Observations

My favorite thing to do when riding public transportation is to observe other people. It's fascinating really! If I were an artist I would create an exhibition with recordings from riding public transportation. There are so many conversations and feet and all sorts of people. The soft droning of a hushed conversation or the obnoxious cell phone conversation where the person is yelling into the receiver of their phone while going into the tunnels oblivious that their signal is gone and no amount of talking or yelling will get it back. And even the group of people going to a party and hoping so-and-so would be there and how much they wanted to drink and try to be intellectual.

Yesterday I had an appointment in the city which required I take BART (our subway system) and MUNI (San Francisco municipal transit) out near Golden Gate Park. I had an uneventful ride to the appointment, but when going to the Presidio to meet D for lunch it got interesting. I boarded the bus with the generous transfer given to me by the first bus I rode (a 4 hour transfer!!) and with my brief glance noticed that the back of the bus was full of people and sat in the front seats. After a few minutes of being lost in my own thoughts I came back to the present and noticed that the back of the bus was full of children. I like to listen to children most of the time, unless they become shrill, because it always has the potential of being greatly amusing. These kids were excited to go on a field trip to the historic Presidio but were becoming annoying. I observed their teachers out of the corner of my eye (and you wonder why people wear their sunglasses all the time even while underground) and was surprised to see that they were mostly my age and kinda punks! One dude had on a gray hoodie with long unkempt hair. They got off at the same stop that I did and that was the end of that. Not as amusing as I had hoped.

After a nice lunch, I boarded the next bus I affectionately call the ‘Orient Express’. This bus goes straight through China Town but first through the disputed Little Italy that is slowly being taken over by China Town. (Now that is an interesting story! However; on with the observations!) I like this bus because the end of the line is at the Presidio and I am guaranteed at least three-quarters of the ride not being crowded. It’s refreshing to see old-school people, like the real gentlemen who wear their hats, coats, and are dressed very nicely to go ‘out’. I think some would consider it metro-sexual because they care how they look. Unfortunately I got distracted from fully observing this guy because angry man kept swearing angrily every time the bus stopped. He had a ruddy face and I wondered at first if he was homeless. His eyes were dead and it was sadly clear that he hated everything: the bus, the people, life and himself and I thought how easy it was to fall to that point. These last few days I have struggled with life and how it can kick you when you’re down, but life doesn’t mean to be cruel, it just happens. You can either succumb to the ‘dark side’ or keep looking for that light! I choose to believe that life is good and good things still happen, he does not.

The next guy to board the bus was a filipino urban cowboy. Now I have grown up in an area where you can occasionally see real cowboys and I can tell you, they do not wear big gold-plated belt buckles with their dress jackets and flashy Armani watches and stylish Dior sunglasses. To top it off, I recognized that he was wearing snakeskin cropped boots with last season’s long-toed trend and trying to pass them off as cowboy boots. Totally not! He was completely ridiculous and while we were passing through China Town he refused to make room for others and instead decided to stretch his legs and look around to see if anyone noticed him. I can tell you people did, but not because he was hot, because he was ridiculous. A designer filipino cowboy. *eye roll*

The BART ride home was quiet because everyone was trying to get IN to the city to protest the Olympic torch relay. The only eventful thing was the skanky ‘ho who got on wearing a cropped shirt probably meant for a 3 year old and a knit mini skirt all the way up to… well I’m sure you get the idea. The skirt was obviously intended to be worn with leggings. I assumed she was about my age but getting off at the same stop she did, I saw a weathered upper 30’s face with blonde stringy hair and I felt bad. I hoped life was treating her well and hoped if not it would treat her better and she would believe it.