18Apr09

Okay. So. Pull up a chair. It’s been a minute, yeah? How are you? How are things? Did you catch Lost last week? Pretty fuckin’ epic, right?  How are the folks? Good? Good. Well, listen. I just wanted to make you aware that the format of this blog [that no one has read for 6 months] is changing. This is due to an enormous, life-changing, paradigm-shifting routine that I’ve been experiencing for almost a year now. Did I come to Jesus? No. Did I start volunteering at the old folks’ home? No. Did I start an ultra-hip synth-rock band  called “Fixed Gear” and start wearing guyliner and girls’ size small jeans? No. What I did start doing was riding the #358 bus into downtown Seattle every day.  Holy shit. It has changed my life, and, as an extension, my view of humanity in general.

First thing’s first. I’ll give you a little background. The 358 connects the town of Shoreline [where I live] and downtown Seattle [where I work]. Now, Shoreline is an okay little burg. It’s relatively safe, relatively quiet, and relatively harmless. And that’s why I hate it. Plus, it’s moderately far from some of my good friends and if I need to get anywhere, I have to jump on the whore that is the 358. 

Shoreline and downtown are about 4 or 5 miles apart. Shoreline is nice. Downtown is nice. But the stretch between the two is an absolute shitfest of Buy Here/Pay Here auto lots, seedy ‘Hourly Rate’ fleabag motels, and an enormous cemetery that takes up ten city  blocks. The people, and I’m really not judging [okay, well, I'm judgmental. Sue me], that inhabit this stretch of society are, well, how to say this diplomatically? Interesting. They are very interesting people. All walks of life. All shapes and sizes. All colors and languages. Which, I will definitely admit, is a good thing. I’m a strong proponent that everyone should be forced to deal with epic levels of diversity at some point in their day.  But for every 10 normal, respectable, quiet people that ride the 358, there’s at least 1 [maybe even 2] absolute shitbag crazy and/or rude and/or disrespectful and/or walking sewer of a human on the bus.

And this is the nexus of my new format. Not sure what to title it yet. I can’t really boil its essence down to a simple catchphrase just yet, because every ride, every day, is completely different. Some days, the crazy people are awesome and make my ride much, much more entertaining and enjoyable. Other days, I have to sit next to the guy with the one solid dreadlock and no teeth or the junkie beanpole who doesn’t mind sharing her experiences as a stripper and what a relief it is to hit that sweet, sweet methamphetamine after eight hours of grinding on boners.

What I will say, though, is that the 358 has done wonders for my self-esteem. You know that Lewis Black joke where he says that IHOP is his health club because, no matter what, at IHOP there’s always somebody 200 pounds heavier than him? That’s how I feel about the 358. No matter what [and anyone that knows me knows that I'm the furthest thing from an egomaniacal, cocky man] I am consistently the best looking, best dressed guy on the bus. Any cute girl that wandered into the Venus Fly Trap that is Metro Transit, must, in my head at least, think I’m pretty dreamy when I sit next to dreadlock guy. So I guess there’s that. 

But, my goal with the new format is to chronicle some of the bonkers shit I see on the bus. Does anyone really care about my experiences on a bus? You tell me. But, in my humble opinion, some of these things need to be recorded for posterity’s sake. We’ll see where this road takes us [appropriate figure of speech?]. Get your bus fare ready. Let’s head downtown.

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