(my friend said that the other day i keep thinking about it)
other things i keep thinking about:
Earlier tonight I was on the bus and I saw a girl I know (not very well) get on two stops after me and I neglected to wave to her. I didn’t hide from her or anything, but I didn’t want to have a whole chitchat thing for the entire bus ride.
Then apparently a car hit the left side of the bus - I was completely oblivious, reading a magazine and with headphones in…I and the dude behind me only figured it out when the bus was stopped at Oakley, just before you go under 90-94, and sat stopped through multiple green lights. The bus driver then sort of cleared the air, turned around and asked, “Did anybody see anything?” He passed out cards to people who said they did, walking to the back and handing out some beat-up index cards to a handful of people on the left side of the bus. The girl I knew volunteered that she had, as a driver, had a similar accident with a bus recently and that it was “totally her fault.” She still hadn’t seen me, and/or I had failed to say “hi.”
It was snowing, the first hibernation-instinct-inducing weather of the Chicago winter, with blowing wet cold shit in your face no matter what direction you’re facing. We waited inside the bus until another one came along, and I remember thinking how easily we could be in a real disaster situation right now, like if this were a movie we’d all have our pigeonholed (probably racially stereotyped) “characters” and there’d be two hot single people who were propelled into love by the accident/tragedy/hostage situation in the movie that could totally be happening right then. I counted the number of people in the bus, 13 including me and the girl I kind of know, 14 including the driver (15 when this other guy stepped on the bus, the guy whose car was either an innocent victim of the CTA or is trying to get some money from the city, though he knows it was his fault, a path which would undoubtedly lead to quick failure when faced with what one can imagine is a horrific and impervious bureaucracy). I’ve had this fantasy before, in elevators or train cars or, of course, a city bus — that something dramatic and life-threatening (but not actually FATAL, a key element) traps you with a manageable cast of strangers, each with a motivation and easily read decision-making process. Like “The Breakfast Club” meets “Speed.”
(Something that makes me different from other girls? I’d rather watch “Speed” than “The Breakfast Club.”
Other movies I’d rather watch than “The Breakfast Club”
“Jurassic Park” “Jurassic Park 2 or 3” - those are pretty bad, prrretty bad
“Hook” with Robin Williams
“Outbreak” with the monkeys and Dustin Hoffman
On the other hand, I’d watch “The Breakfast Club” RIGHT NOW if it meant the following things would go away and I would never have to ever ever see them again:
iCarly (i have to watch this when i’m babysitting, it makes NO SENSE)
“Sex in the City” or anything with Sarah Jessica Parker
Rick Bayless’s TV show. He’s smug and obnoxious and overly personal.)
