Another Day, Another Bus Ride

From where I am sitting, I can see three laptops (counting mine). My girlfriend is doing her homework and so is the girl in front of her. Every other person has some sort of something playing in their ears, be it an iPod, PSP, or iAudio G3 (buy iAudio products). Still others are reading, and over all, only a select few are sitting quietly, thinking to themselves.

What are those ones thinking about?

The last time I wrote about the bus, I talked about the desire for communication in the form of something as simple as a person sitting down next to me. This time, I’m talking about a desire for communication of another sort.

This is the 586 from Tacoma to the U-District, and inside of it is the occasional professor or day job worker. Most of all, it is packed with anxious college students, both dreading and anticipating the upcoming finals week. We might not have any of the same classes. We might never see each other on campus. But one thing we have in common above all is that we all live off campus. We all share in an outcast sensibility which I guarantee governs our lives to some degree.

What are we thinking about?

I wish I could say. Instead, I’m here on my laptop, and Mr. X is on his, while Ms. P nods off to her medical textbook and little J looks anxiously across the isle at his mothers face, afraid of the stranger sitting next to him. What for?

I’m a kind of social romantic, meaning to say that in my head, life plays out like the movies do. Strangers meet in coffee shops, new friends lend a ten dollar bill at the bookstore, and most of all, most of all, conversations of a very deep nature take place on public transit.

We live in a world of opportunity, constantly passed up by our social rigors. They tell us where to sit and how, they tell us who to talk to and who not to talk to, who to fear and who to admire.

“Hey there.”
“Hi.”
“What’s your name?”
“I can’t say.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I talk to you, my mom might worry that you’re a pedophile. Because we’ve moved beyond the world of innocent conversations and faithful intent.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”

Yet we’re all of us a little bit lonely, if not for the sole reason that one conversation, two, five have just passed us by.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I won’t talk to you later.”
"Cool. Make sure that you don’t let me know about that promotion you’re up for or about your kid’s concert this week.”
“You won’t hear a thing.”
“Great.”