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edenfallingWhen you don't have a car, you meet the most random people as you walk or sit on the bus. Sometimes this is not a good thing -- there's one elderly woman with a distinctive voice who seems to believe that any passenger within three seats of her is fair game to treat as a grandchild. Sometimes, though, it's kind of fun.
This morning I met a man named Keith, who was on his way to the Commons to sell some of his CDs; he works as an independent musician, a keyboardist. He's also blind. So I lent him my arm and helped him cross four streets, since we were going the same way until the southeast corner of Seneca and Cayuga.
In retrospect, I should have asked for the name of his CD.
I also like to watch people on the bus. It's fun to guess where they're going, where they're from, and what sort of relationships they have to each other. There's one guy I see some mornings who always catches the bus at the Statler, instead of down in Collegetown, even though that means he has an extra five-to-ten minute walk. I don't know why he bothers going to the Statler, especially in the sort of heat we've had recently. There's a couple who I think may be Russian. The man wears tank tops and rides a bike, and his girlfriend always wears the same pair of gold earrings. She likes to chew gum, and they kiss when they get off the bus.
The regular passengers change every time a new semester starts at the university, since most of the riders are students heading for class. This means that once the bus leaves campus and heads out for Warren Road, Tech Park, and the airport, very few people stay on. And most of them are headed for the health care campus on Warren Road -- I always get curious about their destinations when they don't get off at that stop.
I'm often a very asocial person, but there's something kind of comforting about just sitting quietly in the presence of other human beings.
This morning I met a man named Keith, who was on his way to the Commons to sell some of his CDs; he works as an independent musician, a keyboardist. He's also blind. So I lent him my arm and helped him cross four streets, since we were going the same way until the southeast corner of Seneca and Cayuga.
In retrospect, I should have asked for the name of his CD.
I also like to watch people on the bus. It's fun to guess where they're going, where they're from, and what sort of relationships they have to each other. There's one guy I see some mornings who always catches the bus at the Statler, instead of down in Collegetown, even though that means he has an extra five-to-ten minute walk. I don't know why he bothers going to the Statler, especially in the sort of heat we've had recently. There's a couple who I think may be Russian. The man wears tank tops and rides a bike, and his girlfriend always wears the same pair of gold earrings. She likes to chew gum, and they kiss when they get off the bus.
The regular passengers change every time a new semester starts at the university, since most of the riders are students heading for class. This means that once the bus leaves campus and heads out for Warren Road, Tech Park, and the airport, very few people stay on. And most of them are headed for the health care campus on Warren Road -- I always get curious about their destinations when they don't get off at that stop.
I'm often a very asocial person, but there's something kind of comforting about just sitting quietly in the presence of other human beings.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-27 06:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-28 12:48 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-28 02:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-28 10:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-06-29 12:03 am (UTC)The neighborhood where I grew up was very mixed-housing; there were some very nice, large houses, many modest houses, and quite a lot of small duplexes, all mixed together willy-nilly. When I was about 10 or 12, a developer put up a row of townhouses, which fit in very nicely.
Then some other developer got hold of a bit of bare land and stuck up eight McMansions. Ick. I don't understand the appeal of those things at all -- I mean, they're ugly, they all look exactly the same (no matter how the builders try to disguise their six interchangeable sections), and they're all out of proportion for the lot sizes, which A) makes them look dumb and ungainly, and B) means you have no lawn. Which is particularly weird, since a lot of these houses seem to be built with the idea of selling them to yuppie couples with children. And kids like lawns to run around in.
Eh. They look less awful a few years on, when trees have had some chance to grow back and individualize the lots, but I still think they're unspeakably tacky. < /end rant >
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Date: 2005-06-29 12:20 am (UTC)The Hills District in Sydney is a nightmare of McMansions. You could literally jump from rooftop to rooftop as the hideous things are built so close together. I'm waiting for a fire in one to take out the entire area.
The houses are boxes that just fit on the land, in some cases, on the boundary inself. They have no styling and are hideously expensive to heat and cool, because they're all open plan. Nobody talks to their neighbours, none of the kids are allowed to play outside and yet these idiots claim to have moved there for the family atmosphere.
It looks like the pod people moved in. On top of that, a loony fundie Christian cult (God loves you if you give us your money) holds sway over the area.
Why they couldn't have a nice mid-life crisis involving a fast car, too much alcohol and a fatal crash, I don't know. It would have cut down on the clueless yuppy swarms.