~Tuesday~ While waiting for the bus this morning on the shady, opposite side of the street, an empty taxi cab turned onto Kaplan Street with his window down. He saw me looking at him as he neared me, and he said out his window, “Need a taxi?”
“No thanks, I’m waiting on the bus,” I said indicating the bus stop across the street.
“Well, why don’t you just hop in. I don’t have any fares this morning, and I’m not likely to get one this early, so I might as well be of service,” he said.
My first thought was, “How nice,” but when I got in, he said, “And besides I’m kind of lonely and it’s nice to have someone to talk to. Where you headed?”
Just as I was about to answer, “Hillsborough Street,” the bus arrived at the intersection next to me and I snapped out of this daydream that had gone on long after that taxi had just continued on his way when I said I was waiting for the bus.
At a subsequent stop, the lady boarded who was reading Uncle John’s Curiously Compelling Bathroom Reader last Thursday, which I know not because I recognized her, but because she was still reading it, or at least carrying it around with her.
Boarding behind her at the same stop was an Adam Lambert-esque type guy sporting short jagged black hair and what had to be mascara and eyeliner on.
Someone behind me on their phone said something about “having to ride the damn bus,” and it made me wonder what percentage of bus riders ride because they choose to ride as opposed to having no choice.
Our Tuesday morning weekly staff meeting was canceled this morning, as my boss had to sit in for her boss in another meeting in that same time slot.
I ran home for lunch; well, I actually took the bus, and while there I brewed (steeped?) some green tea, which I poured into an empty plastic Jif Peanut Butter jar in order to take it to work. I’d made it toward the end of my lunch hour, so it was still hot when I poured it in that plastic jar. You see where this is going don’t you?
Arriving at Kaplan and Gorman, I fumbled with the warm jar as I got of my car, and it was leaking. I kept wiping the bottom to see if would get wet there again in attempt to identify a leak there. Just then the Wolfline bus came zipping by as I was nowhere near the stop yet.
I walked back a little ways to the city bus stop, where my jar leaked a little more before getting on the bus. Once on the bus, I put it on the floor and braced it by putting my feet on either side of it. When I unscrewed the lid later in the day to have some, I saw that the rim had warped, evidently causing it to leak when I swished the tea around in the near-full jar. Lesson learned.
Later at home, I hard-boiled six eggs, unloaded my dishwasher, made some Scrabble moves, and devised Sunday’s blog entry—I hate getting behind like that.
At close to 10:00, I went to the grocery store to get things for a surprise breakfast for the office that my officemate and I were laying out Wednesday morning for our boss’s birthday. I bought a gallon of orange juice (no pulp), two half-gallon bottles of apple juice, 24 (3 boxes of 8) Jimmy Dean fully-cooked Turkey Sausage Patties, 24 (2 packs of 12) of Kings Hawaiian Rolls.
In my car, I also had the left over Panera Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake from Salon last night, and I brought it and the groceries over to my office to avoid having to negotiate all that on the bus in the morning.
In the affirmation file today, I added two noteworthy entries, both from fellow salon members of mine:
- In response to an edit I did for my friend Anna: “John, this is /amazing/! You’ve made it so so so much better. And I’ll admit freely that the line that made you gasp was mine. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of being edited really fucking well, but this is the second time it’s happened to me and it is such a gift.”
- A response I received from Etta to an e-mail I sent thanking her for the hug last night at salon after reading Jeanie-baby’s eulogy to the group.
As some of you undoubtedly know, and some of you undoubtedly don’t, June is “Gay Pride” month, as a result of the Stonewall Inn riots in June of 1969. Their coming out is a defining moment in almost every gay person’s life. Large Tony, in his blog West of Mayberry shares his thoughts on pride, which for him is self-acceptance. I agree whole-heartedly with him. Happy Pride to my GLBT friends!