If there were zombies on the bus, would he wake up?

On my way back from work, I ran into Ryan. Conversations with Ryan on the bus always happen this way:

We meet at the bus stop and begin to talk about courses and movies we've seen, people we have (or have not) seen since high school and the general unfairness of life, papers and tuition fees. Then we get on the bus in the middle of a lively discussion about philosophy and the ethics of euthanasia or placing cameras in public places. We usually sit in the middle, over the wheel wells, where two rows of seats face each other.

We sit across from each other, still talking until the bus lurches forward, somehow jerking all the energy from him. He stops midsentence, slumps forward, and is completely unconscious for the duration of the ride. It's kind of weird when he does that. I envy people who can fall asleep so easily.

I pull out a book and start skimming, hilighter in hand, pausing once to look up and notice that his hair has a little more grey in it today than it usually does. I have a hunch the reason has something to do with why he's so soundly asleep.

We step off the bus half an hour later, resuming our conversation almost exactly where it was interrupted. "Have you seen Batman Begins?" he asks, "It's good, but I hear Land of the Dead is Better." I hadn't heard much about it, save some rather creepy advertising in Toronto. Apparently it is really good because it has zombies that can think.

I don't know. Regardless of how gorey and violent these movies are, they always seem to make me laugh hysterically. I don't watch them in theatres lest I get chased out by a lynch mob of angry theatre patrons. My next bus comes and I take my leave.

It must have been a slow news week for the Peak.

Transition

I'm taking the bus home again and I've been thinking a lot lately. In the past couple of months, I've changed the name of this blog no less than six times. I am usually very indicisive about these sorts of things, finding that what to me may seem witty and cool on one day seldom lasts in my favour for more than a week.

That is why I am puzzled somewhat about why my current choice of title has lasted over two weeks now. It seems to have struck a chord with me. Why?

Well, physically the western terminus of both skytrain lines is Waterfront station. In spite of its faults, the skytrain remains my cheapest and most reliable option for travel in and out of the city that I love. Coincidentally, I lived for many years on the waterfront near the historic terminus of a major railway, a place that I desire greatly to return to.

Lacking a car, transit is the major way I get around: an hour and a half to get to school, two to get to work. The arrangement is less than ideal, but at the moment it works. I have to travel several hours on the bus to visit friends. They do not come out to see me, but I suppose they have their reasons and I choose not to dwell upon it. I waste a lot of time just getting to where I need to be, so much that I often feel that I'm going nowhere and accomplishing nothing.

In life, love and happiness I feel like I am in transit. Already this year I have had to deal with a number of unwelcome changes to my life. The only way that I have seen fit to manage is to tell myself that things will change eventually, that I am just travelling through this and eventually I will step onto the platform at a more desireable stop.

We're all looking for something. Right now while my life is in flux, all I'm looking for on so many fronts is a pleasant terminus. And right now I am a helpless passenger, or so it seems.

"Are you taking transit?" Carly asked me, as I left from work.

"Of course," I replied.

Anti-aging cream

My sister has set up my mother's computer to automatically sign in to MSN when it is turned on. It is not a wise thing to do on a computer that is fairly public, but it seems that she doesn't care about that.

My mother went to use her computer last night and immediately people started talking to her. She told me about the sad story that Mike told her, about hitting on a girl that he thought was his age, but turned out to have ID that proved that she was nearly twice as old as he was. He thought that maybe it was because she used newfangled age-reducing moisturizers.

And my mother, being the empathetic woman she is, asked him to find out which product she was using and then signed off. He probably thinks my sister is a real asshole now, but we'll let her figure that out herself.

Long cool woman in a fat dress

I always thought that I heard the lyrics to that song wrong, having inhereted a bad case of selective hearing from my father. Now, after watching a bunch of middle aged overweight women dancing on stage in black stretch velour I know that in spite of what everyone says, I was right all along. He really does say long cool woman in a fat dress.

When I went to call them to perform, their dressing room smelled strongly of alcohol. I have no idea what they were drinking, but they were a little out of it when they went on stage. They are really wonderful women, and I've never understood why they always have to wear such frumpy, unflattering costumes. Maybe I will learn when I am their age.

Overall the yearend shows turned out pretty good. They're getting too long for people to sit through though. I don't know how they're going to make them shorter without hurting feelings, but it will have to happen eventually.

It was really nice that Lisa managed to come out to the show, even though she was fired from the dance school. I'm not sure why she left, but she was always really nice to me. As always, she had nothing but praise for everyone afterward. It means a lot when people come out to cheer for you when they have good reason not to.

I went to see Love's Labour's Lost at Bard on the Beach today. For some reason or other I was having a hard time following the play, probably because I was tired from dance. Regardless, Bard never disappoints and my day wasn't wasted. I'll be back to see Hamlet in three weeks.

Dance recital number one

Before we went to the theatre we stopped in at Hon's for some soup and some sort of unusual dish with mushrooms and tofu. Walking out of the restaurant, dad opened his fortune cookie, which said "romance and travel come together at this time". He handed it to the person to his left, thinking it was my mother. Instead it was a big man with no neck. I saw that one coming, but sometimes it's more fun to let nature take its course.

Once again I am stagerunning and once again in spite of all the panic backstage I am the calmest person to be found. People ask me how I do it and the answer is that nothing good has ever been accomplished by mass hysteria, so I refuse to contribute to it.

I am always pleasantly surprised by the number of boys we have dancing. Dance always seems to get a bad rap as a 'gay' thing for guys to do, so the fact that we have 35+ in a dance school of slightly less than 200 is quite a feat.

The breakdancing numbers were really good. Their teacher is amazing. I wish that I had a picture of him on stage that I could post. Next year I will definitely take pictures for the website, if I can find time away from running around trying to find people who are never in the places where they're supposed to be.

Earlier this year I was seriously considering retiring my shoes for good. Then I agreed to be the school webmaster because it is ridiculous that the in this day and age they don't have a website. (It will be almost as unsexy as this blog. Whatever.) In exchange for that, I get free dance lessons, so I have to decide now what I want to do. I think I'll wait on that a little while longer.

Rick!

Just about the time when I thought that I was going to have to wait until September for my weekly dose of Rick:

"I have to go now. I just looked out the window and Stephen Harper is behind my shed with Jason Kenny attempting to light my barbecue. I’m going to have to put the hose on those two. Whatever they are doing out there it seems unholy to me. If I’ve told Harper once I’ve told him a million times: “Be spontaneous and ingratiating somewhere else.”

Yes, that's right. Rick Mercer has a blog and I will be amused all day.

Remembering Leanne

During the summer of 2001, we all watched the drama in the news about a young girl who was murdered by her stepfather and the community that was devastated by her sudden passing. It went on for weeks.

It wasn't until I got back to school that September that I learned that Leanne had sat behind me in Latin class for an entire semester. Our teacher was the most affected by her absence and one morning when we arrived the lights were all off and she had erected a small candlelit shrine in the centre of the room. We spent the next hour sitting in a circle, sharing our memories about her.

"I'd like to pass," I said when it was finally my turn. The teacher, being the wonderful and naïve person she was, assumed at once that I couldn't speak because I was upset and moved by the experience. The truth was that as I sat listening to everyone's thoughts, I stared at her smiling face through the candle flames, racking my brain for something to say. There was nothing there.

After class, my friends pulled me aside. "You remember her," they said, telling all sorts of stories, none of which sounded remotely familiar to me. That night I looked her up in the previous year's yearbook, and that didn't help either. The photo from the shrine soon found its way to the front centre of the classroom, and she stared at me every day I went to Latin until I graduated, asking why I didn't remember her. It was a question I couldn't answer and I felt terrible about it.

Today, on my way to dance from the bus loop, I stepped off the curb and into a large crowd crossing the street. Behind me someone was laughing and I had to stop in the island for a second take. It was Leanne's laugh, or close enough.

I had thought that I had forgotten her completely, but then I heard her laugh. And while a single laugh isn't really a substantial memory it's better than nothing at all. I'm happy that I at least have something.

But it still bothers me that she seemed so completely absent from my memory. If I couldn't remember a person that I saw every day for a year, then what other things am I forgetting that I just haven't noticed yet? I think I'm losing my mind.

Articulation

“Is that bus going to Coquitlam?” he asked me, “because I only like to ride the articulated busses. They don’t come here often, you know.”

“No, they don’t.”

“I bet that bus is going to Coquitlam, otherwise it wouldn’t be sitting there. Why else would it be sitting there if it wasn’t going to Coquitlam?”

“Maybe it is.”

“Are you going to Coquitlam?”

“Yes.”

“Good, I am too. Actually I want to go to Haney, but that bus is always late so I’m going to Coquitlam and then I’ll catch the Haney bus there.”

“Why don’t you catch the Haney bus here?" I say. "It could save you some time.”

“What?” He looks confused. He’s about thirtyish.

“I mean the Haney bus comes in about eight minutes and then it will take about 10 minutes to get where you’re going. If you take the bus into Coquitlam and then transfer to the Haney bus there, it’s going to bring you right back here and take an extra hour and a half.”

He still looks puzzled. “That bus isn’t going to Coquitlam, is it? Because it’s articulated and why else would it be sitting there? Do you know what time it is? Let’s synchronize our watches.”

“Sorry, I don’t have my watch with me.” The bus to Coquitlam comes. I get on. He begins to ask the bus driver if the other bus is going to Coquitlam. “Who cares?” he says, “I’m going to Coquitlam.” And as the man starts to explain his love for articulated busses, the doors close and we leave him standing at the bus stop.

Killing time

In the buildup to the dance school's year end show, I'm going to take a breif look at what happened last year:

2 shows
1 severely deadbeat audience
1 good supported audience
5 kids AWOL
1 principle dancer AWOL
1 party missed
8 sprinklers run through
3 people noticed that I had lost weight and told me that I looked great
6 people told me that I look really good onstage
1 person thanked me for stepping in and doing props as well as running
3 people told me I did a damn good job running for SR
1 rude child who I almost slapped
4 major props lost or misplaced (not on my watch)

I talked to Alex today, who said that she hasn't been to rehearsals for the past few weeks because she just didn't feel like coming. I wasn't sure if I should be happy that she had seen fit to grace us with her presence today, or if I should strangle her for her utter disregard for the other members of our group. Once again Alicia didn't show. She's cut.

Somehow or other I ended up wandering through the mall for several hours with my sister. She chattered nonstop for the better part of four hours and to be honest, I don't know what she was talking about the whole time. I just wasn't in the mood to listen today. I got two pairs of pants because I was really impressed that I could fit into size six (compared to size 16 in grade 10). That's enough spending for me for a while though, at least until I get another job.

Father's Day

My sister and I look different from each other because we had different fathers, the milkman and the mailman. At least, that's what my mother says. Unfortunately the milkman no longer delivers to my neighbourhood and Canada Post doesn't deliver on Sundays so we had to make do with our biological father instead.

I made a couscous salad and some halibut for dinner which we ate in the back yard. I also baked a cake that was cleverly packaged to look storebought. We ate it and laughed as we listened to all our neighbours fight. Happy father's day to them too.

I wrote a nice letter to my mother's father today. I don't intend to send it.