The Rose's Grove

If you want to know about my morning commute today, I recommend reading this entry by nekokoban. It's all true, every word of it. And I spent the rest of the ride sitting stock still, focusing on my book while I listened to her get grilled by the guys, trying desperately to figure out how I could possibly have handled that better. o_O When people do things like what that woman did, my brain just sort of shuts off. I don't know how to cope.

And it's true - if anyone on the bus in the morning is sitting two-to-a-seat, it's me. Always. I don't know why, but it's true.

Just a weird, weird world, you know? Not bad... just weird.

I've had a slightly weird 24 hours in terms of conversations on buses... all to do in one way or another with looking at what someone else is reading.

Item 1: Last night, in the bus tunnel, I saw a familiar-ish looking girl wearing a University of Washington sweatshirt, and reading Good Omens. While I was trying to eyeball her and figure out if I actually knew her or just ought to know her (because, honestly - anybody who likes Good Omens and went to my school can't be all bad!), she looked up and said "Oh, hey! How've you been?" Turns out she was a friend of nekokoban and miss_arel's who I met several weeks ago. Much fun was had chatting for the rest of the rest of the commute.

Item 2: This morning on my bus into downtown, I was reading Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. As I got up to get off the bus, the guy next to me said "I love that book." We talked for a little bit, and then parted ways. This wouldn't have been at all strange except for what happened next...

Item 3: Only 15 minutes later (the bus was late), as I was getting off my transfer, a nice elderly gentleman stepped up beside me at the light and asked "How did you like the Dawkins book?" For the last week I've been reading The Selfish Gene on the bus. So we talked about Dawkins, Gould, and Hawking while we walked.

The really sad thing is, all these people who are getting used to me enough that we have these little half-conversations? Are the exact people I'm not going to see again once I've been moved up to the Lynnwood office. And forgive me my snobbery, but I doubt too many folks up in the suburbs are likely to have anything interesting to say about the comparative writings styles of Stephen J. Gould and Richard Dawkins. :P

(I liked The Selfish Gene, by the way. But I am strange, and like pretty much everything by Dawkins. Even when I disagree with a few of his points, I always enjoy his style, intelligence, and perspective.)