another of my extremely popular bus anecdotes:
i had to take the metro to the seatac hilton to attend the pnba awards banquet. my buddy is the simon and schuster rep, and she wanted me to come and sit at the table with tony swofford (wrote a gulf war memoir called jarhead...heck of a writer...drank us all under the table last time he was in seattle), and keep her company.
from the u district, it's an hour and a half to get to seatac.
seatac is, by the by, the town between seattle and tacoma. and it's a town. there is a mayor of seatac. sometimes, i think maybe i'd like to be the mayor of seatac.
two transfers. hour and a half. long ride. read a short story by hannah tinti on the way. it was about a woman who restores the matte paintings behind museum dioramas. one day, the stuffed bear moves.
on the final bus, i saw a guy in argyle socks pull out a mad magazine. for some reason, i decided to watch him until he laughed.
not sure why. i guess i wanted to see a stranger laugh. so i watched.
nothing.
i watched for quite some time. i stared. he flipped through the pages. he never once cracked a smile.
perhaps mad magazine ain't what it used to be. i don't know.
but, not even a smile? really?
i had to take the metro to the seatac hilton to attend the pnba awards banquet. my buddy is the simon and schuster rep, and she wanted me to come and sit at the table with tony swofford (wrote a gulf war memoir called jarhead...heck of a writer...drank us all under the table last time he was in seattle), and keep her company.
from the u district, it's an hour and a half to get to seatac.
seatac is, by the by, the town between seattle and tacoma. and it's a town. there is a mayor of seatac. sometimes, i think maybe i'd like to be the mayor of seatac.
two transfers. hour and a half. long ride. read a short story by hannah tinti on the way. it was about a woman who restores the matte paintings behind museum dioramas. one day, the stuffed bear moves.
on the final bus, i saw a guy in argyle socks pull out a mad magazine. for some reason, i decided to watch him until he laughed.
not sure why. i guess i wanted to see a stranger laugh. so i watched.
nothing.
i watched for quite some time. i stared. he flipped through the pages. he never once cracked a smile.
perhaps mad magazine ain't what it used to be. i don't know.
but, not even a smile? really?
[Edited on Mar 20, 2004 8:03PM]
I may be in and out in the future.
How are you?
Maybe the guy in the argyle socks was laughing inside..Or perhaps his life itself or atleast that particular moment was a silent tribute to laughter. after all, he was wearing argyle socks and reading Mad magazine on a bus. He might have been wearing sock garters and positively beeming on the inside. I'd like to imagine so.