excerpts from an urban life: bus stop lady
My lone walk is accompanied by so many strangers. Many of whom will become familiar faces. The Starbucks guy with Fuschia red hair with blond roots peeking out. The homeless guy who’s always at the main entrance of Market Place. The other homeless guy who’s always asking for a quarter. Only a quarter.
Fannie the waitress at diner Granny’s. Big hair. Big chest. Big personality. The Chinese restaurant across the street whose towkay insists to have set up Chicago’s first Chinese restaurant. Big claims.
The bus driver dude who swings by the Market Place bus stop at about 730 each morning. I’ve never seen him smile. His half nod each day marks the extent of intimacy in our driver-commuter relationship.
There’s also this old lady who I see once in while at the bus stop. She doesn’t know it. But every time she says something to me. It hits me like a philosopher’s stone. Our first encounter was special. I walked up to the bus curb and asked her the number of the bus that just took off. She doesn’t answer obediently, but asks why? I said then I’d know if it might take another 20 minutes before the next one comes along. She shoots me look and says what has that got to do with anything. She is making obvious her annoyance over my simplistic understanding of the bus system in Chicago. Talking without looking. “Just when you think you’ve figured it all out, something’s gonna come and show that you know nuthin’.” Whoa. are we still about buses? I begin to think to myself, wondering if I should like or hate this wrinkled old lady wrapped in an orange woolen sweater. Thirty seconds later. A bus pulls up. And proved her right. I’m suddenly thinking. and thinking about Rethinking. My worldview about buses has just collided into the brickwall of old-lady-at-the-bus-stop wisdom. I couldn’t help wonder if she was trying to tell me something more than the unreliability of public transportation. I mull over this for a while. It fills my head with scene of a movie I’ve yet to make. I tuck that thought away.
Fannie the waitress at diner Granny’s. Big hair. Big chest. Big personality. The Chinese restaurant across the street whose towkay insists to have set up Chicago’s first Chinese restaurant. Big claims.
The bus driver dude who swings by the Market Place bus stop at about 730 each morning. I’ve never seen him smile. His half nod each day marks the extent of intimacy in our driver-commuter relationship.
There’s also this old lady who I see once in while at the bus stop. She doesn’t know it. But every time she says something to me. It hits me like a philosopher’s stone. Our first encounter was special. I walked up to the bus curb and asked her the number of the bus that just took off. She doesn’t answer obediently, but asks why? I said then I’d know if it might take another 20 minutes before the next one comes along. She shoots me look and says what has that got to do with anything. She is making obvious her annoyance over my simplistic understanding of the bus system in Chicago. Talking without looking. “Just when you think you’ve figured it all out, something’s gonna come and show that you know nuthin’.” Whoa. are we still about buses? I begin to think to myself, wondering if I should like or hate this wrinkled old lady wrapped in an orange woolen sweater. Thirty seconds later. A bus pulls up. And proved her right. I’m suddenly thinking. and thinking about Rethinking. My worldview about buses has just collided into the brickwall of old-lady-at-the-bus-stop wisdom. I couldn’t help wonder if she was trying to tell me something more than the unreliability of public transportation. I mull over this for a while. It fills my head with scene of a movie I’ve yet to make. I tuck that thought away.
posted by mypurpleink at 12:02 PM
2 Comments:
Cheem-logy. But I like to read. =P
hey you! are you gonna be home for chinese new year? seems like you've been gone for so long!!!! I BELIEVE YOU'RE MY ONLY FAITHFUL READER. no one else cares about my crap. hahah! when you do get back, your first old chang kee curry puff is on me gal!
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