Bus #4, Santa Monica/La Brea - Santa Monica/Echo Park Ave., 9/7/10

I boarded at 8:58 p.m. I paid cash. It was a very crowded bus, as it always is, due to the 704, the express bus,'s last run being thirty minutes prior. It was the kind of ride everyone has had at least once and hopes to never repeat -- the driver, though a seemingly sweet grandfatherly type, appeared to be unaware of the distinction between the gas and brake pedal, instead utilizing what felt like both simultaneously. (I recognize the unbecomingness of this criticism seeing as how I am unable to operate a vehicle myself. I don't care.) Said technique combined with excess passengers resulted in myself and the excess passengers gripping any even remotely sturdy surface (handrails, one another) desperately but ultimately unsuccessfully as we writhed and tripped over bags and body parts. Number of passengers who applied the age old technique for succeeding in their fruitless-and-often-unsafe-but-still-very-determined quest to achieve back of the bus status despite no one having anywhere to go of not-so-subtly ramming into you until you look at them, "yes?", and then exasperatedly grunting towards their destination, "UMPH?": just one. I begrudgingly obliged, an action that fortuitously led to the discovery of a familiar face, my friend Dorian's, and like an ape I shimmied towards him. "Is it scary being a vulnerable woman in the big city?" he asked. "Sometimes" I said. I asked what he was doing later. He said coke and eating Jack in the Box. We then discussed the back door issue (number of passengers who had to yell "Back door!" because it wouldn't open: just one) and agreed it was a poorly designed mechanism. I turned on my Ipod (Syd Barrett, review coming soon) and he read his book. Number of passengers who occupied two seats (one with their body, one with belongings): just one. At Benton Jeff who works at Stories boarded. At Alvarado Dorian exited. I arrived at Echo Park Ave. at 9:25 p.m., thanked the driver and vamoosed.

Four days later I would receive a thought provoking text message from Dorian that I leave you with until another bus ride inspires a blog post: "I hate reading European fashion magazines on the bus because they're massive and full of nude pics and I get embarrassed."

I so agree!