Metro Journal: Last Day!

I guess most people with the option would have driven on their last day at a job, but I had been carrying my belongings home a little at a time, so I didn't need to worry about carrying a big box of stuff on the bus. And, honestly, I was going to kind of miss the ride.

There was no one else at the 780 stop, which was odd. The bus pretty empty, too. I don't know what was going on. Maybe everyone was playing hookey from work.

I don't feel like work today
Hell, I won't go
-Kristin Hersh, "Houdini Blues"

That's what I had gotten to saying, or wanting to say, just about every day. Well, I had to go, as it was my last day!

I got off at Vine and the DASH was there, waiting on the driver's break. He was on the cell phone. He was still on the cell phone when we left. It was a handset, too. Then he pulled over after he turned onto Gower. I was trying to figure out if I should be grateful that maybe he was going to try to finish his conversation without killing us, or annoyed that he was still on the phone and we were not moving. Then he opened the door and a breathless woman ran on. He had stopped to wait a minute for her. Well, ok. He hung up the phone and we started moving again.

Unwind, a great yarn store in Burbank, has their big annual sale on Super Bowl weekend. I took the DASH, which I saw coming down Melrose a minute after I stepped out to freedom, to the Vine Red Line Station. As I was walking to the stairs to go down to the station, I thought I heard someone say my name. I turned around and a man I am sure I had never seen before was talking to me while walking off in the opposite direction. "You're beautiful!" Normally I probably would have resorted to my standard half-smile-and-nod, but I was in an excessively good mood because I was, well, free! I smiled and said, "Thank you," then went down the stairs.

The station is decorated with film-related stuff. I waited a few minutes for the northbound train. Damn, that train is quick! At the North Hollywood Station, the end of the line, there was a crowd trying to get on the escalator, so I walked up the stairs. All 6 flights or so. But what the hell did I care? I was free! It took me a few minutes scratching my head at the map, trying to figure out the huge U-shaped bus bay, but I found the right spot, and after a few minutes I caught a BurbankBus to Hollywood Way and Magnolia. I got off, then proceeded to walk two blocks in the wrong direction. I always come driving up Hollywood Way, so I got a little... confused. But I didn't care, because I was free!

Oh, that back room of yarn made me giddy. Well, maybe some of it was the wine I had now had 3 hours ago, and the fact that I was, well, free!

I had a fairly strict shopping list, as I was now unemployed, so this would be my last major yarn purchase for quite a while.¹ I had brought two large fabric shopping bags, and I didn't even fill them, I swear! Except I walked out around 5:05, which means I had probably just missed the 183. It stops at Hollywood Way and Magnolia and stops within a few blocks of my home, but it only runs every hour.² But what did I care? I was... well, you know.

There's a Porto's Bakery at the corner across from the stop. I had never actually been at one, although I'd been at a couple parties where people had brought their cakes. I decided to get a pastry or something (I was going to have dinner with friends later) and a tea and sit and read until the next bus. The pastry line was really long, but, you know, the whole not caring thing. I saw someone picking up a cake with madeleine cookies on top and a little chocolate sign saying "Super Bowl" over the cookies. Um, ok.

I went out about 10 minutes before the bus was to come, because I couldn't afford to miss it. As it was, it would get me there with just enough time to throw Brad'n'Sarahliz's belated Xmas gifts³ in a fake gift bag and drive to the dinner. (No, I wasn't going to take the bus 10 miles to the east side of Pasadena. Get over it.) The bus was more or less on time. I had never ridden it west of the Glendale Galleria, and hadn't really looked up the route. After the Media Center, it went through what was probably a couple miles of small, residential streets, with lots of stop signs, before it got to San Fernando Road in Glendale. And I got home in plenty of time.

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¹ Don't worry; I have enough yarn to last, um, a really long time.
² It doesn't even bother going east of the Burbank Media Center on weekends, which sucks, because it would be great for weekend trips to places like, you know, the yarn store.
³ Magnetic Katamari Damacy, from a free pattern by Amy Shimel.