The next thing that occupied my mind was the inordinate amount of trash on the ground around my stop this morning, which is definitely an anomaly. The fare included:
I'm so ambivalent about the contextual struggle presented in this next picture—someone thoughtless enough to litter, but thoughtful enough to not litter twice—with a "litter-in-litter" play.
On the bus, a man with a black knit hat sat side-saddle in his seat in such a way that his feet were in the aisle. He was slumped over and fast asleep, oblivious to everyone having to negotiate around his legs when passing him.
A little girl sat in front of me, who was adorable, and her mother gave her a red Starburst for breakfast. She wanted to nibble on it, but her mother obviously did not want her fingers to get sticky, and she said, "Put it in your mouth or I'm gonna take it." She said that a couple of times, a little bit louder each time, and reaching for it like she was actually going to keep her word and take, but never did. I sat in my smugness thinking about how I'd raise the perfect child, because I'd actually teach that there are consequences to every decision, by doing things like actually keeping my word when I said, "Put that in your mouth or I'm going to take it from you." But I digress...
On the walk from the bus stop to my building, I thought two things: 1) That's a quintessential pole found on a street adjacent to a college, and 2) Not unlike the recent PostSecret about thinking of all the places a person's travel toothbrush has been when it's time to throw it away, I thought about all the fliers that this pole has advertised and the high percentage of them that surely announced cheap alcohol at one venue or another on one evening or another.
I had a 9:00-10:00 meeting with my boss, during which we considered updates that need to be done to some pages of our website as a result of your recent re-organization.
I also had a meeting from 3:00-4:30 in another building, but I blew it off. I'm not going to get into why here, but let's just say that the "root cause" has to do with a lack of respect, and leave it at that.
After dinner and before falling asleep for what would turn into a two-hour nap, I read enough of my book to keep me on schedule to finish by March 4th. I continue to be engaged by and enjoy this book immensely.
The crowd was smaller than usual for Trailer Park Prize Night tonight. Two noteworthy items:
- Three guys were talking to each other and one of them said, "I'm not a sex object; I'm, like, a real person." I couldn't help but think, "Imagine if you were a real person as opposed to just being like a real person." That would be, like, powerful.
- One of the drag queen's name in the show tonight was, "Max Flow." 'Nuff said.
I left a half hour after the show started, as none of my friends were out to play tonight. :-)