#6 Dee Why to Downtown Bus Trips – A Diary of Stuff that Popped into My Head One Week.

Returning – Thursday, 4.42p.m., 8 December 2011

There are sharks in there. Bull sharks. They’re particularly aggressive them bulls. We’re travelling over the Harbour Bridge and the gently rippled water is gazing at me with its watery, blue eyes. We’re floating over this salty expanse and it wraps me up like a comforting blanket, memories of good times at the water, any water – the beach. I bet there are some sharks on this bus as well nice people. There are always sharks around – they can be difficult to spot, other times you clearly see their big, white, sharp teeth, their trademark fins and menacing intentions.

Has the bus become my second office? Although only three days so far, it seems like I’ve been writing for a lot more. So enjoyable and sure beats being a cardboard-like traveller.

I hope the guy to my left is extremely important or very well paid because he’s working on this bus like he’s in his office. Laptop’s open and on. Already three mobile phone calls. The first one was, “Thanks, Alex, can you shore up a time for that meeting?” Shore up. There’s an expression new to me for this context. Sounds like bullshit office talk.

The next call he thanked someone for their “great efforts”, and the last one included, “Okay, can you keep me up to date and let’s see if we can finish it by Friday?” I guess he’s saying all the right things.

He’s been very busy typing and just now checked his mobile phone for messages. Has God left a message for me?

Christ. Now it’s Dave. “Hi Dave” he answers – and without me even noticing, somehow he disappeared the laptop and the iPad is now nestled between his pin-stripe-trouser-covered legs. Modern technology is so wonderful and portable.

It’s also a fucking pain in the arse. Put all your toys away and be quiet.

Is hypocrisy sneaking in here? I did say the bus seems to have become my second office. I’m only putting my jottings to journal – can’t see how that would annoy anyone. Would it?

“Psst. Look at that guy over there scratching away in his lame, little journal. Why doesn’t he join the 21st century and get himself an iPad or something”

We’ve stopped at Warringah Mall. People file into the bus like a stream of dedicated ants on a mission. It does’t seem to end. Standing room only now.

Mickey Mouse just leaped out at me from an Asian lady’s white T-shirt. Mickey’s got a huge smile and is looking confident, he has a politely purposive appearance. I’d love even 50 cents for every time I’ve seen Mickey Mouse somewhere.

#5 Dee Why to Downtown Bus Trips – A Diary of Stuff that Popped into My Head One Week.

Going – Thursday, 7.07a.m., 8 December 2011

It all feels pretty ordinary at 7.07a.m. But my head is clearer, because I had more sleep than the night before. And only one more sleep until my weekend starts. As we all know, the weekend actually starts on or towards the close of Friday in anticipation and celebration of two days off.

It’s still raining, but I’m not hungry like on the journey home yesterday. Yet, hunger for me is never far around the corner. It’s a short corner to turn before I arrive at Hunger Place.

The bus is very peaceful this morning, and as I now, this very moment, lean forwards to scratch my back, I read a slogan on a building for a mattress retailer: “Where Dreams Begin”. Quite apt, I think. Peace and dreams combine very nicely.

Is Thursday the magic day? Will Thursdays always be peaceful and begin with dreams? Will the media never report any bad events on Thursdays?

Even the bus itself seems dreamy-peaceful this morning at 7.22a.m., 15 minutes after I joined it. It opened its generous mouth and I stepped into its bowels. To carry all types of people, like those angry, aggressive or annoying ones, the bus has to have a cast iron stomach. And it does. They do. The bus has a better constitution than me.

Can I learn something from the bus? – that I should fortify my own constitution? Is it a state government owned metaphor on wheels I should pay attention to? A metaphor for how I could become a more tolerant and socially adept person?

This bus is nice ‘n’ warm. I draw this warmth inside of me.

How does the bus driver get on with the bus? Does he treat her well? Do they communicate or have an unspoken rapport? In the end, the bus has the upper hand, because if she won’t go, nobody goes, anywhere.

And if she has to be towed away, she’ll just have the day off and relax while she’s mechanically attended to. She’ll enjoy the tow because for once it’s a ride for her.

She just opened her cavernous mouth open for some stragglers. A lot of stragglers. That was good of her. But, like me, she just wants to get downtown so the day can end. We both want the weekend to come and that can’t happen until today and most of tomorrow passes. I’m assuming she has the weekend off. I get the impression she does as she’s too warm and relaxed.

It’s still peaceful and the Harbour Bridge is seconds away from feeling this girl’s supple, rubber tyres.

#4 Dee Why to Downtown Bus Trips – A Diary of Stuff that Popped into My Head One Week.

Returning – Wednesday, 4.56p.m., 7 December 2011

Chatty, steamy, humid. Foggy windows and plenty of facial expressions – query, smile, relief. The rain is pretty steady as we head over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The guy sitting with his arms folded across his chest, next to me, has coffee breath and somehow it’s alerted me to the fact I’m hungry.

Two elderly ladies, each with wavy, grey hair, are amongst the chattiest, hardly turning away from each other, words dripping down the front of them and piling up on their laps. The one closest to me looks like she could be Wallace’s (from Wallace and Gromit) mother – she resembles Wallace. Wallace and Gromit had an episode called “The Wrong Trousers”. Well, I think this lady is starring in her own episode called “The Wrong Shoes”, because her feet are hanging out of her shoes right now. They’re bulging over the sides like lumpy custard that boiled over the rim of a too-small pot.

The tall guy sitting directly opposite me has a bald head shaped like a turtle shell, it’s unusually broad and looks very hard. Even his mouth forms the shape of a turtle’s. He seems completely detached from his surroundings within this rain smothered bus. He’s deep in thought. I reckon if I flopped myself out he wouldn’t even notice.

I’m finding it difficult to write while I’m hungry. People do eat turtles. Flop myself out or eat the turtle? Think I’ll eat the turtle.

Almost there.

I’m hungry.

Thursday is tomorrow. Almost the weekend. My wife, Erin, and I plan to try a local Japanese restaurant where we’ve never eaten at before.

Food. I’m hungry.

We’re new to the Dee Why area. So, in fact, there are lots of restaurants for us to try. To eat at.

I’m hungry.

It’s still raining and I’m still hungry. It continues to rain and I continue to feel hunger.

Hungary is a European country. I’ve been there, it was 1990. I remember eating some wonderful food in Budapest with a Canadian I’d met by chance. Mark was his name. And it still is. Some things never change. We were hungry in Hungary and we ate.

I’m hungry.

This journal I’m writing in is hungry for my thoughts, my perceptions and my words. I feed it.

I’m hungry and I need feeding, too.

Time to finish writing. We approach the bus stop – or it approaches us, depends how you look at it.

I am hungry. I will eat.