~Tuesday~ Above the bus stop, there are a bunch of pine trees, and not because it was raining, but because of the combination of the saturated pine needles and a slight breeze, raindrops kept falling on my head. Rest assured, however, my eyes weren’t turning red; crying’s not for me. Just sayin…
This morning the African-American girl who was with the African-American boy one day last week came up to the stop holding a pair of tennis shoes and a ball cap. When the bus arrived, she didn’t move to get on, and when she looked my way I motioned to her to please board first.
For a time—long enough to be awkward—she didn’t step forward, but finally did, stepping up onto the second step in the doorway. But instead of reaching to pay her fare, she looked back into the bus, presumably for her black knight in shining armor, who was nowhere in sight.
She turned around, excused herself exiting around me, and I boarded.
At a subsequent stop, a sexy white guy got on the bus and after getting a no from the bus driver about having change for a five, he asked the general ridership. I thought I might have five ones, but checking my “wad,” I found only three. I handed him one of them, and said, “Here you go. Just use this,” for which he was very appreciative and said as much.
I started a scenario daydream in which at the next stop, an unattractive black guy got on the bus in the same situation, and I had this succession of thoughts:
- If I didn’t offer him a dollar, people would assume I’m racist.
- I could explain to them, “Well the reason I gave the white guy a dollar was because he was cute, not because he was white.”
- But then anyone who thought the black guy was cute might think I didn’t find any black guys attractive.
- But then I could say, “That’s unequivocally not true. I definitely find some black guys attractive, just ask the ones I’ve had sex with.”
- And then I thought, “That’s just a little TMI.”
Whew! That’s a lotta thinking right there.
As we approached Hillsborough Street on Gorman, we passed the Three-Seat Stroller Lady with all three seats taken this morning, including one with the girl who is big enough to walk—and was walking—when last we saw our hero. She was on an incline, leaning so far forward that her torso was almost parallel to the ground, arms totally outstretched with hands on the stroller handle, and really getting her supermom exercise in pushing that bogged down transporter uphill.
I didn’t mention this in my blog yesterday, but I tweeted about it:
| It’s bad enough there’s a port-a-john in front of your work building, but walking up to it on a Monday morning while they’re “servicing” it was just… |
This morning the contraption was still there, but at least it wasn’t being serviced, or in service—I presumed:
Our weekly staff meeting was canceled today. Praise be.
At lunch, I attended a “Lunch & Learn” called “Get Started with Mobile Web Applications,” which I found both timely and relevant with the recent purchase of my Blackberry. The session was hosted by the guys from the university’s library, and one of the things they talked about was doing some “fun” things as mobile apps, and how one of the fun things they did turned out to be a very popular service for their patrons.
They thought it would just be fun to install a webcam in the coffee shop that’s inside the library, but it turned out that patrons just love it, because they can check to see how long the line is before either entering the library at all from out in The Brickyard, or before making their way down there from the two towers and many floors of the expansive library. Check it out: NCSU Libraries Beancam. I, myself, will be using this service, as it will definitely influence when I run across the street to get a bagel there whenever I want one.
I had a meeting with my financial advisor from 5:30 until 6:00 tonight. I have to make a decision about some money that’s freeing up at the end of this month. It’s a “complicated order,” and as what tends to make decisions complicated, there’s not a right or wrong answer, but trade-offs associated with each choice.
I got my hair cut at 7:30, by the stylist who’s afraid she might get AIDS from an HIV+ client’s bits of cut hair flying around in her face and mouth. 
No matter that that flies in the face of everything we know about how HIV is transmitted.
I dropped by my office for a bit to have everything just so for a university-level meeting I’m responsible for from an administrative perspective tomorrow.
I met Joe at Flex at 10:30 for the 11:00 Freak Drag Show, which was supposed to star Mary K. Mart, but was emceed instead by Jackie O’Knight, as Ms. Mart was under the weather. (Wouldn’t surprise me if that meant she met some guy named Weather. But I digress…)
We ended the evening with a trip to The Diner, where we ordered three appetizers: sharing Chips & Queso, some extra hot wings (me) and some chili cheese fries (Joe).