Friday 25 March 2011

Public Transit Pariah



I am an average looking woman in her mid 40's. I have good personal hygiene, and while I tend not to wear makeup on a daily basis, I generally look tidy, pleasant and presentable. I wash my clothes frequently, and do not over-do perfume or hair spray.
Still, I am always the last person sitting alone on public transit.
People getting on the bus or streetcar will sit next to a drooling man marinating in his own soiled trousers before they will park it next to me. I would understand it more if people stood instead of sitting next to either myself or the most unfortunate smelling person on the car. At least then I could tell myself that "they just wanted to stand" or "they're getting off at the next stop anyway".

But no. My fellow commuters chose potential cholera transmission over having to sit next to me.

Why is this, I wonder to myself.
Is it because I look like this and talk this way?

I'd also like to know why people wait until they are on public transit to hold their cell phone, expletive filled arguments. Yesterday, I was on the street car, minding my own, and, yes, sitting alone, when a woman left a voice mail message for someone that had every swear word in the whole world. She spoke, not loudly enough to be obnoxious, but loudly enough to be heard by people sitting in her vicinity. Ok. The person wasn't home, crazy lady! You could have waited the 4 extra minutes that you had left in your streetcar ride and then left your pathetic cry for help message AFTER you were out of hearing range of the children and senior citizens. 

I want you to know I have nothing against crazy ladies. Just people who are oblivious to their surroundings and the sensibilities of people near them. People like the woman on the streetcar. And Charlie Sheen. And Gaddafi.

Can we please all decide how to spell Gaddafi?

Thursday 24 March 2011

Because the world needs more me.

I think it's time the world learned more about me and how much I love bread. I do crave other foods, though. When I am on the treadmill, in the mornings, I always get a very strong craving for some food or another. I want it so much, I can literally taste it in my mind - like I am imagining the smell of it or something. Sometimes it's Oreo cookies. Often it's bagels. Once it was that white paste that kids used to use in school with the twist off cap with the spreader thing in it. I never ate paste as a kid, although I did lots of other things that in the end, did not make me super popular. But still, while on the treadmill the other day, I wanted paste and I wanted it bad.

I worked at national park one summer, a historical fort from the 1830's where I had to dress up in period costume and sell bread to tourists. It was an interesting job, in hindsight. Hired by a volunteer association, we were paid a fraction that the government employees were paid. But I didn't speak french, so I couldn't get the better paying gig (stay in school kids). I spent half the day at the park in a long skirt and bonnet, but the first part of the day I worked at a bakery making the bread that was for sale. I used a mega huge Hobart mixer and a 200 loaf capacity rotating oven that scared the crap out of me.



I gained 15 pounds that summer.

I also love muffins and cold cereal. But that might have to wait for another day.