posted on Monday, Mar. 31, 2008 @ 13:54
"rhubarb," aphex twin
i�ve grown to enjoy riding the bus, and encountering the funny sorts you see in that position. with my patented headphones on music off approach, i hear some strange conversations. not that all of them are shy, like the middle-aged overweight man suffering from fever and diarrhea who incidentally is descended from english kings (he had his Y chromosome tested, dontcha know).
this morning as i sat inside the poor 984 as it was rained upon at 06:20, just waiting for that 06:25 departure, i read good omens, the nice and accurate prophecies of agnes nutter witch by neil gaiman and terry pratchett. over the weekend i read timoleon vieta come home during my overtime shifts, which left me ashamedly bawling in lot 102 sunday morning. good omens proves to be much more light-hearted. this is where i was:
Sister Mary loquacious has been a devout Satanist since birth. She went to Sabbat School as a child and won black stars for handwriting and liver. When she was told to join the Chattering Order she went obediently, having a natural talent in that direction and, in any case, knowing that she would be among friends. She would be quite bright, if she was ever put in a position to find out, but long ago found that being a scatterbrain, as she�d put it, gave you an easier journey through life. Currently she is being handed a golden-haired male baby we will call the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan, and Lord of Darkness. [�] �Fancy me holding the Antichrist,� said Sister Mary. �And bathing the Antichrist. And counting his little teosy-wosies��
in the middle of this paragraph the strange man who sometimes sits next to me moved to the opposite side. those death rays work wonders some times. in his place sat a slight woman in her late 30s/early 40s. she turned on her reading light and asked if i wanted mine. at this i stopped reading to look up and thank her. i continued to read until she started busying herself with her bag. i looked over and witnessed her pull out a bible and open up to the book of proverbs.
i made sure to angle my book such that she never saw the devil lounging with a glass of wine on the cover.
my morning bus driver is nice. when I first encountered him, he was quietly showing me how to use my UT ID to ride for free. i only saw him in profile and thought he looked remarkably like elliot smith (r.i.p.). a few days later i see him face-forward as he climbs into the bus, and i�m hit with nick nolte�s doppelganger, straight from the mug shot. i was confused, sitting there listening to my 6 a.m. dose of white snake, staring at nick nolte. lo, the next day, i made an effort to check his profile again and was met with eilliot smith. he�s the man of a thousand faces. or maybe just two.
i�m not fond of my afternoon driver. he�s a relatively attractive and bald black man with a mustache (spread the word�mustaches are creepy). my problem is 1) he rarely acknowledges my presence when i smile at him and 2) he never waits for me to even be near a seat before moving. i understand sticking to a schedule, but where is he going on mlk at 16:00 half a block from the light at red river? nowhere is the answer. it�s a friggin� parking lot out there.
and on the previous note of crying my eyes out, i saw a dead cat near my home saturday on my way home from work. it was sprawled on the side of the street, supine. sunday on my way home, two hours after literary-animal-induced crying, i saw the same cat, now supine on the grass. it had visitors in the form of two giant vultures, pecking at him slowly. circle of life, man.