~Thursday~ Library Man was reading a magazine this morning—no surprise there. However, he’s usually reading a magazine in his field, and one of physical substance. The one he held today was very thin and flimsy, like it was published on cheap paper. It reminded me of the copies of Woman’s Day that litter my mother’s vanity in her bathroom.
Sci-Fi Fantasy Man was aboard this morning. He’s as predicable with his ear buds and his reading as I am with my laptop bag and my soft-sided briefcase. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned this before about him, but he’s very polite. Always says, “Thank you, and have a nice day,” to the driver when he departs the bus. As do I.
Speaking of that, my exit convo is as predictable as mullets at NASCAR races:
Me: “Thank you.”
Driver: “You’re welcome. Have a nice day.”
Me: “Thank you. You do the same.”
On the front center-facing seat was a Hispanic man who looked like a painter, but without the paint all over his clothes and without the brush. (Which, come to think of it, now while reading my scrawled notes about him, “So what part of him did look like a painter?” Bless my mess.) He had on an aqua-colored ball cap and held a McCafe coffee cup in his hand, which seemed to be empty, which was good, since “there’s no smoking, eating, or drinking on the CAT bus.”
Li’l Dino got on and touched my arm saying, “Hey, baby,” as she took the seat right in front of me on the end of the center-facing seat. This meant that I was looking at the left side of her face, which sets up one of those awkward situations of not speaking with someone when they’re so close to you. I put in my ear buds and pretended to turn on my iPod, but in reality left it off so I could eavesdrop in case anything important came up to capture.
My Three Sons was not at his stop, but his two sons were, as well as the Mrs. Today it was clear that there was not a baby under her robe—and even clearer—that those were not big breasts making that bulge under her robe, but her arms folded on her potentially small breasts. That’s a lot of thinking about breasts for a gay man. I’m just saying…
I had three work meetings today:
- 1.5-hour morning meeting of the four departments that report to my boss’s boss
- 1.25-hour (MDA!) Student E-mail meeting, at which I take notes, and today was exceptionally challenging as there was very much, very fast, very technical talk
- Accessibility website design meeting with my friend and colleague Jen
I got a little bit scared on my bus ride home as people on the bus have now started talking to me. I really don’t need another social group. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it. It’s a little awkward writing down what they’re saying when they’re actually talking to me.
Poopie Bus Driver (new character name alert!) actually did not take a break at the Circle K, and I remarked to Temporary Alice, who had already struck up a conversation with me by then, “I guess he had a late lunch and hasn’t digested it yet.”
She’d spoken to me several minutes before saying, “You know that Chinese guy that sometimes has a bike with him in the morning?”
I mentally zipped through my characters and didn’t recall him, but said, “Yes,” anyway.
She went on, deliciously, “He was having a spell this morning. He was going off about how bad of a day he was having, and I just yelled, WELL, I’M HAVING A BAD DAY, TOO! It looked like he was gonna hit someone. If he hit me, I was gonna hit him back.”
Li’l Dino came on board (Hail! Hail! The gang’s all here!) and she took the seat across from us with someone she knew in the adjoining seat.
In front of them—so catty corner to us—sat the woman who talks out loud to herself while she does Word Search puzzles. I wrote about her a couple of months ago, when she was sitting behind me and Temporary Alice was sitting in front of me, and on that day I noticed that both of their badges sported the same last name and marveled at how close the two first names were: Alice and Amy. I’m naming Amy the Word Search Lady now.
So today, Li’l Dino says to Word Search Lady as she is heads down in the book speaking letters out loud in the seat in front of her, “Amy, how many of those puzzles you do a week?”
Well, Temporary Alice starts a-talkin’ on Word Search Lady‘s behalf. “She does about two books a week. She plays Scrabble, too. By herself. And she has a computer. You ast [sic] it a question and it gives three answers and she presses a button to choose the right one. It’s a special computer. It don’t hook up to the Innernet or nothin’. You just play games on it. She takes out the batteries when she’s not using it so they last longer.”
At the end of this exposition, it occurred to me that these ladies with the same last name must be sisters and they must live together. At least that’s what it sounded like with Temporary Alice talking all about Word Search Lady‘s bidness.
Tuesday at trivia, Alex, Bill, and I thought it would be fun to create a trivia category and ten questions for Mary to use at some trivia night in the future. I spent a little time when I got him letting my creative juices flow, and I came up with this set of 10 questions in the category of Drag.
I sent them to Mary K Mart via Facebook. We’ll see if she just ignores them. 🙂
I met Alex and Bill out for Trailer Park Prize Night, in which Raven Simone was performing. We love her. She can work a fake fanny like no drag queen I’ve ever seen. We joked that if someone stuck a pin in that thing, she’d fly around the room backwards long enough to give two airline pilots time to overshoot their destination by 150 miles. But I digress…