bus takes precedent in Ponytail Man's internal list of priorities.

Such as it is I follow the adherence to utter neutrality, neither here nor there.

The Gold Man Commeth

2011-03-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

Like out of a twisted dream, a spindly bloke of curious attire gingerly traverses the articulated bus aisle with lanky disposition. I am reminded more of something out of a "steampunk" novel than the reality now faced, and I even wonder a bit if I have fallen asleep in my seat and somehow entered into the Otherworld. However when I look around everyone and everything else appears as it did when I first entered the scene. He approaches, one giant stride in front of the other: gold denim, gold-colored leather shoes, gold-hued spring jacket, gold-billed cap all arranged in a rather psychotic monochromatic assembly. The only item of any discernible difference is his socks that peek out from the gap between his shoes and pants: red with one white stripe.
He stops short of my three-seat side-facing row by the backdoor and hesitates there like a loitering member of the drug subculture outside of a "Kwikstop." He remains there undecided for those mere moments that invariably stretch our human perception of time into something unreal, "unshort;" he lingers there swiveling his head as a robot might: with definite servo-like precision of an exact span of no less than one-hundred seven arc-degrees. With an abrupt and snappish flick, his entire form goes rigid while with avid apparent pause his subroutines kicks into gear from his likely post industrial age manufactured brain to bend and rotate those apparatae into a collective of movements and positions himself into the row of my current abode. I react with a soft sigh, as I always am so conscious of the space around me and the sudden lack of it.
-For now I have become the seat public transportation companion of an Apple white earbud wearing "Gold Man." How does it feel...

And Woolly Mammoths Cross Over the Vision

2011-03-23T09:17:00.000-07:00

23-March-2011 06:27

The night is dark as pitch this morning, such as is the case these days. I load myself onto the bus still weary and worn from the most recent encounter with sleep the night before. When I sit, I prop my knees up on the seat back in front of me so as to let my feet dangle in mid-air. No pressure, no strain exists on them except perhaps from the weight of the shoe pulled toward the center of the Earth.
After a few moments a smattering of people arrive and sit themselves in various arrangements, not a one matching my nonchalant slack. My own vision is obscured by a pink scalp that can be discerned under a bed of longish stark white hair that contains blond ends. He seats himself with one half his jacket behind him and the other draped fractionally over the opposing shoulder. No such movement from him exisits other than the bus's vibratory rattle.
I turn from this curious scene to look out the bus's front window and see Mount Rainier rising out of the horizon like some kind of up close and personal woolly mammoth. I stare at it, recognizing it does indeed convey the sense of having a "purple majesty." This "inactive volcano's immense sight serves to ease my mind and still my thoughts, thusly rendering an end to this scribbling of the pen, quite abruptly...

To Belie Personal History

2011-03-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

22-March-2011 0630
More and more the phenomenon of electronic gadgetry proliferation, bent necks and undulating thumbs has taken precedence. They are interspersed within this human medium like a spray pattern of splatter on an incidental wall, seemingly random but with a kind of accompanying eerie order that rides freely on an undercurrent of duplicitous design. Heads bent for sleep or vacant stares; it matters not, for they have become equivocal with the former of course without question.

Is this evolution or basically the same propensity of human preponderance, flat and ineffectual which belies their personal histories? -But then forever I speak in the rhetorical sense, and waste my ink upon these haphazard pages...

Nongermane

2011-03-18T16:44:00.000-07:00

They all sit as they always do, with mildly interested (or disinterested) countenances. I have written about this before, many times before. I feel as if there is nothing new to be said about any of it. However, some nuance inevitably will make itself known, eliciting a kind of flood of visceral imagery and of course, implicit philosophy: likely the middle aged man at the front graying at the temples, a curious smirk implanted on his face directed downwards. His head hangs loosely, bobbing at every induced bus vibration as if attached via a stretched out slinky; or the girl sitting next to me that chews a peppermint gum, hands folded on her lap, head back, eyes closed in a mock meditation; or the man with the ultra-warm tight fitting ski cap and thick parka as if he were being transported to a polar region of the planet for a clandestine exploration of trivial reasoning…as almost all are these micro-archetypes I have hashed and rehashed before and before, quite endlessly without any sort of single purpose.

-For I am only a single voice amongst the many more worthy or profound. Sure, I may be considered being deep, philosophical, thoughtful, intelligent or any number of things more than the confluence of the human race, but one stark aspect of reality that always pervades this ambiance here is that I am really nothing, nothing at all but a whisper in a hurricane’s wind, a fallen and wasted leaf of autumn amidst the forest floor, the tattered remnants of a forgotten empire’s colors…so worry not or take any notice. Move along to bigger and better things and forget this place, for it only is an exercise in ridiculous and pointless futility.

In a Retrospect

2011-03-16T12:56:00.001-07:00

In a retrospect
Memory flashes unstill
Of bus journey’s end

A man’s long gray hair
Effaced demeanor “un-thrilled”
Lithium gaze razed

I ignore the stench
And turn the attention down
My ward swirls to drown…