guardian angel of the number 2

He's a large man, stocky build with an amazing, buoyant tire around his waist, face reddened from too much time in the sun or too much time with a bottle, and wearing teal sweatpants, a t-shirt and big black poofy jacket. In the morning, you can usually account for where everyone on the bus is going: the younger people with logos on their polos getting out to start work at the restaurants at sunset plaza, the middle-aged women who trail out anywhere between the beverly hills hotel and beverly glen to make their way into the homes where they work, the kids with papers in front of them who will get off at ucla. This guy could not be accounted for. So, when a taller man got on the bus and after some words with the driver, started making his way down the aisle--this one draped with gold necklaces and dressed in black with a less buoyant, but equally astounding tire around his waist--and the unaccountable man jumped up and started after him, I worried. I worried that unaccountable would turn out to be aggressive, demented, and start an altercation on the bus. I worried that maybe I should give up my seat on the bus and move closer to the driver. I worried that of all the times I've been scared of fellow-bus-riders, this might be a time when an actual fight would break.

Then I noticed that the bus driver was putting in her cell phone ear piece and getting off the bus as she shouted back at the man in black that she wouldn't be driving the bus with him on it. And the unaccountable man was yelling, in a strained, wheezing, high-pitched whisper of a yell: "You will not talk to the bus driver in that way. The bus driver will not be talked to in that way" as he punched fist into open palm. Shifting from foot to foot, his amazing gut bounced, not in a predictable pillsbury doughboy sort of way, but in a threatening, challenging "do you want to fight" way. The man in black looked away and swore at him dismissively. But the mesmerizing gut would not be denied. The unaccountable man kept inching down th aisle and wheezing threats until the man in black came to the conclusion that between an encroaching gut and a recalcitrant driver, whatever he had said to her had effectively barred him from being a patron on this particular bus. He strode off the bus, brushing past the unaccountable man, then waited until the bus driver was back on and we were pulling away before making a ruckus of swears and gestures of frustration from the sidewalk.

For the rest of his ride, the unaccountable man positively beamed at the rest of us, hands folded contentedly, resting on his gut, pleased that he had reestablished order on the bus. He made room for a young woman with her baby in a bjorn next to him, somehow fighting his spillover effect to wedge himself into a single seat, and peered in at the baby, smiling. He had protected our ride and the bus, his gut seemed to say. And when he got off at La Cienega and shouted goodbye to the driver, she waved at him, emanating tenderness and gratitude from every smiling dimple.

That's when I accounted for the unaccountable man: he was an unlikely guardian angel of the number two.

THE LISTS

to do class: Write JM recommendation. Write Horace quiz. Grade midterms.
done! Select Catullus poems.

to do work: Write mini-intro/abstract of C4.
done! Finished Pépín secondary stuff.

to do life: Clean the oil stain on my garage space. Pay down debt (currently $3,430). Procure dog. Redo taxes
done! Cleaned the oil stain on my garage space. At the end of this process, the whole thing looks like it was made out of sludge, but at least it does not look like an oil stain.

to do blitz: sarah, marilyn, giulia, irmary, mariana, dar, nv

Last night, I read Pullman's The Golden Compass. It was given to me for my birthday this past year and I just never got around to it. It's a good read: the dialogue is good, the pace at which he parcels out new information at different rates for reader and protagonist works really well, all in all, entertaining enough that I couldn't put it down even though I was technically supposed to be sleeping.