Before I even entered the bus, I could see that a woman was wearing some really shiny foil on over her hair. She was sitting on the front bench seat, which is where blind passengers often sit (this information is important for the story). When I entered the bus, I noticed that this foil was not only covering her hair, it was long and hanging like a cape off the back of her head. She was sitting so that it draped over the seat next to her.

It looked like it was the same sort of foil that Sterile Foil Baby Buntings are made out of.

Side story: Bryan works at a hospital. A little over a year ago he saw an ad for the above product. It was just a picture of the baby wrapped in foil and it said in large letters, “STERILE FOIL BABY.” He made about 30 copies of the page and brought it home. I gave copies to some of my friends and hung one in my then-office. I hope it’s still there because, for me, when teaching got tough, all I had to do was look to the Sterile Foil Baby to remind me that there are things to laugh about. Like Sterile Foil Baby ads.

Back to the current story:

She was holding a mirror in front of her face and applying mascara in a way that tugged up her eyelids and made the white of her eyeballs freakishly visible. She was just applying and reapplying this stuff, and I was suddenly totally grossed out by the idea of eyeballs and the fact that everyone has such disgusting things in the front of their faces.

A few stops later, a blind man entered the bus. She didn’t move. She just kept applying her mascara with her little mascara-caked wand. The people around her moved the shiny foil head cape from the seat beside her and guided the blind man to sit down. So he was sitting there, rubbing all against her foil—which, by the way, wasn’t quiet. She put away her make up and adjusted her foil.

She got off a few stops later. I watched her walk down the sidewalk. Her shiny foil head cape fluttered behind her.

Once the bus got going again, the blind man turned toward the guy sitting next to him and asked, “What was all that foil stuff?”

Half the bus broke out into a gradual laugh, and a few people tried to explain what had been going on. I’m not sure what exactly people said to him, but I did hear “space blanket.”

I already wrote about this on Twitter and Facebook, but I’ve got to get all the outlets covered on this one:

Yesterday when I was riding the bus, I saw a lady playing her flute in her car while waiting at a red light.

Let the image soak in for a moment. Here it is again: There’s a lady driving to work in the morning. She’s stuck at a red light so she’s decided to whip out her flute and play a little tune.

I’ve spent a lot of time replaying this moment in my head–for a couple reasons. The most obvious reason is that I take a ton of pleasure in moments like these that just seem so bizarre and ridiculous. The other reason is that I really want to understand why she was doing that. Maybe she takes lessons and really has no other time to practice. Maybe she was on her way to a morning recital. I don’t know.

All I know is that this may have been the highlight of my week, and I’m unsure what to make of that.

Yesterday I was waiting for the bus when a guy in a wheelchair rolled on by. Attached to the back of his wheelchair was one of those hula dancers on a spring–except this one was Homer Simpson in a grass skirt.

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A few days ago I got off the bus at 3rd & Pine and was walking toward Pike. A guy approaches me and tells me that he just moved here from the Mississippi Delta. Immediately I was thinking that he’s about to ask me for money–he’s in a new city, blah blah blah. It happened to me before: I was walking home from work (this was a summer that I worked in a sandwich shop downtown), talkingto my niece on the phone, when this guy just starts walking beside me and immediately goes into a spiel about how he just got here from Portland and has no money, etc. I motioned to him that I was on the phone, but he kept talking–then he got pissed that I wasn’t listening to him and cussed at me. And then my niece had to listen to me yell at a man on the street about how I’m on the phone and how does he expect me to give him money when he can’t even be respectful enough to wait until I’m off the phone.

Anyway, this guy from the Mississippi Delta: He didn’t ask for money. He said that he was looking for some friends, “you know, someone cool to kick it with. Just lookin’ for someone to kick it with. What’s your name?”

I told him I was busy.

Do you solicit friends on the street?

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I got a haircut the other day, and on the way home I saw two of my former students on the bus. I tried to make eye contact as a hello as they passed me on the bus aisle, but that was unsuccessful, so I let it go. I wasn’t in the mood to turn around and stare them down until I got my hello.

Anyway, when I was off the bus and it passed me, I looked up in time to see them both staring out the window at me. It was weird.