tourism

But the question, really, is: where to start?

Yesterday's trip to the yuppie movie theater? Or today's experience of slumming it on MTA, amongst the common folk on public transportation?

Chronological:

Yesterday, crossing Westwood Boulevard on foot, heading east on Pico, in the crosswalk on the south side of the street, feeling urban, feeling alive and present and amongst busy people with places to go, the feeling that sights and sounds are justly slightly more vivid than usual, tasting the air and the particular shoe style of the person to my right and slightly behind me.

I feeling I recall briefly having in New York. Inspired the following day's bus trip.

Wandering through a chain instrument store, bobbing my head like a duck to a recording and smiling to see a salesperson watching me. Rows of shiny guitars that a teenager would probably find heavenly.

Things change slightly inside the movie theater, where the people selling you tickets are standing at a level just slightly lower than yours, causing them to appear as dwarves or munchkins. I hypothesize that the owners want the patron to feel superior, as apparently art-film watchers desire. The restrooms are enveloped in an indigo glow, so that, sitting on the toilet, I feel as though on a well-done futuristic amusement park spaceship ride. They are always empty - each time I've been here - and a faint metallic sound as would fit the hovering of the spaceship is audible. I decide to name them the "beam me up potty," and I find this so amusing that I actually laugh out loud at myself. I am glad to be alone in the glowing metallic restroom.

Planning out a blog ahead of time does not seem to work. Writing at the moment does. Writing the same day as the event does. Writing just before leaving to be social, so as not to end up alone - alone with writing? - what could be more heavenly? - does not seem to work unless...

Today, waiting for buses, riding buses, listening to music, feeling self-sufficient, feeling self-righteous, smelling a most putrid stench that seems to follow me onto the bus but I can't tell - the kids in front of me can, though. I wonder if it's me.

Almost tripping over a man in a wheelchair, twice. Watching a woman with a preschooler and an infant, struggling again and again to open the stroller - it keeps collapsing on itself, threatening to flatten the child. I struggle with an urge to help, a feeling I ought not look, so as not to embarrass the mother, and end up staring.

Mostly, it's boring, and long, and somewhat hot. The morning ride is pleasant, sparsely populated (after morning rush hour), faster than expected. The afternoon is long (no longer than the morning but I'm not enamored with the vehicle any more), stinky, confusing. I fall asleep in a window seat, unable to stop nodding off, then wake up, move my leg in, and my neighbor says clearly, "thank you." I mumble, 'sorry' and make sure my backpack is sitting on my lap and not leaving my half of the seat. I begin to sit up when a middle-aged woman walks on and stands next to me, but the person across from me moves over to make room for the older rider.

I don't play "spot the other white people." I don't know, and care quite a bit less than I used to, if I'm the only one. I mostly try hard not to show my privilege but it's impossible. Plenty of kids on the bus, and a woman in a business suit in the morning, listen to tiny headphones (different colors, but the same shape that I find difficult to describe without using a term probably trademarked). So I listen too.

I only feel slightly self-righteous. I don't even mind that I'll drive tomorrow, though it likely costs more, though I'm helping secure my post-apocalyptic future.

I no longer am obsessed with apocalypse.

I'm not sure what I'm obsessed with. Riding buses, like so many other things, is an old occupation. The thrill is gone.

Maybe with blogging? No revelations, today.