There's nothing I love more than when people sing on the bus. It seriously makes me so happy. It makes the people sitting directly next to them so obviously uncomfortable and makes those of us with in ear shot contort our faces in awful ways to try not to burst out laughing.

Today, there was a boy singing opera while he was playing Sodoku on my way home. Hilarious! There was a couple sitting across from them and the girl had to burry her face in the boys shoulder to disguise her laughter. The boy sitting next to the opera man was trying to study and looked so unbelievably pissed off because this guy just kept singing. And not only was he singing, but there were dramatic hand gestures, too! I had to get off the bus early because I simply could not contain my giggles any longer.

Please, sing loud and sing proud. I will enjoy laughing at you.

Today was an eventful day on the bus.

Being that today is a Monday, I was running late as always, so I was on a later bus than usual. I deeply regret my addiction to the snooze button. For some reason, there was a field trip of third graders on the bus. I spent my 20 minute bus commute waking up to 15-20 children chattering excitedly about space ships and super hero powers and how the moon is really just a hole in the sky that aliens made with lasers so they could look at us from the other side.


The bus home was preceded by my staring across the street at this:
It was quite possibly the most gigantic dog I have ever seen in my entire life. Needless to say, I wanted nothing more than to squish it's gigantic face. But the bus came before I could.
On the bus, I was horrified when I saw injured arm man is no longer with an injured arm. Now, the last time I saw him was when he was passing by on the 66 bus like the fair weather bus rider he is. It is because I am a terrible person and for some reason was really upset that he would take the 66 bus that I wished he would be injured arm man for ever. Or at least for baseball season. But no such luck. Maybe next time...

Most of the time, the women bus drivers on the 86 route suck. They're mean and drive like maniacs. This morning, however, I was quite pleased with how lovely the lady bus driver was. I think it may have been because she had a thing for the not-quite Harvard professor (I think he does Hebrew lessons or something because he's always correcting things that aren't letters).

It was their conversations that led me into thinking up a romantic comedy. It goes like this: a man falls in love with a woman bus driver on his way to work one day and then tries to find her again by riding every route in the city. Hijinks ensue until in the end, he finds her and there's warm fuzzy moments and everyone is happy.

Okay. So looking at that now, it would probably be a really bad basis for a movie. But at 8:30am on my way to work, it sounded pretty good.

There's a guy on the bus sometimes that reminds me of Mr. Boston from I Love New York. He looks almost the same (re: wicked awkward) but he has grey hair. And it's one of those things where he's only like, 27, but has all grey hair. Today he started snapping his fingers and playing with the seat belt. It made me nervous.

Yesterday on my way home, there was a stupid lady with a really loud kid who cried too much. I hate children. But there was a dog on the bus and that makes me happy. But I didn't see it until it got off because the bus was really crowded.

Does anyone else notice that people seriously don't function on days when it rains in Boston? They can't walk, or drive, or do anything properly. It's really baffling.

I would say that a good 40% of everyone on the bus is reading. I'm okay with this. I was an English major and I say hooray for people being literate. What I'm not okay with, however, is when these assholes don't let you read over their shoulder. If you're sitting next to me I like to know what type of literature you read and also to try to figure out if it's one of those for fun reads or if you're doing it for another reason, i.e. school. Or, you may have a magazine flipped open and I might see something that looks interesting and want to read a bit. So let me! I never understand why people get so protective over their reading material. I mean, are they worried that I'll get to the good part on the next page before them and spoil it? Or perhaps they're the one with the weird growth-on-genitals question someone asked in the health column they're reading and they don't want me to know what's going on beneath their pants. I can't figure it out. But it pisses me the fuck off.

So I'm sitting at the Harvard Square bus stop by the EMS after a particularly traumatizing experience at the post office waiting for the 86 bus watching the many 66 buses come and go when who do I see inside one of them?!

WOUNDED ARM MAN!

I was furious. The 66?! HOW COULD YOU?! I personally feel that the 66 bus is those for the faint of heart. It comes three times for every one time the 86 bus comes. Thus, the people who take it and SHOULD take the 86 are pussies who can't brave the cold or spare some time to observe the bus stop antics.

I stared incredulously at him from my bench seat, but he refused to meet my look. What a jerk. And to think! All this time, I was worried.

I didn't know anyone either way to work today. So instead of observing particular people, I made some astute observations and raised some questions:

Why is it that every time it's remotely rainy, the 86 bus is always late and/or so jam packed with people that when it finally comes, it drives right by you because you don't fit? I find this absurd and cannot make sense of it. Perhaps there's a secret answer that someone knows. If you know, please tell me.

When ever I see people chewing gum on the bus in the morning, I assume that they didn't brush their teeth. Why else do you need to be chewing gum at 8am? This morning, I chewed gum and was horribly afraid that other people would make the same assumption that I do and think I had a dirty mouth. However, it was not the case. It was because I brushed my teeth at the beginning of my getting ready routine and by the end, my mouth just did not taste minty enough still.

Also on the bus this morning, there was a grown man with a lunch bag. Stuff like this makes me all sorts of giddy inside. I don't know why. I guess it's because he's on the bus with a lunch. It's all so K-6 to me. Too bad there's no nap time at work. I could have used it today.

Morning.

Lately I’ve been taking the bus that comes fifteen minutes after the one I usually take. I’ve found that by doing this, I can sleep until 5 of 8 and still make it to work on time. By taking the later bus, I’ve been missing out on most of the people I’m used to.

This morning, I grew frantic as I searched for the faces that I know. Two.

There’s a boy who is extremely good looking. I would probably call him my bus crush except I’m pretty sure he’s gay. He gets off at any one of three consecutive bus stops. Today, he decided he needed to start his day off at Dunkin Donuts. I don’t ever get to look at him for very long. But it’s nice to see someone good looking on the bus every once and a while.

Then. I solved a mystery. Last week on my way home, there was a girl reading something that looked like it could have been a printed out e-mail. She was making sure the girl next to her couldn’t read it. The girl next to her was trying really hard to read what it said with out looking obvious. She was very obvious, though. Anyways. The girl reading said paper appeared to be trying to hold back an emotional outburst. For the entire 20 minutes or so I was on the bus with her, I was trying to figure out if she was really sad about whatever she was reading or if she just had a really unattractive default face. (Default face: the face that one has when not really doing anything at all.) She was on the bus this morning. As it turns out, she just has a really unattractive default face. How unfortunate.

After the bus, I raced a man going down the stairs. I’m not sure if he knew we were racing or not. Regardless, I won.

The bus is an interesting place. It's sort of like a neighborhood on wheels. These are the people in my neighborhood.


I'm beginning to grow concerned about the man with the broken/damaged arm. We used to be on the bus together every morning and every night. His arm is in a sling. I don't know why. It just is. I heard him talking to an old man about it once. I think it's a sports injury. He said he was the pitcher for the Brookline Dodgers. How clever. In any event, I haven't seen him recently and I've been wondering about his where abouts. I've also wondered if maybe I just don't see him anymore because he's no longer in a sling so I can't recognize him. I don't think that's the case. Where are you man on the bus in the sling? I'm worried about you.