Wednesday, April 28, 2004

Not Overheard

I’m a bit brain dead this morning but that doesn’t diminish my residual and retroactive enjoyment of my evening yesterday.  It was a lovely banquet, and a great, though much too short, visit with my dad and connie and the family as well.  While I was there I thought dad would actually like to see some of the stuff I’ve been going on about to him for so long, so between the main course and dessert I fetched out my iPod and showed it to him.  “Well look at that,” he declared, “is that your TiVo?” They’re just so darn cute when they’re this age.  Turns out that I don’t think anybody at the table had ever seen an iPod and I got to do some basic demos two or three times over. People were pretty surprised by it. 

Already, for me it’s become the operating standard, the minimum mandatory requirement.  iPod, therefore I am.  However, that is such a shallow sentiment that it really makes me take stock of how much lately I’m sitting around surrounded by people - interesting people, even - and my ears are plugged with headphones, cutting me off from the throng of which I truly am a part.  I’ve been doing some thinking on this lately and it seems that sometimes hearing what’s happening is important and sometimes it’s not.  And this distinction is the basis for three short transit tales about hearing and speaking in their various permutations.  Why, here’s one now!

Sometimes I can see it all from the bus and I don’t even need to hear a single word:

They sit on a low concrete bench set into the sort of corporate plaza that blunts the vitality even of this city’s nerve center at nine a.m.  She is young and lovely with straight black hair, honey-tea skin, big almond eyes, and an ingenuous round face on which she bears an expresion of paralyzing tension.  She huddles in her down jacket holding her slim jean-clad legs tightly together. 

He sits next to her, young and hunky, tousled blonde locks and a square jaw, plaid shirt jacket, faded jeans and worn sturdy boots.  His eyes are on her as she stares out at the street; his body is turned toward her and his arm encircles her shoulder.  Their faces are close together, he’s speaking softly to her.  Her knees begin to bounce, small movements getting faster.  She doesn’t seem to be in control.  He turns her toward him and kisses her, tenderly, deeply.  Halfway through the kiss her knees stop shaking.  Their lips part; she rests her head on his chest and and he lays a quiet hand on her quiet leg.  The bus pulls away, taking me with it.

you have a beautiful eye, dan, a beautiful eye for the surroundings.

When you’re brain dead, you don’t write something like that.

"iPod, therefore I am” ... you should be awarded, or else shot, for a line like that.

very nice transit tale.  i know what you mean about the always-wearing-headphones thing, too - i’m the same way.  no ipod (i am, therefore, not?) but the shell effect is the same.  i find i like my fellow creatures a lot more when i don’t have to hear them talking on their cell phones on the bus.  so, thumbs up to that.

sigh.

I have a friend who loves the laundromat and the bus for watching people and making up their stories, but you don’t so much “make-up” their stories for us as you simply and beautifully show us their story in that moment.  Just lovely!