Metro Journal: Jan 22 Do I Look Like A Subterranean Rodent?

It had rained heavily early in the morning, so the roads were wet, traffic was slow, and the 780 was as full as I've seen it at that time, with just about every seat taken the whole way.

I got off at Vine with about 10 minutes until the next DASH. It was no longer raining, but those stones they use for the Hollywood Walk of Fame sidewalks are incredibly slick when went. A woman whose garb screamed "tourist," wearing cheap plastic flip-flops, made the mistake of walking on the sloped wheelchair access at the Argyle crosswalk instead of stepping off the perpendicular curb, and I saw the horror cross her face as she narrowly avoided a buttplant.

A man came up and asked me if the DASH stopped at the studio lot. I said yes. He asked if I was in The Industry. I figured it was more or less true, so I said yes.

Man: You're a PA, aren't you?
Me: Um, actually, I work in IT.

I didn't add that I was escaping in just over a week.

"PA" is short for "Production Assistant," but it automatically gets translated to "gopher" or maybe "low-wage wannabe-mogul" or just "slave" in my head. Most of them are just out of school. I am not sure if the comment was about my age, my pink backpack, or some look of vacuous ambition on my face, but the DASH came, I got on, and we were off.

There was a 20-something man already on the bus, talking on his cell phone. His nasal singsong whine made me think "narcissistic moron" right off the bat, and the quality of his insights quickly proved me right.

And there was this girl but I think she's a lesbian but she seemed to be with this other girl who was just totally not her type.

You're not sure she's a lesbian (what made you think so, she wasn't interested in you, maybe?) but you know what her lesbian "type" is? Butthead!


The DASH came about 5 seconds after I walked out. Shirley was already at the stop and said she had been there 20 minutes. Ouch. I just missed the 780 at Vine, but only had to wait about 10 minutes for another one. Meanwhile, a small white pickup had stalled in the right-hand lane on Hollywood right in front of the stop, so cars that had been behind it were going around via the bus lane. I couldn't see anyone still in the pickup and the driver hadn't made any attempt to, oh, I don't know, get the thing out of the traffic lane. It would have been trivial to push it onto Argyle from there.