Tags
Big Blue Bus, Call me maybe, giving a random guy your number, hot stranger on the bus, It's Friday and I'm in Love, Little girl Big city, Los Angeles, love stories on public transit, love story on the Big Blue Bus, Muse for Hire, nervousness of approaching someone, no guts no glory, paper cranes, paper cranes of confidence, pressure cooker, Santa Monica, sequence of scenes, serendipitous intersections, stories from the city, urban blogging
9:30am 6.12.11
Scene: The Big Blue Bus, Santa Monica, CA
Days to the office were filled with many a book. Key clicks turned into stories turned into pages turned into… the bus ride from the Brewery didn’t feel like it was two hours long.
The number 10 Rapid Transit bus is the way to go. It is the fastest way to get to the West side from downtown if you’re not headed towards Culver City. That is not to say that the ride is short by any stretch of the imagination. However, between sitting in traffic reading comic books and killing my clutch driving and relaxing a bit before going into the office, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind about this decision.
People in Los Angeles will often go on tirades about the public transportation in Los Angeles. Public transit has been magical for me for the most part. Public transit allowed me the ability to relax and… meet a few interesting people. Little did I know that today would be one of them.
I was typing away as per usual while I sat on the bus waiting for my stop. Nothing about this day seemed special. Nothing about this day seemed to offer anything new.
Until I saw him.
Do you ever see someone out and about and get the urge to talk to them but freeze up? I felt like I was fifteen again.
Plaid button down shirt. Jeans. Converse. Scruffy unshaven face. Black rimmed glasses.
He popped a single ear bud out of his ear and paid his fare as he thanked the driver with a smile. I just looked up from my computer and dropped my jaw.
Please let him come back here to sit.
It wasn’t meant to be. He set his backpack down and sat down up front.
I scrawled down a few more words until I realized I was having difficulty concentrating. I started folding away at cranes to calm down. He was just sitting there listening to music. I wanted to find out about his world. I wanted to say hello. Why was I being such a chickenshit?
As stop after stop happened I feared that it would be the one where he would disappear. Suddenly as my stop approached, I got brave. I wrote my phone number on a piece of origami paper and folded it in half to give to him.
I saw Aero Hobbies. This is my stop. It’s now or never.
Do it Jena. Just suck it up and do it.