waiting, on the bus...

I spend hours every week on the bus. Sometimes I'm lucky and have a friend to talk to, or find someone to practice my small talk (not my smalltalk ;) ) with.

Most of the time I turn up the volume of my iPod so that I can hear the music above the rumbling of the motor, and just wait, and wish that I was already at my destination. My cerebral activity is close to zero, I can barely even tell you what the last song I was listening to was.

Sometimes I'm brave and get out Tom Sheldon's collections of diabolical Sudoku, if I'm concentrated enough and the bus doesn't run into too many bumps, I can generally do one before reaching my destination.

Sometimes I get out my japanese and study it, but I'm actually more interested in noticing the curious looks other people on the bus have when they notice they can't understand what I'm reading.

Rarely, but it's happened, especially on long trips, I get my iBook out, fire up the Gimp or watch a movie (very long trips).

I also read a book sometimes, if I have a good novel.

Mostly when there's weather, I just look out the window. Once I took like 100 pictures of snow, a real one-day winter wonderland I captured "forever" (unless my computer crashes before I can backup). I also listen to the rain falling.
I feel kind of blank, and waiting mode kicks in.
A passive sort of waiting, without impatience. I've gotten over the impatience unless I'm really in a hurry. At this point the bus has become a sort of inevitable evil, I just take it and WAIT.

Sometimes I pretend I'm the one driving the bus and try to think of everything the bus driver must take into account. This works best when I'm up front, facing forward, which I usually avoid, as I get less carsick facing backward.

In town, I watch people.
The other day I saw a man and a woman who were putting their bags down to search for the keys of their appartement, all the while keeping an eye on their newborn baby in the stroller. For some reason, this simple everyday, completely random scene has been stuck in my mind for days.
Most people look like they have a destination, like they know where they're going, but some look just plain lost. They are walking around randomly, as I do when I have time to burn, somewhat taking in their surroundings, wondering where their steps will bring them next. Sort of like the people who go to random blogs, generally zap about 10, then something catches their eye and they stay. Sometimes they have to press the return button on their browser because they automatically zap and then realize there might have been something of interest on the page.
I was kind of like that today. I didn't want to stay in the bus forever, so I got out and took a path I had never walked before, taking another path to my destination, since I had time to do so, taking in all my surroundings, noticing the flowers in the houses, the proximity of social housing and nice villas which remains rather rare in general but pretty common in my city.

I also like looking at the commercials for men's clothing on bus stops. For once, it's not something somewhat obcene, like the woman's lingerie commercials sometimes tend to be (most of it is OK, but a few this year have been REALLY bad- not so much in terms of skin as in terms of commentary or context). In general, men's clothing commercials look really nice, and have a pretty cute joke about relationships. They try to bust stereotypes, like "men are macho" or "men are jerks/uncaring" by showing them obviously in love. I just find it somewhat cute. I don't have TV this year, so I guess I'm easily entertained.

This post is becoming long, so I'll shorten it.

waiting