It's amazing how much you can learn about a person simply by chance, by the chance encounter as fellow sardines on a packed express bus. Or how much of yourself you can give up, in my case. You could say I'm a rather open person. I'm quite shy around new people but if asked I will tell almost anything. There are a few things I don't talk about, ever, because they're in the past and it's much more productive to look forward rather than let long-ago things that happened affect the now.

So the bus after work is crowded as usual and I'm chatting with a coworker about the bus line and how today's crowded is at least less than the usual, non-holiday workdays. (It's Labour Day in Canada.) Someone else asks if I knew where Main St. was and I told him it's the next stop, at which point he got pretty excited. Then my friend lets me play with her phone that I think is awesome because it's in Chinese and I love hearing or "reading" other languages, especially foreign alphabets, and then I sign the alphabet to her in ASL until I forget the letter U. Another guy signs it to me and I sign thank you back. Then this other guy is staring at my left arm and I can tell he was trying to figure out my outline tattoos, so I told him it was all the places that felt like home to me.

He said, "Yeah I figured," which was shocking because no one ever says that to me. So I challenge him to guess what the top place is and he guesses Antarctica (no) and France* (no), so I tell him it's Poland.

At this point he knew: I spend a lot of time thinking about social behaviour on buses and said buses' schedules, I know (more accurately, am learning & am a beginner at) sign language, and I move around.

Then the bus stopped (almost) at the Skytrain station and I got up but then realized that no, we were actually stopped at the punishment light. It's a pointless traffic light that's new (of course) and it's not even a full 4-way intersection and worst of all, it's right before the final bus stop. You know, the one at the busiest Skytrain station in the city, the end-of-the-line stop that 90% of the line's riders are going to. Right before that. Great place for a traffic light, city! Once a bus driver confessed that all the drivers hated that damn punishment light.**

Then the bus inches to the stop and I hold on to a pole and the guy who's learning my life says "You a cutter?" and I point out the scars are faded and all at least six years old. He says that's good and we get off the bus. Some stairs and an walkway later we're on the Skytrain again, all three of us, and I get off first after describing my rooftop garden. A life, abridged.

Oh, and.



* I don't know about you, but I think France is a more logical guess than Antarctica. He really did guess Antarctica first.

** Didya catch the Weeds reference? Also, in case you haven't heard of it, the Skytrain is most analogous to BART, which you probably have.