When we lived in Budapest, I used to take the tram to school and there might be Magyar teen couple who would press in there and then they'd start making out. Lustily. Young love. Pleading, desperate. Sometimes it'd be first thing in the morning and I'd be taking the 2 to the library and there they'd be and you'd get the smell of cigarettes and BO and hormones and stale beer and still warm Princess pékség chocolate croissant and whatever else wafted up from the Danube and and they'd just be so pressed together and one of them, whichever one was closer to me, would always have a Budmil backpack (maybe it was always turquoise) and as they made out and as the tram rounded the curve through the tunnel under the bridgehead, that damn backpack would push into me and I'd hate that because I wanted no part in the smelly sappy face-sucky morning makeout session and I just wanted to be anywhere else and I wasn't even happy about going to the library first thing in the morning anyway because all I was going to was make photocopies of musty art history journals, which I would subsequently crumple and eventually lose. It was an intrusion.
I was never once on the 15 bus in Denver when the cops forcibly removed someone but I had a few trips on Colfax when the driver threatened somewhere between Colorado Avenue and Broadway to pull over and call them because some clearly addled passengers were getting unruly. I think I once saw meth heads playing craps. Snake eyes. I loved the 15 bus. It was slow and we'd get stuck at Broadway for easily 15 minutes, maybe 20. I could've gotten out and walked, but I never did. You can learn a lot about people by standing amidst then on a crowded bus. Or you can't.
The first winter after the first summer I started bike commuting in DC, I drove to work. We had a Subaru. It was gray and we named it Beepy because it beeped a lot. We lived out in Arlington and I took Glebe Road to the Chain Bridge each morning and everyday I'd dutifully get in the correct lane (I think there was construction at the time and one or more lanes were closed) and I'd watch some other drivers stay in the wrong lane until the very last feet as if they were going to go on Military, but they wouldn't and the turn signal would pop on and whoops, looks like I missed all those signs saying Chain Bridge left lane and how the heck did a these other drivers know to get over anyway. never tried it, but I wonder if I should've because it seemed to save them a lot of time and my opprobrium never quite seemed to reach them, no matter how frustratedly I'd tap on the steering wheel as I waited impatiently in the queue of cars that lurched only slowly forward. I have nervous habits like rapping on steering wheels and I also crack my knuckles and I bite my fingernails too. I also mutter and I definitely muttered curses at them cutting in line. By muttering, I meant yelled. It was winter and the windows were up and there was probably something on the radio, but I'm alone inside my car, rapping on the steering wheel and audibly cursing at people who can't here me. I never thought to wonder if anyone could have seen me.
I rode my bike today, to and from work, and it was fine. A little cloudy for summer, but we'll have sun again soon.
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